Puzzles and Puns in Ulysses

Episode 1
Telemachus



Buck Mulligan looks for a face cloth to clean his razor and not finding one in his pocket exclaims: Scutter!
(See Gabler's corrected text 
Ulysses - Line 66, page 4) The explanations I've seen denote <bustling about or scurrying about>. The word  is actually an expletive, and is a more polite expression for excrement.
I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when ... (L333, page 10) seems to be an unfinished joke. It seems the joke remains unknown. Some references relate the comment to Icarus and his wings of wax. But this takes us away from the candle!
What about this contribution!  
I'm melting ...  as the candle remarked ... but still wicked!
(The word wicked here can be a one syllable or a two syllable word!)
- a not inappropriate suggestion considering that the speaker is Mulligan.

Episode 2
Nestor

Ulysses Annotated (Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman) and Sam Slote's Ulysses with Annotations specifically state that Mr. Deasy's school in Dalkey is a boys' school. Yet, while Armstrong struggles in explaining what a pier is, some girls present in the class are amused - Edith, Ethel, Gerty and Ethel (L36, page 21). Not only this, but Edith (Edy!) and Gerty are the names of the child-minders in Episode 13. Gerty in particular is the cynosure of Bloom's eye while they are on Sandymount strand!

Episode 3
Proteus

The opening paragraphs of Episode 3 give importance to the visible, the coloured and the audible. An understanding of colour will help us to tune into Stephen's thought processes. When we look at grass we say it is green. In fact, this is not true. The truth is - grass appears green to our eye. What happens is this: In daylight, grass absorbs all of the wavelengths of the colour spectrum of light - except for green. Green light is reflected back out and its light waves travel in space to the retina at the back of our eyes. There, the cones interpret the sensation as green colour. Dogs, cows, bulls - and many other animals besides - interpret the colour of grass in various shades of grey. These animals have no colour-interpreting cones in their eyes.
Of course! - in the middle of a dark night - and - in the middle of a grassy field - we can "see" that the colour of grass is black! Well, actually no! 
You see, black is not a colour at all! Aristotle thought it was. He had the view that the light spectrum - including the colours -  ranged from colourless to black.

Episode 4
Calypso

Lines 82 (...our daily...) and 216 (...On earth as it is in heaven...) clearly tells us that Bloom's subconscious thinking is Christian, and that he is familiar with the Christian prayer, the  'Our Father'. His purchase of the pork kidney in Dlugacz's is very un-Jewish at two levels: its very purchase on the one hand and its availability on the other.
Line 224 tells us that 'A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a naggin bottle by the neck' - This is not possible as naggin bottles (not unlike hip flasks) have no necks! 
Bloom is dressed in black - indicating that he is a committed participant in the Catholic funeral service for Patrick Dignam.

Episode 5
Lotus Eaters

Lines  340-374, Page 66: Joyce’s hostility to his Catholic upbringing emerges here. He  targets the sacred and mystical prayer of the Church, namely the Mass, for his  opprobrium. This is neither his first nor the last time, that he does this. The  idea that Latin stupefies the people is bizarre. Joyce would have known that  Latin was a spoken and learnt language for well over a thousand years in  Ireland. People had knowledge and understanding. The phrase Hokypoky penny a  lump mocks the most sacred moment of the Mass.

Episode 6
Hades

Glasnevin Cemetery was the first cemetery for Catholic burials in Dublin city. It was opened in 1832, a few years after Catholic Emancipation. The repressive Penal Laws had imposed severe restrictions on the priests and the people of Ireland. No Catholic services or prayers were allowed at burials. Daniel O'Connell was successful in the opening of Glasnevin as a Catholic burial ground. The Governors  insisted that from the start Glasnevin had to be available  for the internment of Catholics, Protestants, other religions and those of no religious persuasion. Every summer the annual blessing of the graves takes place as it has done since 1832 and every Sunday,  Mass is offered at 9:45 am.
Molly is the focus of this comment. The time is June 1904.  John Henry Menton tells us that 17 years  earlier he danced with Molly at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown ... ‘She was a fine looking woman’, Ep. 6, L696, page 87. And he continues ... ‘and a good  armful she was’. Molly is 33 now ... or 32 ... if you accept her own word in Ep.  18, L475, page 618. So 17 years previously Molly was 16 or 15 years old. It is  quite clear that she was quite a young child when she flirted with Mulvey and  Gardner in Gibraltar ... ‘I was dying to find out was he circumcised’, Ep. 18,  L314, page 615. Since Milly is 15 years old, it is clear that Molly was a  child bride when she married Bloom!

Episode 7
Aeolus

Joseph  Patrick Nannetti (1851 – 1915), foreman in the Freeman’s Journal was a  nationalist and a Home Ruler. He was the son of an Italian sculptor and an Irish mother, Bridget Dempsey. He was educated in the Christian Brothers’  schools, and, in 1871 married Mary Egan. He was elected to Dublin Corporation and, in 1906 – 1907, became Lord Mayor of the city. From 1900 to 1915 he was an  elected member of the House of Commons. In earlier years he was employed in Liverpool and was one of the first founders of the Liverpool Home Rule  organisation. He also worked as a printer in the Kildare Observer in Naas. While  there he participated in the founding of Naas GAA club in 1887. All his life he  was an activist on nationalist issues and a prominent trade unionist. He was  also a member of the Catholic Cemeteries Committee. Joyce, in Ulysses, has  Nannetti working in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal on June 16th 1904. In fact Nannetti, on that day, was in the House of Commons in  London complaining about the Chief Secretary's ban  on the people of Dublin   playing their own  Irish games of football and hurling in the Phoenix  Park.

Episode 8
Lestrygonians

The  phrase < U.p: up > is one of  the many puzzles in Ulysses (L258, page 130). Charles Dickens uses it in Oliver Twist to denote imminent demise.  In The Celtic Times, dated June  18th 1887, the phrase U.P. UP  appears as a heading and the associated article tells of the demise of  the Caledonian Games Society. Perhaps for Denis Breen the game is UP! –  that he is a dead man, that he is finished! It could  also denote that he is bonkers!

Episode 9
Scylla
and
Charybdis

The  Quaker community (Religious Society of Friends) in Ireland can be very proud of  its wonderful contribution to the social, cultural, commercial, financial – and  not least – the spiritual welfare of the country. In this episode we meet with  Thomas William Lyster, the Librarian at the National Library. He is presented to  us as a member of this influential community. Another member of the Religious  Society of Friends, the Englishwoman Harriet Weaver, had a significant impact on  Joyce’s life. She supported him with great generosity throughout his writing  life and paid his funeral expenses when he died. 
In  Line 967, page 173, the solicitous Lyster is called to give attention to a  Father Dineen. In one sentence the priest is mentioned and in the next he is  gone. In fact, Fr. Dinneen, known as An  tAthair Padraig Ó Duinnín was a significant personality in the revival of  Gaelic language, literature and culture. His Irish-English dictionary is  considered a masterly achievement. It was produced in 1904 and made an immediate  impact. An tAthair Ó Duinnín’s eminence in Dublin society is reflected in the  fact that on his death in 1934 he was given a state funeral to Glasnevin  cemetery attended by the leaders of church and state, and by prominent members  of all of the cultural, literary and social movements of the time. I find the  minimalist mention of this great literary figure in Ulysses rather  odd! Another great clergyman, Canon O'Hanlon, also has his significant literary achievements ignored by Joyce,

Episode 10
The
Wandering Rocks

Tom  Rochford, L464, page 191, was a sanitation worker in Dublin Corporation. He nearly died while trying to rescue a colleague from a sewer. The event  occurred on the 6th  May 1905 – nearly twelve months after the 16th June 1904! Lenehan and M’Coy  acknowledge that ‘He’s a hero’,L492. Lenehan was aware that the accident happened - not in a drain  - but down a manhole, A workman named John Fleming descended  into a sewer to examine a broken pipe but was overcome by fumes and died. Tom  Rochford tried to rescue him but was pulled out before he too was overcome.  Constable Patrick Sheahan of the Dublin Metropolitan Police went down and pulled out - and saved- another rescuer, Kevin Fitzpatrick. He then went down a second  time to rescue Fleming. But sadly he was overcome by the fumes and died.  Constable Sheahan was noted for his bravery– previously he rescued an elderly  couple from a collapsing building in Dawson Street and on another occasion he  tackled and wrestled with a runaway bull on Grafton Street. Constable Patrick  Sheahan was born in Glin, Co. Limerick, in the townland of Ballyguiltenane. He  was 29 years of age when he died. He is buried in Kilfergus graveyard. Soon  after his death, the then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Joseph Hutchinson organised the  erection of a memorial in his honour. This memorial is located at the junction  of Burgh Quay and Hawkins Street. The next member of the DMP  to  die while on duty was Constable James O’Brien. He was the first casualty of the  1916 Rising. He also came from Glin in Co.  Limerick.

Episode 11
Sirens

Simon  Dedalus and Ben Dollard reminisce about the time they borrowed the tight  trousers from the Blooms. We learn from this that, when times were hard, the  Blooms dealt in second-hand clothes. In Line 496, page 222, we come across a  tiny yet potent pun. Simon Dedalus tells his audience: ‘Mrs Marion Bloom has  left off clothes of all descriptions’.  This has a totally different meaning to:  ‘Mrs Marion Bloom has left-off clothes of all descriptions’.

Episode 12
Cyclops

Molly again: Handball,  played in a 3-walled ball alley, was a very popular sport in Ireland dating back to the early 1500s and remained so up the middle of the 20th century. (The statutes of Galway in 1527 ordered the  native people to stop playing handball against the walls of the buildings in the town.) From the 1950s onwards the game moved indoors and is now played in courts  that are part of sports complexes. It appears that there are some 700 ball alleys, in various stages of disintegration, abandoned in Ireland. Should you  come across one – there is still a splendid one in the village of Shanagolden in Co. Limerick – you will immediately note the massive front playing wall. It is  high. It is broad. It is stark. What a simile to describe Molly!  See  Line 503, page 251 – ‘The fat heap he married is a nice old phenomenon with a  back on her like a ballalley.’ 
(I come from Shanagolden!)

Episode 13
Nausicaa

Gerty’s age is the big puzzle here. She is very keen ‘about the  boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road’, L130, page 287. The boy,  Regie Wylie, is studying for the intermediate examination. This indicates that  he is not yet 15 years old. The expectation is that Gerty is younger still. This  is a realistic expectation since Gerty is one of four girls in Stephen’s class  earlier in the morning in Mr Deasy’s school. See L36, page 21. The students are  in first year and the ages of the students would be in the range 12 to 13 years. We also read in L547 that Bloom ‘thought it must be after eight because the  sun was set.’ Sunset in Dublin on June 1st 2015 is at 9:42p.m. It is  later still on the 16th June. The  later introduction of <new time>  and  the adoption of GMT explain this discrepancy.

Episode 14
Oxen of the Sun

When  Stephen and the other medicals leave Holles Street Maternity Hospital they go  the pub. Bloom lingers and engages in conversation with Nurse Callan. ‘Then all  being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers close in going: Madam  when comes the storkbird for thee?’ L1404, page 345. Here, Bloom is very  personal and very familiar with Nurse Callan. Is Nurse Callan Martha Clifford?  Maybe yes! Consider the ending of Martha Clifford’s letter to Henry Flower:  ‘Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience (patients!) are exhausted.’ L254,  page 64. Is the pun rather deliberate here? Is it revealing?

Episode 15
Circe

Quite  a lot of comments can be made on this episode. For you, I’m choosing this one:  in L1838, page 404, we read  'Brother Buzz calls on Bloom to ‘perform a miracle like  Father Charles.’  Father Charles (1821-1893), born in the Netherlands, was a  very holy priest who lived the last 36 years of his life in Mount Argus  Passionist monastery, Harold’s Cross in Dublin. He was a particularly pious priest  renowned as a miraculous healer. Crowds flocked to the monastery on a continuous  basis. He was beatified in 1988, and, in 2006 His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI  canonised him a saint. To-day his tomb and shrine in the church in Mount Argus  is a place of prayer and veneration.

Episode 16
Eumaeus

Many times in Ulysses a factual statement appears and it may puzzle us. The reason is simple – it makes sense in 1904 but with the passage of time the meaning has become a puzzle. An example: Because ... 'there being no pump of Vartry water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes', L6, they decided to go to a cabman's shelter. The Vartry Reservoir at Roundwood was the source of drinking water for the people of south Dublin. Most of the houses had no piped water. Instead - pumps, and drinking troughs for animals – were spaced along the streets  – and from the pumps the drinking water was drawn and taken back to the houses. There weren't that many houses near Butt bridge.
And in L29 we come across another example of something that was then quite common, namely the professional whistler. Feis Ceoil, established in 1896, held musical competitions every year and whistling was one of many items on the agenda. Classical music and slow Irish airs were the specialities for whistlers.. They performed on stage and in the musical halls regularly even up to the 1950s and 1960s. The popularity of whistling declined rapidly once the radio appeared and especially the small transistors. Later came the walkmans- and even today we have the smart phones. Feis Ceoil dropped whistling as a musical item many years ago.

Episode 17
Ithaca

The anachronism surrounding Bloom and Stephen's issue about the arrival of St. Patrick to Ireland deserves a comment (see L30 et seq.) – particularly about St. Patrick. The importance of St. Patrick as a man, as a scholar, as a saint, as a devoted apostle to the then people of Ireland, is grossly under appreciated even here in Ireland. Yes, he converted the people to Christianity, but also, he brought the Roman alphabet into the country (replacing ogham!). He introduced and established a new language, Latin. He instituted the art of script writing. Consequent to the endeavours of St. Patrick, monasteries began producing codices of sacred texts. The Book of Kells is just one of many examples. But St. Patrick has this unique distinction – he wrote the first book – the Confessio – a book that has style and a lot of literary merit. And all of this was accomplished more than 1,500 years ago. St. Patrick should have been awarded (posthumously) the Nobel Prize for Literature long ago.
(Maybe someone (or some group)  should take this up as a crusade !!!)

Episode 18
Penelope

Molly is the big puzzle here. Her background is a puzzle. Her rearing is a puzzle. Mrs Rubio, the household help is a Spanish nationalist. It seems she does not have much English. When she brings Mulvey's letter to Molly, Molly asks for the hairpin ... 'staring her in the face ...', L751, and she does not understand. Molly has to ask for it in Spanish ... ah horquilla. Was Spanish Molly's first language.? Where and from whom did she learn English? In fact how did Molly become an accomplished singer in many languages? Yes, Molly was a practising Catholic in Gibraltar. She went to Mass regularly to the Church of Santa Maria – but as a child! The date of Molly's marriage to Leopold Bloom is another puzzle. She was certainly a child bride. I don't buy the claim that Episode 18 is Molly's soliloquy. I'm of the view it is Nora Barnacle who is speaking. I have noted in Gordon Bowker's biography of James Joyce that Nora liked to read Joyce'swork and that she certainly knew the Penelope episode well enough and often quoted passages from memory – page 418.

 

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