JOYCE		LUCK CLUB
DUBLINERS	ULYSSES	THE PORTRAIT

Chapter 15 / CIRCE - The dog: Hello! I had wondered since I started Ulysses how ever Joyce had managed to keep the city map in his head when he wrote the book. The mystery was finally solved when I found yesterday in the library the book, 'The Ulysses Guide - Tours through Joyce's Dublib' by Robert Nicholson, the curator of the Joyce tower museum at Sandycove. The first sentence Nicholson writes is: "When James Joyce wrote Ulysses, he did so with a copy of Thom's Dublin Directory beside him and a precise idea in his heead of the location of every action described in the book." Well, I started Circe. In this chapter a dog is said to appear, always a different dog, always a different race. Any idea, why this is so? Any idea what is this chapter with all its hallucinations is about? Apart from its parallelism to the original Circe. As far as I can make out, this is the chapter where the affection Bloom has Stephen is demonstrated for the first time. Nathan, I did not mean in my earlier mail that Bloom does not love Molly. His love for her is quite open in the first chapter where he apperars. He obviously loves his daughter, Milly, too. But among other characters there is little love felt. The 'friends' are busy tearing one another apart, making fun of one another. Finally in this strange chapter, affection surfaces again. Am glad for any hint, any comment, on the contents of the chapter which will help me to progress 'fast' through the chapter. Greetings Chandra This is very likely the least appealing part of Ulysses although it has its fascinations. The material is too much the same although Joyce is clever in how he varies it. For all that it is simply too long as Polonius observed on a similar occasion. The dog is a favorite device of my mine with its capacity of changing breed from one end of a sentence to another. It is often offered that, since dog spelled backward is god, this is a factor and in the black mass scene it is given concrete expression. On the other hand, it may be no more than Joyce giving a jerk to the chain of the careless reader. The reader should bear in mind that Joyce had a fear of dogs that rivaled his fear of lightning and that his fear of dogs was supported by the manner in which dogs made Joyce the object of gratuitous attacks. The apparent length of this passage is illusory since it can be read more quickly than any other part of Ulysses. It falls into four fairly equal parts and this makes it a little easier for study purposes. It should also be considered how little of this section is literally true. As an extreme example, the apparition of Rudy at the end, although moving and vivid, is limited in its effect to this section. In the section following Bloom has no recollection or at least makes no reference to it. Surely this is a significant bench mark for what is real in Circe. In my opinion Joyce wants the reader to exercise caution and to reject much that appears objectively real. Bob Williams So the dog in Circe is like an Indian God, different avatars at different times ... I am reading Circe with Nicholson's book in the left hand (Ulysses in the right!). Helps a lot to separate real hallucinations from the nonreal ones. Anyway, one question has been at the back of my mind for a long time. 'What is it that is most impressive in Ulysses?' My unequivocal answer: Joyce's intelligence Chandra Yes, Joyce's intelligence is awesome but there are all kinds of intelligence. His was a combinative genius with the ability to transform scraps of reality into shapes so characteristic that they remain forever in the mind of the reader. Although this is also his greatest weakness for some readers who are unable to perceive anything in the very commonplace material in which Joyce delights. Bob Williams  Top! HOME!