This is my latest weekly response to Ulysses by James Joyce. In a relatively non-dramatic way, it kind of says what I'm feeling. Citations are not in yet and it is mainly devoid of quotations because my text is upstairs, but whatever.
I know that these responses are supposed to be critical and literary in nature, but as I conclude the penultimate episode of "Ulysses", I am mainly filled with a sense of mourning. Mourning for the end to come of a great novel, for these two characters who have found little resolution, and for myself, whom I can see reflected in every page of this book that has made such an impression on me in the past few months.
My mother, who I have recently been living with again because of a lack in monetary funds, asked me yesterday why I was taking this class. She noted that I only read her snippets of the book preceded by the words, “listen to this crazy thing,” or, “oh my god, James Joyce is a crazy man.” I told her that I not only am reading something that is incredibly dense and difficult, and the exercise of sorting through the vocabulary and style has made me better at examining and interpreting tough literature, but that I also have been able to see myself in a different light as I come to see myself in the two main characters.
Leopold Bloom, a rather mature man, who feels like an outsider and yet tries to put a bright and educated face on the hardships and incidents of his day, is someone who has come to terms with his own person and has given up trying to change his fate. He of course had many moments where he feels “so lonely,” but he is confident in his work and his personality (best reflected in his personal hygiene), and therefore makes better and more assured choices. Stephen, a man closer to my own age, is restless, unhappy, and too aware of his own intelligence. He is dissatisfied with his current circumstances because he feels like he could do much better for himself and is not reaching his full potential. And yet he does nothing to change his circumstances. His personal depression is too deeply set. He has a vague idea of where he wants to go with his life (to be a writer and artist), but he is unwilling to exert the energy required to make change happen.
The Bloom in me is continuously frustrated with people who refuse to be the change they wish to see in themselves. I cannot stand it when people simply complain and complain without end and yet do not take the initiative to make things better for themselves. But the Stephen in me is still very young, very inexperienced, and very reluctant to go out on that limb and actually TRY. I am afraid to settle into a great master’s program and find a scholarship and figure out a way to pay to stay in Atlanta for another two or so years in order to start a path to a career that probably will not actually begin for another half a decade or so. Do I really want to stay in my hometown and do the same thing? Does Stephen really want to stay in Dublin and be a professor and write for the local newspaper and sit around in bars with the local nobodys who refuse to admit that they are such? And is this frustration and sadness really necessary to being a great artist or professor? Does it really have to be this emotionally difficult?
I hear people in the class say that they don’t like or are frustrated with Stephen. Are they really so far ahead of me or are they unable to see the part of themselves that does not have all the answers? Both Bloom and Stephen voice their loneliness and sadness throughout the book. And by the end of Episode Seventeen, we know as readers that there will be no resolution for these characters within the novel, and perhaps, no resolution for any of us in life itself. But does that mean life isn’t worth the effort? I am not ready to give up and get on a conveyor belt, never to make a tough choice again. I am propelled by this book, not to acquiesce to my inevitable and sad humanity, but instead to overcome this rut, for lack of a better word, and live a life devoid of giving up to people like Blazes Boylan and a family that doesn’t understand me, and not become a Dubliner.
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