|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chapter 3 - Proteus: Proteus - a minor sea-god with the power of assuming different shapes. My Oxford Ref Dict says the following about 'protean' = variable, versatile, taking many forms. I wonder whether this meaning was the one which inpired Joyce to use the word as background for chapter 3 or whether the word came to mean the above because Joyce used it in that way. Before reading chapter 3, I also read the brief write up on by David Fuller. (I like this book because it is very, very thin, and has lots worth reading about Ulysses.) Fuller writes: "...The difficulties of catching Proteus lie not only in who he is but also in who we are - that is, in the nature of human perception: do we perceive an exterior world which is objectively there; or do we create what we suppose ourselves to perceive, and if so in what ways? Proteus shows Stephen thinking about this and experiencing it ...." There is much more I would like to quote from Fuller. But when I read the following sentence in chapter 3, the above sentences from Fuller came back to me with added force. The sentence in chapter 3 (page 45) is "My two feet in his boots are at the end of his legs, nebeneinander." My feet / in his boots / his legs !!! I love the use of different languages including Sanskrit. But it is a difficult chapter and I have to rerereread it before I will be able to make head or tail of it. You will be hearing more surely from me! Chandra |