I really appreciate your guiding me through me first reading of Ulysses! Through you, I have come to love it and will continue to read it over the years. I do want to add my hypothesis about the man in the brown macintosh. I like to think he is James Duffy from the Dubliners story "A Painful Case," because in the Cyclops episode, he is described as a "The man in the brown macintosh who loves a lady who is dead." The lady who is dead is Mrs. Sinico, and James Duffy's epiphany in "A Painful Case" is his realization after her death that he loved Mrs. Sinico. I have come to like Leopold Bloom so much that I want the best for him. To that end I like to imagine the following: Leopold is someone who craves intellectually stimulating conversation, of which he has been getting far too little. He found Stephen and loved his company, but we know Stephen is going to leave Ireland. James Duffy is also a lonely intellectual. One evening Leopold and James will meet each other at a concert (just as James met Mrs. Sinico), and they will get to chatting. Each will appreciate the intellectual range of the other. They will develop a friendship that grows over time and each will be that much less lonely.
I love both of those ideas, Gayle! I'll think more about them when I do my next readthrough of the books. The James Duffy as Macintosh theory seems like a very good fit indeed. So glad you enjoyed the course!
Ah, 'hallucinosphere', good one! Many thanks for this great conclusion to a very helpful series. Finally made it to the end, took me nine months. That's like the whole pregnancy rather than the three days of labor you mention. Somehow, when you started to talk about Macintosh but before you said it yourself, the idea that it might be Joyce popped up in my mind. Kinda like Hitchcock in his films.
Its amusing to me that it took you unexpectedly much longer to make these videos given I started this book thinking I could finish it in maybe a half year, and here I am two years later finishing it today! (And having referenced your videos numerous times along the way!) Definitely looking forward to returning to Ulysses in the future, thanks for doing this series!
Hi Adam. Great course and discussion on Ulysses. I have read it 3 times now and I have got more out of it each time. I have a mixture of tiredness and sadness when I finish it. On Who is Macintosh I agree with you and Nabokov. I think it is Joyce himself making a sneaky appearance. I don't think this contradicts the fact that Stephen Dedalus is also Joyce. I think in Ulysses Stephen Dedalus is a young Joyce. Joyce almost pokes fun at himself via Stephen. I think Macintosh is a different part of Joyce. My key reason is the physical description from the start "Now who is that lankylooking galoot over here in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know?". Lanky is tall and Joyce was tall. Galhoot is clumsy. I also like the way Joyce fans the flames here for the mystery right away with "Now who is he I'd like to know?". Other quotes about Macintosh are "The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead". This could be Joyces mother. Off course there is never a straight answer with Joyce and that is part of the charm. If/when you do the Wake I will be there but no pressure. I have started it. It is very rewarding but tough. I am using the Skeleton Key (Joseph Campbell) and Annotations to Finnegans Wake ( Roland McHugh). Thanks again for a great set of videos. Kevin.
Hey Kevin, maybe you'll beat me to doing a Finnegans Wake course?! That would save me the trouble of doing it, heheh But seriously, it'll be fun if it happens. Great comments on Joyce as Mackintosh! Also I hadn't considered the "lady who is dead" as Joyce's mother, but it seems obvious now that you mention it.
I just remembered my other theory for the "lady who is dead": because the world of Ulysses doesn't have Stephen Dedalus meet Nora Barnacle (apparently), it's like she's been removed from the continuity, so in this sense she is "dead."
My first read through. My next Irish Subscription box will be based on Bloom's Day. Never heard of before. In school I was a remedial reader so would never have been given Ulysses to read. There is a bit of the Good Samaritan, to this story. Bloom the Outsider, yes flawed, But is trying to do the right things. While the rest of Dublin drinks their lives away. The Church and Government not helping.
Hi Adam, I really enjoyed this series, today I finally finished reading Ulysses, a spanish edition because like the amico italiano in previous comments, my english is not that good, it really makes me think in the difficulty of translate certain episodes, Penelope for instance, not an easy task. Fun fact, precisely in Penelope in one point, blooming is translated as Lozano, which happens to be my surname. I don't have any theories about the man in the Macintosh but speaking of this idea of who is who, there's this part when both Stephen and Bloom are looking a mirror, which made me think that Joyce, Bloom and Stephen were the same person, and that took me to Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa in some way. Well I guess this comment became much longer than I was expecting. Infinitas gracias por tu guía.
This course was pretty good, thanks a million for completing it. Hope you have a good time doing other stuff on the channel. I'll be waiting for it :) i don't have theories to contribute right now sadly, but soon enough!
Thanks very much for all your video, they have been very useful for my reading of Ulysses, but I used an Italian translation because is too difficult for me in English. I am sure I lost a lot of this book.
Congratulations for putting in the effort. One day your English will be good enough to read it in the original, and one day my Italian will let me read Dante and Italo Calvino
Not all so sure whats up wether it be a film, an encounter, the sky, whatever. Does Joyce know whats up? Does anyone? For whatever reason im told by many to ‘read between the lines’ as though the empty space will reveal the truth. I feel many skip whats right in front of them. I prefer not to. Thats where the marblemouthed fruitloop comes in. Ill read with my eyes and ears, he will share with me his crackpot theories, spoiling the story as i go along. This book stands out as a comedy. I like it to Curb, though more jocoserious. The goof who played Leopold Bloom in the filum Bloom has regularly come to mind. I might watch it again. When i think of the role of an artist i think of Hitler. Maybe sometime its best not to express yourself.
Joyce’s last words were reportedly: “Does nobody understand” From the book: “Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on with a shoehorn. “ “Everybody loves somebody but god loves everybody.” “The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind” “A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus dance. A chain of children’s hands imprisons him.” “(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, …, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)” - this fantastic style is all over the novel “One Hundred Years Of Solitude”. “His hat (Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thought were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect aplomb,” “each one who enters imagines himself to be the first whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.” “What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? … “ - Joyce goes on to fill a page with water related words.
I really appreciate your guiding me through me first reading of Ulysses! Through you, I have come to love it and will continue to read it over the years.
I do want to add my hypothesis about the man in the brown macintosh. I like to think he is James Duffy from the Dubliners story "A Painful Case," because in the Cyclops episode, he is described as a "The man in the brown macintosh who loves a lady who is dead." The lady who is dead is Mrs. Sinico, and James Duffy's epiphany in "A Painful Case" is his realization after her death that he loved Mrs. Sinico.
I have come to like Leopold Bloom so much that I want the best for him. To that end I like to imagine the following: Leopold is someone who craves intellectually stimulating conversation, of which he has been getting far too little. He found Stephen and loved his company, but we know Stephen is going to leave Ireland. James Duffy is also a lonely intellectual. One evening Leopold and James will meet each other at a concert (just as James met Mrs. Sinico), and they will get to chatting. Each will appreciate the intellectual range of the other. They will develop a friendship that grows over time and each will be that much less lonely.
I love both of those ideas, Gayle! I'll think more about them when I do my next readthrough of the books. The James Duffy as Macintosh theory seems like a very good fit indeed. So glad you enjoyed the course!
I've studied Japanese since high school, you'd think I could pronounce "koan" correctly, but apparently not
Ah, 'hallucinosphere', good one!
Many thanks for this great conclusion to a very helpful series. Finally made it to the end, took me nine months. That's like the whole pregnancy rather than the three days of labor you mention.
Somehow, when you started to talk about Macintosh but before you said it yourself, the idea that it might be Joyce popped up in my mind. Kinda like Hitchcock in his films.
Thank you for your video series. I probably wouldn't have made it to the end without you.
Awesome! Congratulations 🎉🎈🎊🍾
Its amusing to me that it took you unexpectedly much longer to make these videos given I started this book thinking I could finish it in maybe a half year, and here I am two years later finishing it today! (And having referenced your videos numerous times along the way!) Definitely looking forward to returning to Ulysses in the future, thanks for doing this series!
Congratulations on making it to the end!
Hi Adam. Great course and discussion on Ulysses.
I have read it 3 times now and I have got more out of it each time. I have a mixture of tiredness and sadness when I finish it.
On Who is Macintosh I agree with you and Nabokov. I think it is Joyce himself making a sneaky appearance. I don't think this contradicts the fact that Stephen Dedalus is also Joyce. I think in Ulysses Stephen Dedalus is a young Joyce. Joyce almost pokes fun at himself via Stephen.
I think Macintosh is a different part of Joyce. My key reason is the physical description from the start "Now who is that lankylooking galoot over here in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know?". Lanky is tall and Joyce was tall. Galhoot is clumsy. I also like the way Joyce fans the flames here for the mystery right away with "Now who is he I'd like to know?". Other quotes about Macintosh are "The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead". This could be Joyces mother.
Off course there is never a straight answer with Joyce and that is part of the charm.
If/when you do the Wake I will be there but no pressure. I have started it. It is very rewarding but tough. I am using the Skeleton Key (Joseph Campbell) and Annotations to Finnegans Wake ( Roland McHugh).
Thanks again for a great set of videos.
Kevin.
Hey Kevin, maybe you'll beat me to doing a Finnegans Wake course?! That would save me the trouble of doing it, heheh But seriously, it'll be fun if it happens.
Great comments on Joyce as Mackintosh! Also I hadn't considered the "lady who is dead" as Joyce's mother, but it seems obvious now that you mention it.
I just remembered my other theory for the "lady who is dead": because the world of Ulysses doesn't have Stephen Dedalus meet Nora Barnacle (apparently), it's like she's been removed from the continuity, so in this sense she is "dead."
What an amazing achievement to have done all this project and to have done it so well!
Thank you so much! Be sure to check out my Finnegans Wake playlist for more, although it's coming along much more slowly.
My first read through. My next Irish Subscription box will be based on Bloom's Day. Never heard of before. In school I was a remedial reader so would never have been given Ulysses to read.
There is a bit of the Good Samaritan, to this story. Bloom the Outsider, yes flawed, But is trying to do the right things. While the rest of Dublin drinks their lives away. The Church and Government not helping.
Glad you made it through!
Hi Adam, I really enjoyed this series, today I finally finished reading Ulysses, a spanish edition because like the amico italiano in previous comments, my english is not that good, it really makes me think in the difficulty of translate certain episodes, Penelope for instance, not an easy task. Fun fact, precisely in Penelope in one point, blooming is translated as Lozano, which happens to be my surname. I don't have any theories about the man in the Macintosh but speaking of this idea of who is who, there's this part when both Stephen and Bloom are looking a mirror, which made me think that Joyce, Bloom and Stephen were the same person, and that took me to Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa in some way. Well I guess this comment became much longer than I was expecting. Infinitas gracias por tu guía.
Thanks, Carlos! Great idea about the mirror. Pessoa has come up before on this channel so I really need to check his books out at some point!
I'm sad it's over, thanks for making these vids man! It's been fun!
You're welcome!
This course was pretty good, thanks a million for completing it. Hope you have a good time doing other stuff on the channel. I'll be waiting for it :) i don't have theories to contribute right now sadly, but soon enough!
Hey, no worries, thanks for watching!
Thanks very much for all your video, they have been very useful for my reading of Ulysses, but I used an Italian translation because is too difficult for me in English. I am sure I lost a lot of this book.
Congratulations for putting in the effort. One day your English will be good enough to read it in the original, and one day my Italian will let me read Dante and Italo Calvino
Not all so sure whats up wether it be a film, an encounter, the sky, whatever. Does Joyce know whats up? Does anyone? For whatever reason im told by many to ‘read between the lines’ as though the empty space will reveal the truth. I feel many skip whats right in front of them. I prefer not to. Thats where the marblemouthed fruitloop comes in. Ill read with my eyes and ears, he will share with me his crackpot theories, spoiling the story as i go along.
This book stands out as a comedy. I like it to Curb, though more jocoserious. The goof who played Leopold Bloom in the filum Bloom has regularly come to mind. I might watch it again.
When i think of the role of an artist i think of Hitler. Maybe sometime its best not to express yourself.
Joyce’s last words were reportedly:
“Does nobody understand”
From the book:
“Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on with a shoehorn. “
“Everybody loves somebody but god loves everybody.”
“The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind”
“A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus dance. A chain of children’s hands imprisons him.”
“(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, …, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)” - this fantastic style is all over the novel “One Hundred Years Of Solitude”.
“His hat (Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thought were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect aplomb,”
“each one who enters imagines himself to be the first whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.”
“What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? … “ - Joyce goes on to fill a page with water related words.