Happy Bloomsday, Everyone

I read it in a lit course in college. It is all about queers. Don't waste your time on it. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: There's not a gay character in it, as I recollect, Gator. Joyce himself was pretty aggressively heterosexual - quite the ladies' man - and there's a fair bit of straight sex in it!!! A less tactful man than I might ask if there was something in the eye of the beholder, there .... :wink: Spartacus

I soon realised the book is about gentlemen who prefer gentlemen, Gator ... but do they ever do anything interesting? Does anything interesting ever happen to them? I shall waste a bit more time, probably finding out that the answer is "no!".:wink: I think you're a little mistaken there, BB. :wink: Gay, Joyce was not!!! Seriously, "Ulysses" isn't everybody's cup of tea - some might say Joyce was a "Writers' Writer" in the same way that Bach or some modern jazz instrumentalists are "musician's musicians. You have to "get" what they're trying to do .... To dismiss him as a "pseud" because you don't personally like what he does is a little ungenerous of you. Can I suggest that you check out if Joyce's "Dubliners" is in your box of tricks? In particular, try the last story, "The Dead" which, IMHO, proves that he was a fine writer even if everyone doesn't "get" his later, more esoteric, work. Spartacus

Seriously, "Ulysses" isn't everybody's cup of tea - some might say Joyce was a "Writers' Writer" in the same way that Bach or some modern jazz instrumentalists are "musician's musicians. You have to "get" what they're trying to do .... That certainly puts it into a context which makes sense to me, given that I can have a tendancy towards violence when people don't acknowledge Bach to be the greatest composer ever or where they dismiss certain more advanced forms of jazz...just don't get me onto the subject of Olivier Messiaen, or I'll be here for months.

Seriously, "Ulysses" isn't everybody's cup of tea - some might say Joyce was a "Writers' Writer" in the same way that Bach or some modern jazz instrumentalists are "musician's musicians. You have to "get" what they're trying to do .... That certainly puts it into a context which makes sense to me, given that I can have a tendancy towards violence when people don't acknowledge Bach to be the greatest composer ever or where they dismiss certain more advanced forms of jazz...just don't get me onto the subject of Olivier Messiaen, or I'll be here for months. I know what you mean, tjw. An American schoolteacher I know - a fine musician herself - shares your love of Bach and literally cannot do anything else when listening to him: she has to cherish every note and every chord. Personally I - a non-musician - find that I "appreciate" Bach's work (especially the St. Matthew Passion) more than I love it, and it's taken me a lifetime to begin to appreciate the intracacies of modern jazz (though it was worth it). But Messiaen, like many twentieth century composers, I still find hard work, I'm afraid. :cry: Spartacus

I soon realised the book is about gentlemen who prefer gentlemen, Gator ... but do they ever do anything interesting? Does anything interesting ever happen to them? I shall waste a bit more time, probably finding out that the answer is "no!".:wink: I am re-reading the Harry Turtledove "World War" series. I read it a few years ago, but it was included in a bundle of e-books I downloaded from ebay, and as I remembered it fondly I am reading it again. Love those lizards! Of course, it is not the sort of stuff pseuds would give a prize to! :lol: Boring book but who am I to be critical of a book that somebody else likes? To each its own. The World War series by Turtledove is great. I have read all the books of the series including the last one; Homeward Bound. The only thing I didn't like was the story was that it was never wrapped up nicely with an ass kicking of the Lizards. Turtledove wrote a great book about the South winning the Civil War. It is called "Guns of the South". In the book a man shows up and offers General Robert E. Lee 100,000 AK-47s. The rest of the book is some serious yankee ass kicking. I loved the book. Turtledove also wrote a multi book series about the South winning the Civil War. It had no connection to “Guns of the South”. It was entirely different story line. In this series WWI was fought in North America. I didn’t like it all that much because the South was aligned with the Germans and the Yankees aligned with Brits. It should have been the other way around. As far as the prize for Lit I am pass the point in my life where I am bothered about what other people say about my choices for literature. I read what I want. I love and appreciate the Classics but I also read for entertainment.

I soon realised the book is about gentlemen who prefer gentlemen, Gator ... but do they ever do anything interesting? Does anything interesting ever happen to them? I shall waste a bit more time, probably finding out that the answer is "no!".:wink: I think you're a little mistaken there, BB. :wink: Gay, Joyce was not!!! Seriously, "Ulysses" isn't everybody's cup of tea - some might say Joyce was a "Writers' Writer" in the same way that Bach or some modern jazz instrumentalists are "musician's musicians. You have to "get" what they're trying to do .... To dismiss him as a "pseud" because you don't personally like what he does is a little ungenerous of you. Can I suggest that you check out if Joyce's "Dubliners" is in your box of tricks? In particular, try the last story, "The Dead" which, IMHO, proves that he was a fine writer even if everyone doesn't "get" his later, more esoteric, work. Spartacus Check this out: Joyce shared the opinion of the French concerning the erotic predilections of the English and was equally as ready as they were to displace perverse desires onto foreigners. In the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode of Ulysses, Joyce alludes to the English vice and its relation to another prominently unmentionable erotic practice--homosexuality, At an especially charged moment in the National Library during the discussion of Shakespeare when the question of the poet's lovers is raised, Eglinton intervenes to assert that Shakespeare's passion for the fair youth of the sonnets was nothing more than that which all Englishmen feel toward aristocrats. "As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a lord" (Ulysses 9: 660-61). In so doing, he reiterates Joyce's own opinion that "even the best Englishmen seem to love a lord" (qtd. in Budgen 75). Eglinton's--and Joyce's--commonplace regarding the English character carries the implication of the typical Englishman's erotic submission to authority, an implication confirmed by Stephen Dedalus's sotto voce reference to Oscar Wilde's love for his young lord, Sir Alfred Douglas, and suggesting another English sexual practice referred to by the French slang term anglaiser, meaning to sodomize someone (Caradec). The unspecified, underground continuity between sodomy and sadomasochism anxiously energizes this passage. Stephen's unspoken recollection of Wilde's "Love that dare not speak its name" (Ulysses 9: 659) in connection with Shakespeare's "dearmylove" (Ulysses 9: 658) disturbs his discourse concerning aesthetic theory. Moreover, the dangerous association between homosexuality and sadomasochism is evident when, in response to Eglinton's comment, Stephen mutely recalls, "Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them" (Ulysses 9: 662). His memory of this scene of which he cannot speak except by a reference to lizards situates this putatively "English" act in the town in France where the Marquis de Sade, that famous flagellator and sodomite, was incarcerated for his vices. In short, sadomasochism and sodomy always seem to take place somewhere else. Although Stephen's oblique recollection of an apparently homosexual act locates it distantly in France, Joyce believed and repeatedly implied that homosexuality was a peculiarly English sexual perversion born of the same-sex environment and disciplinary practices of British public schools and universities. In his 1909 essay, "Oscar Wilde: The Poet of "Salome," Joyce defends Wilde by blaming what he calls his "unhappy mania" on his education: The truth is that Wilde, far from being a perverted monster who sprang in some inexplicable way from the civilization of modern England, is the logical and inescapable product of the Anglo-Saxon college and university system, with its secrecy and restrictions. (Critical 204) Just as Stephen thinks to himself, "Manner of Oxenford" (ULysses 9: 1212) when Buck Mulligan warns him against Bloom's allegedly lustful gaze, Joyce readily attributed homosexuality to "those people" (Critical 204)--the English--and their disciplinary methods. Yet the "secrecy and restrictions" as well as the flagellant practices at Clongowes, as represented in Portrait, bring the "English vice" home to Ireland and confirm the link, indissoluble yet veiled in Joyce's texts, between sodomy and whipping. Moreover, they point to the intimate yet disavowed collusion between punishment and the excitation of male same-sex desire. Specifically, Joyce's works participate in the radical division of a yet subterranean confluence between pedagogical and erotic flagellation, a contradiction rooted in the twisted logic of homophobia.

Sparty read the book a long time ago, Gator, in the innocence of his youth, under the tutelage of the homosexual traitor Burgess, wasn't it? Perhaps he didn't notice. I am still not very far into Ulysses (like the first six pages!), but I shall report again! Yes, I do have "Dubliners", Sparty ... and I quite enjoyed it. Joyce is certainly a good writer. Look at the menace in this excerpt from "Encounter". "He said that my friend was a very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I was going to reply indignantly that we were not National School boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetised again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre. He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well whipped. When a boy was rough and unruly there was nothing would do him any good but a good sound whipping. A slap on the hand or a box on the ear was no good: what he wanted was to get a nice warm whipping. I was surprised at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced up at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again. The man continued his monologue. He seemed to have forgotten his recent liberalism. He said that if ever he found a boy talking to girls or having a girl for a sweetheart he would whip him and whip him; and that would teach him not to be talking to girls. And if a boy had a girl for a sweetheart and told lies about it then he would give him such a whipping as no boy ever got in this world. He said that there was nothing in this world he would like so well as that. He described to me how he would whip such a boy as if he were unfolding some elaborate mystery. He would love that, he said, better than anything in this world; and his voice, as he led me monotonously through the mystery, grew almost affectionate and seemed to plead with me that I should understand him. I waited till his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly. Lest I should betray my agitation I delayed a few moments pretending to fix my shoe properly and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I bade him good-day. I went up the slope calmly but my heart was beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by the ankles. Not just homosexuality, but paedophilia and sado-masochism .....

Check this out: I'd love to. Could I have a link to it, please? Spartacus

Sparty read the book a long time ago, Gator, in the innocence of his youth, under the tutelage of the homosexual traitor Burgess, wasn't it? Perhaps he didn't notice.. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess By gum, you lads ARE obsessed with homosexuality, aren't you? :wink: Spartacus

Not just homosexuality, but paedophilia and sado-masochism ..... :wink: :lol:

Not just homosexuality, but paedophilia and sado-masochism ..... :wink: :lol: :wink: Spartacus

Check this out: As you didn't come back with a url, Gator, I did a little gumshoeing on it myself. Apparently, your quote is from a somewhat obscure professor who runs a Gay and Lesbian Studies course at Rice University in Texas. Surprised to see you quoting from such a source: hope that wasn't where you did your Literature course (or that your buddies never find out if it was) :wink: Needless to say, she would probably be able to find a gay sub-text in the Polk County Phone Book. Can I suggest that, for a more balanced overview, you check out Richard Ellman's excellent biography of Joyce or Stuart Gilbert's Introduction to Ulysses. Spartacus

Check this out: As you didn't come back with a url, Gator, I did a little gumshoeing on it myself. Apparently, your quote is from a somewhat obscure professor who runs a Gay and Lesbian Studies course at Rice University in Texas. Surprised to see you quoting from such a source: hope that wasn't where you did your Literature course (or that your buddies never find out if it was) :wink: Needless to say, she would probably be able to find a gay sub-text in the Polk County Phone Book. Can I suggest that, for a more balanced overview, you check out Richard Ellman's excellent biography of Joyce or Stuart Gilbert's Introduction to Ulysses. Spartacus I am sorry but I just did a quick Google search and I didn't bookmark the source. I studied James Joyce a little in college and I remember the instructor telling us Joyce had homosexual leanings and Ulysses was a prime example. Quite honestly I don't really even care if he was a queer or not. I am not an expert and I am too lazy to go and find the url. I apologize for my inadequacies. If it is important to you I will go and find the reference url but you could probably do it yourself with Google.

Unfortunately, your instructor was wrong. Joyce didn't have homosexual leanings and "Ulysses" isn't about "queers". Indeed, it was banned on first publication for its explicit (for the time) treatment of heterosexual sex. Just wanted to put the record straight. Spartacus

Well ... I haven't got to the juicy bits yet ... And I am not sure anyone here was suggesting that JOYCE was queer, and I certainly was not. You don't have to be "gay" to put someone of that persuasion into a novel, now do you?

View Full Version: Happy Bloomsday, Everyone