Oregon Trails — Reading Ulysses Column Editor: Thomas W. Leonhardt (Retired, Eugene, OR 97404) <oskibear70@gmail.com>
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n the summer of 1966, I was fresh out of the Army and working as a desk clerk in Yosemite National Park. I had just read Dubliners and was low on reading matter. I had read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man while in high school and Ulysses was a logical next step (I was unaware of Exiles), so when our resident pastor asked if anyone needed anything from Fresno while he was there, I requested a copy of Ulysses. When he returned, I paid him for the book that still sits on a shelf in my office. I’d like to say that by the time I left Yosemite that September, I’d finished or read most of that great book, but I did not. My interest in it waxed and waned over the years but I never finished it. Until now. In 2016, yes, fifty years after my proxy purchase of Ulysses, I decided that I would start over, go back to stately, plump Buck Mulligan and his shaving bowl and not stop until the end, “yes I said yes I will Yes.” And finish it I did but not until 2017 after some purposeful preparation. First, I re-read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. They were familiar, even after fifty years, but fresh, too, and I was more appreciative of them and understood them, if not better than before, from a different perspective that only time can provide. Next, I read James Joyce’s Ulysses, by Stuart Gilbert and A Key to the Ulysses of James Joyce, by Paul Jordan Smith. I would have been better served had I read those interpretations and guides after I’d finished the novel. Each of these books uses the 18 Episodes of Ulysses to guide and enlighten the reader (Episode 1, Telemachus … Episode 18, Penelope) with Gilbert’s explication running 405 pages, Smith, a mere 89. Both authors worked from the first edition of Joyce’s novel and had not the benefit of a corrected edition but for their purposes, it does not really matter. And for the purposes of someone setting out on this literary voyage and wanting a chart to help plot the course, the Smith book is preferred for its simplicity and layout. Over the years I had formed a spotty and rather undefined picture of James Joyce heavily influenced by A Portrait…I wanted to know more and I had two books on my shelves, unread, to choose between: James Joyce (178 pp.) by Edna O’Brien and James Joyce (756 pp.), by Richard Ellman. Once again, I chose brevity while reserving the right to read the Ellman treatment later. O’Brien was informative enough and I came away with a greater appreciation of Joyce the artist while better understanding Joyce the person. To help me better understand the novel I was about to begin, I acquired a copy of Notes for Joyce: An Annotation of James Joyce’s Ulysses by Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, divided into the 18 sections of the novel. Each section begins with an inset from a map of Dublin, ostensibly current on June 16, 1904, the day in which we follow Bloom and Daedalus through the streets of their city. The annotations are indexed to the page numbers of both the old (1934) and the revised and corrected (1961) editions. In the introduction, the authors offer good advice about how to use to best advantage their guidebook. The annotated passages are presented in sequence — not unlike the footnotes at the bottom of the pages of an edition of Shakespeare or Milton; thus the book is designed to be 44 Against the Grain / December 2020 - January 2021
laid open beside the novel and to be read in tandem with it. Tandem reading has, however, its disadvantages. It threatens a reader not only with interruption but also with distortion because details which are mere grace notes of suggestion in the novel may be overemphasized by the annotation. Several compromises suggest themselves here: one is to accept an interrupted reading and to follow it with an uninterrupted reading; another is to read through a sequence of the notes before reading the annotated sequence in the novel. Perhaps the best approach would be a compromise: to skim a sequence of notes, then read the annotated sequence in the novel with interruptions for consideration of those notes which seem crucial and then follow with an uninterrupted reading of the sequence in the novel. For what it’s worth, I must have, without having read that introduction, tried each of those approaches before settling on reading the annotations first and then the novel itself. Towards the end, I began to skip the annotations as “…I …succumbed to the power and sweep of Ulysses; [came] to reckon it one of the most significant books of this age.” (p. 59, A Key to the Ulysses of James Joyce). More important to my success in finishing Ulysses was my commitment to do so. Each evening after supper I would sit with the novel in my hands and the annotated guide on the end table next to me. I developed a rhythm and then varied the rhythm as I became more absorbed in the story and less worried about understanding every little detail. I find that I share with Paul Jordan Smith other opinions of Ulysses: But when one has spent a two weeks’ [I spent far more time than Smith] continuous reading of the book itself, one is forced to a realization of its formidableness and of the essential genius of the author. Moreover, one finds that there is a story, compact, realistic and compelling. Once one is immersed in the thing, there is not a dull page or paragraph. P. 60 Don’t postpone your reading of the thing out of fear that you may never finish it or that you won’t like it or that you won’t understand it. Don’t worry about not being able to match the action in Ulysses with that of The Odyssey. Don’t put a lot of stock in understanding all of the allusions and asides and puns — you’ll get more than you might think and you can learn more once you have finished “the thing” as Smith called it. However, having never read The Odyssey, I was curious enough to read it straight through after reading Joyce’s parallel tale. It’s a pretty good yarn, too, though bloody, but not once was I reminded of Joyce’s novel. Rather than reading The Odyssey, I recommend that you read A Portrait… and Dubliners. You won’t meet Bloom in either of them, but you will come to know Daedalus very well and come away with a feel for Dublin and the politics, religion, talk, and music of the city. In addition to reading The Odyssey after finishing Ulysses, I finally read Exiles. If you want further proof of the genius of James Joyce, read Exiles. I didn’t need a book of explications or annotations to feel the power and beauty of that work and that has inspired me to begin Finnegan’s Wake with A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake at the ready. <http://www.against-the-grain.com>
