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Chapter 5 - Lotus-Eaters: Reading the chapter 5, I understood what Bod was saying earlier. (It was Bod, right?) That one cannot read Ulysses by reading how I was reading it till recently. One just has read it through, to enjoy it. But that will be at the cost of understanding it, but it may not matter all that much. Reading chapter 5, I also understood, what I have often heard, that Ulysses must be read loudly. Lotus-Eaters: Joseph Campbell writes: Joyce has here associated the eating of the host (when Bloom goes inside the catholic church) with the eating of the lotus in the Odyssey. Lotus-Eaters = Lotophagi: The name given to the companions of Odysseus who, while visiting the Lotophagi on the Libyan coast, ate the fruit of the lotus plant and so entered the same state of enervating dreaminess in which the Lotophagi lived. They led a life of perfect, empty-headed contentment and immediately lost all desire to return home. (Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology by Mike Dixon-Kennedy). Is Joyce saying here that the catholics who take part in this eating of the bread lead a life of perfect, empty-headed contentment? I must admit that whenever I am in a catholic church, I feel uncomfortable when the bread and wine are offered as being the body and blood of Christ. Anybody wants to explain why this is so? Chandra
Your message survived the nixies. I enjoyed your comments on the reaction of Bloom to the mass. Joyce devoted much amused (and amusing) comment to the Irish religious mind. Bloom is there to kill time and to watch a ritual that - clothed in the obscurity of a dead and not altogether respectable language - invites woolgathering of the sort that Bloom indulges in. This is pretty much the level of Irish religious thought. The undercurrent in A Portrait (Stephen's reformed life) is pretty funny. Joyce does not show Stephen as an exception to the religious pattern of the Irish, which shows, I think, that Joyce himself had other views on religion although what they were is somewhat mysterious. The relationship of Bloom to Catholicism is interesting. The most recent of his three baptisms was as a Catholic. For this instruction from a priest would have been necessary. In light of this fact it is amazing and amusing how little he knows and how Molly on whom he depends for devotional information knows as little. It is precisely the popular devotional beliefs that Joyce studies with so much amusement and relates so lavishly. I think that any non-member must experience discomfort in attending the rites of an esoteric religion. The ritual is old or performed with an eclat that is just as sufficient. All the members know the responses and gestures, most of which are formalities that have lost the vigor of their original meaning. To an outsider it must appear as an empty mummery and be pretty embarassing to observe. On those few occasions when I must attend a church, I try to think about something else. Bob
My own religion has enough of 'strange' practices, so it is not that the rituals that bother me. I actually love the smell and spectacle of the incense (weihrau) that is swung around in the churches. Experienced that one nice early morning in the Notredam in Paris. So it is not that I feel uncomfortable with such things. But the question I have is why did the practice of eating the bread /drinking wine start? To equate it with the body and blood of Christ, and to feel that you are consuming a part of your own saviour - what is the idea behind it? It would be nice to know what Joyce really thought of all these practices. Does he come back to this theme later in the book? Does he leave the reader to make out what they want out of it? And Bob, you mentioned that Bloom was baptised thrice. That baptism can be done more than once is new to me too. Chandra Much of Catholic ritual sprang from the rituals of competing religions or had its root in observances of the time. The idea of God as sacrament is a very old idea which may have its origin in primitive cannabalism. This grew into the ritual eating of the King who was sacrificed annually or at other intervals (usually astronomically based). When prior to the institution of communion Jesus announced that no one would be saved unless they ate of his body and drank his blood, many turned away from him. Not, I suspect, because the idea was necessarily repellant but because Jesus' words constituted an assertion of divinity. As for Bloom's baptism, the efficacy of the sacraments is a tricky thing in canon law. Since it is a sacrament that can be administered at need by a layman, the validity of prior baptisms is usually accepted in the case of conversion to Catholicism. In cases where there is doubt that baptism ever occured, the convert is baptised conditionally. The sequence of Bloom's baptisms is interesting: 1. into the Church of Ireland (Protestant); 2. into an unspecified evangelical form of Christianity; and 3. into the Catholic church. One can assume that Bloom never volunteered information about his prior baptisms or the priest never asked (very unlikely). Bloom may have lied about the prior baptisms or the Catholic baptism may have been provisional. In general, your conclusion is correct where baptism is concerned: ideally it is one to a customer. Bob
I have to ask, Bob: > The idea of God as sacrament is a very old idea which may have its origin in primitive cannabalism. This grew into the ritual eating of the King who was sacrificed annually or at other intervals (usually astronomically based). Where was this practice spread, this eating of the king?! Should read Freud's book on religion, shouldn't I? Thanks for explaining. Did not know that this could be the origin of the practice of sacrament (Abendmahl was the only word I could think of till now!) more tomorrow Chandra Freud's Totem and Taboo comes to mind but it's hard to get a firm handle on Freud, a thinker who was never afraid to abandon or modify his ideas. Perhaps more relevant would be Frazer's The Golden Bough or (shorter) Professor Jane Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion or (even shorter) Lord Acton's The Hero. Frazer is a handfull (12 volumes) although there is an abridgement available. Robert Graves' The White Goddess is interesting although it drives serios anthropologists crazy with its approach to the subject Bob (If there are typing errors, I have to ask) Bob HOME! |