And so it begins

First of all, happy Bloomsday!

Today I read pages 1-38. Only 900+ to go.

I started reading Ulysses once years ago and was expecting the story to begin in a monastery, with someone who had a bad toothache. It does begin on the top of a "tower", which Buck Mulligan (medical student?) rents with Stephen Daedulus (teacher?), but there is definitely no monastery and no toothache - just goes to show how much attention I was paying at the time. Buck Mulligan is shaving (it is morning), and they are talking of Stephen's Mum, who died recently of "a rotted liver". I think I must have got the monastery idea because Buck Mulligan calls Stephen a "jesuit" and quotes a few bits in latin; no idea where the toothache thing came from, maybe I had one at the time.

So. Stephen is not surprisingly quite broody, and doesn't seem to like anyone much at the moment. I think he also feels guilty because he "refused to kneel down" (to pray) when his mother begged him to - her dying wish. Stephen is annoyed with Buck for being flippant about his Mum's death (I think); Buck also thinks Stephen should have kneeled.

There is a third character - "Haines", an Englishman - who neither Mulligan nor Stephen seem terribly fond of - seems he wigs out a bit when he's drunk and talks about black panthers, and he is an Englishman after all. Haines is keen to hear some theory Stephen has about Hamlet.

There's a lot of talking; Joyce indicates dialogue with dashes rather than quotation marks, which makes it difficult to tell what is said out loud and what is stream of consciousness.

-Like this?
-Yes

He also runs words together, which reminds me of Salman Rushdie's writing, but I guess Joyce did it first - e.g. "the cold steelpen" and "fair oakpale hair". This must be one of the things people took umbrage at at the time (editors especially, I would imagine); that and the use of the word "bloody" (how rude!!) and describing things like the milklady's "old shrunken paps".

So far I am finding it a bit difficult to figure out what is going on, but there are some beautiful descriptions and occasional moments of deep emotion, which are even more startling because they come in the middle of a lot of waffle about Greek gods, snotrags and where their next guinea is coming from.

Word for the day:
omphalos - a conical stone (esp. that at Delphi) representing the navel of the earth; a boss on a shield; a centre or hub.
Definition from The Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus
Use it in a sentence today!

Good bits:
Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. (Pg 4)

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:
-I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
-Of what, then? Buck Mulligan asked.
-Of the offence to me, Stephen answered. (Pg 8)

Phrases to bring into common usage:
Give up the moody brooding (Pg 9)
Snotrag (nearly every page, it seems)