22 June 2010

Begob, I'm back at it

Knocked off another episode of Ulysses. This one has poor Bloom subjected to some racist abuse by a fellow known only as "the citizen." Bloom makes a pitch for universal love and speaks of the injustices heaped upon Jews worldwide. The passages describing events are told in over-wrought parodies of various writing styles, everything from traditional sagas to the society pages. Long lists of names, satirizing Irish mythology, Church saints, clergymen, royal families, and the like pepper the pages. How about this one: Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria. It's like Damon Runyon and William S. Burroughs helped Hunter S. Thompson write a chapter in a Donald E. Westlake comic crime caper. My favorite part is about brewing beer, and seems like just an aside (but you can never be sure with Joyce) when the bartender brings a drink ("a crystal cup full of the foaming ebon ale"):

For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night and day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

I like that--lords of the vat. Beats lords of the dance, eh?

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