006 ... In which I continue reading Ulysses one page per day, and quote both my favorite sentence and favorite word from each day's reading. Each post chronicles five days.
Day 26; pg 26
Stephen’s embarrassed hand moved over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir’s turban, and this, the scallop of saint James.
f.w. = thong
—o—
Day 27; pg 27
Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue?
Iago makes an appearance on pg 27. Iago also appeared on the first page of Joan Didion's sizzling second novel Play It As It Lays. I wonder where else that ego-tripping imp Iago has appeared in contemporary literature? Put but money in thy purse, Dear! Money is power!!
f.w. = filibegs
—o—
Day 28; pg 28
But prompt ventilation of this allimportant question ... Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the motley slush.
The above sentence almost got beat out by Lal the ral the ra and Lal the ral the raddy but it just wasn't meant to be.
f.w. = thimbleriggers
The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of agriculture.
Probably the pricelessest alliteration and word play I've read allday. This following second place sentence — Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men’s bloodied guts — reminded me of many a fine time dining al fresco, sans utensils, at a Renaissance Pleasure Faire festival. And, btw, "Renaissance," for you Stateside-improperly-pronouncing-imbeciles, is pronounced "Renee-ssance," not "Wren-uh-ssance," Mowrons.
f.w. = pluterperfect
I feel pluterperfectly drunk on Joyce right abouts now!
—o—
Day 30; pg 30
—History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
After reading that sentence, how can I not ask myself am I reading Ulysses or am I reading Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet? Take out the "Stephen said" and I wouldn't have been able to tell you which book that quote came from had you given me a choice between the two. In fact I'd of probably picked Pessoa's. Foreboding aphorisms abound. Pg 30 also reminded me of something that I'd completely forgotten about regarding Ulysses: that being either its anti-semitism or, rather, its portrayals of anti-semitism. Mr. Deasy, for instance, is a blatant bigot:
Mark my words ... England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the signs of a nation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation’s vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction....
...They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the earth to this day.
f.w. = maladroit
—o—
Reading Ulysses index
Probably my favourite Joyce quote - History is a nightmare... Hope you continue to enjoy Ulysses. I have a 'tradition' of reading it at least once each decade. I'll be hitting my half century next year so it will be time to read it again then.
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