Another longish Ulysses chapter. I guess at this point I should stop being surprised when they are long and just expect them to be. By long I mean 25-35 pages. Because I am reading so slowly and carefully it takes me a good three or more hours to read 25+ pages. I didn’t take that into consideration and didn’t leave myself enough time to read the whole thing in one sitting this week. I managed all but about 5 pages in one sitting, but I was still a little disappointed that I had to break it up. I will plan my time better going forward and if the chapter ends up being short then I just have extra time to read something else.

This week I read episode 8, Lestrygonions. This chapter refers to Book 10 in the Odyssey when Odysseus’ ship lands at the island of the – wait for it – Lestrygonions! The king it turns out happens to be a giant and a cannibal but the wily Odysseus doesn’t fall into the trap.

There is no cannibalism in Ulysses but there is lots of eating and food references. In fact, this chapter would make a nice study for Emily’s disgust project. To wit:

Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble and squeak. Butcher’s buckets wobble lights. Give us that brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered sniveling nosejam on sawdust.

And this comes a little over halfway through the chapter after several other unappetizing food scenes. The reason for all the food and eating is that it is lunchtime and Bloom is hungry and he is walking through the streets trying figure out where to stop and eat. He is so grossed out by one place he enters that he turns around and goes back out. He sees someone coming out of “the vegetarian” and thinks about what that means:

Only weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s healthier. Wind and watery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why so they call that thing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. [...]

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts; you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry out of him.

Heh. The funny thing is, that by the time Bloom finds a quiet pub to have lunch in the only thing he can stomach is a cheese sandwich.

There are two curious scenes as Bloom walks along. First, he sees a poor child dressed in rags who is obviously hungry. All he does is look and pity. But not long after he passes the child he is walking along the quay where hungry sea gulls are screeching and flying about looking for food. He stops and buys two Banbury cakes for a penny, crumbles then up, and tosses them out to the gulls.

There is much humor in this chapter too. And puns. and wordplay. There is a pun on “Ham and his descendants” (that would be Noah’s Ham but it is said in reference to ham with mustard). And wordplay (“Do ptake some ptarmigan”). There is also Bloom musing on birth and death and how things don’t ever really change. And when Bloom steps out of the pub and goes around back to relieve himself, the few men in the pub have a conversation about him. We slip from Bloom’s head and stay in the pub to hear the conversation speculating about whether he is a Freemason.

It was a good chapter. I alternated between laughing and writing “ha!” in the margins to wrinkling up my nose and writing “yuck!” Bloom’s lunch is finished now and I don’t know what he will be up to next. I do know that it is likely to be interesting.