Leopold Bloom ascendant. From the hallucinatory “Circe” episode.
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).
A few notes:
~ Derwan: In 1904 Michael Derham and James Derwin were both Dublin builders (Don Gifford, Ulysses Annotated ).
~ “Morituri te salutant”: “They who are about to die salute you,” as gladiators said to the Roman emperor.
~ The man in the macintosh is a small mystery of the novel. He’s seen at Patrick Dignam’s funeral, but who is he? A misunderstood remark gets him into the funeral notice as M’Intosh.
~ “Fireraiser”: an arsonist.
~ Higgins: Bloom’s mother’s maiden name.
~ “Rubber preservatives”: condoms.
~ “Toad in the hole”: meat cooked in batter (Wikipedia).
~ “Jeyes’ fluid”: “a disinfectant for drains or sewers” (Gifford).
~ “Purchase stamps”: trading stamps.
~ According to Gifford, the book titles are, save perhaps for Care of the Baby, most likely invented. Drat.
~ Baby Boardman appears in “Nausicaa.” He may be the brother of Gerty MacDowell’s friend Edy Boardman. Bloom, like any capable civic leader, is kind to babies.
None of these bits of detail should obscure the comedy of Bloom’s ideal city taking the form of “a huge pork kidney.” Why a kidney? Here’s why.
Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)
Friday, August 5, 2022
The new Bloomusalem
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments: 4
The man with the Macintosh shows up, sort of, in Elvis Costello’s “Battered Old Bird”:
And on the second floor is the Macintosh Man
He`s in his overcoats more than out of them
And the typewriter`s rattling all through the night
He`s burgundy for breakfast tight
He says "One day I`ll throw away all of my cares
And it is always Christmas in a cupboard at the top of the stairs"
He`s a battered old bird
And he`s living up there
There`s a place where time stands still
If you keep taking those little pink pills
Same fellow? EC is pretty well read.
Huh!
My suspicion about Joyce’s man in the mac is that he is Mr. Duffy from “A Painful Case.” That might help explain why Bloom asks Stephen out of the blue if he knew Mrs. Emily Sinico. But it’s a mystery beyond solving, I’d say.
Leopold Bloom has a glass of burgundy with his June 16 lunch. But no pink pills, only kidneys.
“Tight,” although I know it’s fairly common, made me think of HCE in Finnegans Wake: “tight before tea time.” A bit of a stretch, I know.
It does sound maybe like a picture of a drinking writer (?).
A Christmas cupboard is apparently (?) an Irish thing.
Post a Comment