Ulysses

Page 1

JAMES JOYCE

U LY

SSE S

D U B L I N I L L U S T R AT E D E D I T I O N

Introduction by Bob Joyce I L L U S T R AT E D B Y E M M A B Y R N E 1922 TEXT

P U B L I S H E D I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H


The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

James Joyce and Sylvia Beech at Shakespeare and Company, Paris 1922


JAMES AUGUSTINE ALOYSIUS JOYCE (1882–1941) is one of the most internationally-known and influential Irish writers, whose books, particularly the landmark Ulysses (1922), have become the subject of worldwide scholarly study and forensic analysis, spawning a vast industry of literary criticism. His other works include the short story collection ­Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). He also wrote three books of poetry, and a play. James Joyce was born in the affluent Dublin suburb of Rathgar, the eldest of a very large, middle-class family. However, their fortunes declined due to the financial mismanagement and drinking problems of Joyce’s father, John Stanislaus, and they subsequently moved to poorer and poorer neighbourhoods. James studied at the Jesuit schools, Clongowes and Belvedere College, and at University College Dublin. In 1904 Joyce and Nora Barnacle went into self-imposed exile in Europe, living in Trieste, Paris and Zurich, where he died in 1941. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce’s fictional universe does not extend beyond Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there; shortly after the publication of Ulysses he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, ‘For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.’


THE JAMES JOYCE CENTRE Since opening in 1996, the James Joyce Centre has been at the heart of Joycean activity in Dublin and has dedicated itself to promoting an understanding of the life and work of James Joyce to a wide international audience. Situated in a beautifully-restored Georgian townhouse at 35 North Great George’s Street, the Centre houses a permanent interpretative exhibition, which includes a copy of Joyce’s death mask, furniture from Paul Leon’s Paris apartment where Joyce worked on Finnegans Wake, and the front door from Number 7 Eccles Street, the home of Leopold and Molly Bloom in Ulysses. The Centre also organises a yearly programme of activities, including talks and lectures, educational courses, workshops and walking tours, as well as temporary exhibitions. The annual Bloomsday Festival, a highlight of the Joycean calendar, is hosted by the Centre and attracts literary pilgrims from across the globe. Through his work James Joyce presented Dublin, warts and all, to the world. The James Joyce Centre is proud, in turn, to play its part in presenting Joyce to the world. For more information visit www.jamesjoyce.ie


CONTENTS List of illustrations

page 8

Introduction by Bob Joyce

9

Ulysses 15 Note on the 1922 text

1040

Errata from the 1922 Edition

1041

A note on the illustrations

1048


ILLUSTRATIONS I

Telemachus: The Martello Tower, Sandycove 8am

16

Proteus: Sandymount Strand 11am

65

Nestor: Clifton Boys’ School, Dalkey 10am

II

Calypso: 7 Eccles Street 8am

46

87

Lotus Eaters: Sweny’s Chemist, 1 Lincoln Place 10am

110

Aeolus: Nelson’s Pillar, O’Connell Street 12pm

176

Hades: Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin 11am Lestrygonians: Davy Byrne’s pub, Duke Street 1pm Scylla and Charybdis: National Library of Ireland,

134

220

Kildare Street 2pm 268 Wandering Rocks: Belvedere College,

Great Denmark Street 2.55pm

Sirens: Ormond Hotel Bar, 8 Upper Ormond Quay 4pm Cyclops: Barney Kiernan’s pub, Little Britain Street 5pm Nausicaa: Our Lady Star of the Sea, Leahy’s Terrace,

317

367

418

Sandymount 8pm 495 Oxen of the Sun: National Maternity Hospital,

Holles Street 10pm 548 Circe: Monto (Foley Street) 12am III

612

Eumaeus: The Custom House, Custom House Quay 1am

798

Penelope: Hill of Howth, 3am

974

Ithaca: St. George’s Church, Hardwicke Place 2am

874


INTRODUCTION A great deal happened in the world in 1922. The Soviet Union was formed with a one-party communist system; Mussolini came to power in Italy; a new Pope, Pius XI, was elected; the Tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered; BBC radio services began, and nearer home the Irish Free State was set up with Michael Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government. Another momentous occasion was the publication of a novel that would change the course of English literature. James Joyce, the author of that novel, had spent seven years in its creation. The publishing history of Ulysses is far from dull. It has one of the most complicated publishing histories in the twentieth century. There have been many editions and variations in different impressions of each edition spanning eight decades. The publication of James Joyce’s work prior to Ulysses had already encountered numerous problems with censorship, or to be more precise, with the wary and fearful attitude of his would-be publishers and printers. Even in his native city, he was frustrated when he failed to persuade George Roberts of the Dublin publishers Maunsel and Co. and his printer John Falconer to publish Dubliners. He was so incensed that he penned the broadside Gas from a Burner, a savage diatribe against them, had it printed in Trieste, and sent copies to his brother Charles for distribution around Dublin as his parting shot at a Dublin that he would never visit again except in his books. Ulysses was banned in the UK until 1930 and in the United States until 1933 when the famous court case ‘United States v One INTRODUCTION 9


Book Called Ulysses’, with Judge John Munro Woolsey presiding, lifted the ban and allowed for its importation and publication. This decision also effectively brought in new and more liberal tests for obscenity in the United States. Parts of Ulysses were serialised in the American journal the Little Review, and in London in the Egoist. It was first published in its entirety in February 1922 by Sylvia Beach, owner of the bookshop Shakespeare and Co. in Paris. James Joyce, as a token of his gratitude to Harriet Shaw Weaver, his friend and patron, presented her with the inscribed first edition numbered 1. Thirty years later, she presented this special edition to the National Library of Ireland where it is currently housed. It is appropriate, therefore, that a special Dublin publication based on the text of the first edition is now available for readers worldwide. I congratulate Michael O’Brien and his colleagues in The O’Brien Press on this beautiful illustrated Dublin publication. By a happy coincidence the premises of The O’Brien Press is near to the birthplaces of James Joyce and his mother, Mary Jane Joyce (neé Murray). I am certain that James Joyce would be pleased that a special illustrated edition of Ulysses has been published in the city of his birth, and the only city of which he wrote. As he himself said, ‘when I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.’ As a grand-nephew of the author, I am frequently asked if I have read the book. I am reminded of the answer to the same question put to a certain Dubliner, ‘Sure we don’t need to read the book, don’t we live what’s in it every day!’ I must confess to being no expert on James Joyce’s works. I have read most of Ulysses, a few episodes with difficulty. As to living what’s in it? Well, I was fortunate enough 10 INTRODUCTION


to have been involved with many annual Bloomsday events in the James Joyce Centre, when in the company of my wife Joyce, Senator David Norris, my late cousin Ken Monaghan, and other Joyce enthusiasts, I re-enacted parts of the book. One of these occasions was the performance of the Sirens episode in the Ormond Hotel, and another when we recreated Paddy Dignan’s Funeral, with a horse-drawn hearse and cortège of carriages, travelling to Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, and stopping off on the way back in the Gravediggers pub for much-needed refreshments. A further occasion was following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom on his epic journey through Dublin, starting in the Maginni room of the James Joyce Centre for Bloomsday readings of the book with breakfast of the inner organs of beasts and fowls, and dropping in to Davy Byrne’s for a gorgonzola sandwich lunch and a glass of burgundy, not forgetting to purchase lemon soap on the way in Sweny’s Chemist, and finishing on the hill of Howth with Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. David Norris’s magnificent one man show Do You Hear What I’m Seeing?, which I had the pleasure of introducing in many places around the world, gave me a great insight into the humorous side of Joyce’s works. I grew up in Dublin, so I am very familiar with the buildings and locations mentioned in Ulysses, and this helped to increase my interest as I first tackled reading the book in Bewley’s Café, a haunt of James Joyce. Places like the Martello Tower in Sandycove, now a Joyce museum, Holles Street Hospital, still delivering babies, Sandymount strand, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Fumbally Lane, Bullock Harbour, Crossguns Bridge, and of course the many pubs; Barney Kiernan’s, Davy Byrne’s, Brian Boru, Brazen Head, the Oval, the INTRODUCTION 11


Bleeding Horse, to name a few. Amazingly, many of the places are largely unchanged since Joyce described them. My early days were spent in Clontarf on the north side of Dublin, very close to the Bull Wall built by Captain William Bligh FRS RN, of Bounty fame. This landmark is mentioned in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where ‘a squad of Christian brothers was on its way back from the Bull’. My siblings and I were aware that our grandfather Charles Joyce, known as Charlie, was a brother of James Joyce. Charlie’s son and my father, Frederick Joyce, was a very private person who spent most of his working life as an optician in premises in Dorset Street, a stone’s throw from Barney Kieran’s Pub, the location for the Cyclops episode. He rarely mentioned anything about James Joyce’s writings to his family or anyone else. I recall him being very reticent when Richard Ellmann, the author of the most definitive biography on James Joyce, called to the house one day to interview him. The nearest involvement that he had with Joyce’s works was on the occasions that Ken Monaghan passed his business on Joycean walks with groups in tow, when friendly waves would be exchanged between James Joyce’s two nephews. I had the good fortune to talk with my father before he died about his and Charlie’s encounters with James Joyce. He recalled the occasion in July 1931 when James and Nora married in London, and had dinner in my grandfather’s flat in Argyle Square, Camden. During the dinner my father, then ten years of age, was in the corner of the room memorising lines of poetry as part of his homework. James Joyce, with typical curiosity, got up from the table to go over to my father to find out the name of the author of the book. My father pointed to the male figure on the cover. Joyce 12 INTRODUCTION


chuckled and gave him half a crown. After dinner the adults went to a nearby hotel bar to continue celebrations. On passing a local church on the way, which had a sign warning sinners about the flames of hell, Joyce turned to the others retorting ‘and bring your own dripping’, a typical Dublin expression for rendered fat. The works of James Joyce have been published in many different languages. In 1995 I was in Beijing for the launch of the Mandarin edition of Ulysses. During an interview on China Central Television I was asked for my thoughts on the book that, the interviewer pointed out, had been banned in the USA and was now available in China. I replied that James Joyce would be pleased that another one quarter of the world’s population could read his book! It so happened, that 200,000 copies sold within three months of the launch. With this in mind, I am delighted that the James Joyce Centre has organised a global reading of Ulysses on the Internet from numerous cities on Bloomsday the 16 June 2013, coinciding with the first publication of the Dublin Illustrated Edition. All readers participating in this unique event will use this edition, in all probability making it the first time that a book has been read around the world through the time-zones in this way. The places and time associated with each episode have been beautifully illustrated by Emma Byrne. This will assist the reader in following the passage of time as the action unfolds over the course of a single day. Joyce used both time and space in a constructive manner, the specific times not always being evident. Throughout the novel, there are clues as to the time of day from the narrative; church bells ringing, clocks and watches. Descriptions of breakfast and lunch, and other passages suggest the time, such INTRODUCTION 13


as Buck Mulligan shaving himself ‘on the mild morning air’, while the mountains outside are ‘awaking’, or Leopold Bloom entering Barney Kiernan’s pub sometime after the 3 o’clock Gold Cup was won by a horse named Throwaway. Without doubt Ulysses is a difficult read. I would urge readers to have a go. Dip in and out of the book or start with some of the easier episodes. ‘Ah you will, say yes, you will yes, Yes.’ Bob Joyce, grand-nephew of James Joyce Dublin

14 INTRODUCTION


—I—


8am

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the

stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.


S

TATELY, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: —Introibo ad altare Dei. Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: —Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit. Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly. 17


—Back to barracks, he said sternly. He added in a preacher’s tone: —For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm. —Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you? He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. —The mockery of it, he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek. He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck. Buck Mulligan’s gay voice went on. —My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn’t it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid? 18


He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried: —Will he come? The jejune jesuit. Ceasing, he began to shave with care. —Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. —Yes, my love? —How long is Haines going to stay in this tower? Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder. —God, isn’t he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you’re not a gentleman. God, these bloody English. Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you have the real Oxford manner. He can’t make you out. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knifeblade. He shaved warily over his chin. —He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his guncase? —A woful lunatic, Mulligan said. Were you in a funk? —I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark with a man I don’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. You saved men from drowning. I’m not a hero, however. If he stays on here I am off. Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily. —Scutter, he cried thickly. He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen’s upper pocket, said: —Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its 19


corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said: —The bard’s noserag. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can’t you? He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. —God, he said quietly. Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look. Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbour mouth of Kingstown. —Our mighty mother, Buck Mulligan said. He turned abruptly his great searching eyes from the sea to Stephen’s face. —The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That’s why she won’t let me have anything to do with you. —Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily. —You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I’m hyperborean as much as you. But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you... He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant smile curled his lips. —But a lovely mummer, he murmured to himself. Kinch, the 20


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.