From the “Oxen of the Sun” episode. The scene is the National Maternity Hospital. Leopold Bloom has stopped in to ask after Molly’s friend Mina Purefoy, in her third day of labor with her ninth child. Here Bloom encounters a group of unruly drinkers: medical students and Stephen Dedalus. The episode is a series of imitations of English prose styles, beginning with a chant and ending in manic American revival talk, commercialese, and slang:
You’ll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He’s got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his backpocket. Just you try it on.The following passage is recognized as an imitation of the fantastic travel narratives of the fourteenth-century writer Sir John Mandeville. The “castle” is the hospital. See if you can figure out what’s described.
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)
comments: 0
Post a Comment