There’s another passage which is one of my favorites:

“Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend.”

I had no idea what it meant the first time I read it, but the poetry and rhythm is simply beautiful – there’s no other way of putting it. The alliteration, the seeming contradictions, the imagery, the implied hidden meanings that are almost but not quite clear – it’s just a fantastic piece of prose (literally – it made me think of unknown and impossible worlds).

It’s actually one of the reasons I love Ulysses in particular – the obvious parallels to the father/son, older man/young man hoo-haa thingo are completely subverted by the last chapter. I’ve never read such a wonderful outpouring of the power of female sexuality that takes a female rather than a male point of view, and this from a male writer. I can’t see anything wistful in Molly’s soliloquy: certainly she is looking back at her sexual history, but to my reading the romanticism of the past is completely negated by the enjoyment of the present. (What is all the ‘yes, yes, yes’ stuff about, after all?) If Molly was thinking of her future, her thoughts may be interpreted as being wistful – as it is it’s all about what’s coming, so to speak.

I actually think Joyce rivals Shakespeare and DH Lawrence in his attempt to put good old-fashioned, hot-blooded girlie goodness on the page. On him!

I’m probably wrong but I don’t care. I love the book.

Try it sometime, Ulysses in hand

Would love to. (put it on the long “must do list!)

or slightly retarded

err not the phrase I would use… she is “lame”.

She pulls up her skirt to let him see her stockings.

I’ve never read Molly’s soliloquay as an orgasm (though it certainly is one reading of it); I find it much more ambivalent, almost wistful.

And you’ll love the last chapter of Ulysses – thousands of words, not one of them punctuated, and all leading up to a massive orgasm. What more can you ask for?

And I must do a Bloomsday in Dublin sometime, even if I don’t remember it for all the Guinness.

Are you sure it was her knickers that got him excited, not her stockings falling down? I’m going to have to go back for a re-read.

I was in Dublin for a couple of years and attended one Bloomsday event (June 16 is my birthday, so I thought I’d indulge myself) which involved Guinness, fried kidneys and a couple of recitals of scenes from the early chapters, one of which was read by a senator from the Irish parliament. Unfortunately, the stout had such an adverse effect on my neurons that I can barely remember a thing.

The Martello tower at Sandymount is great to look at when you’re walking your dog on a windswept day, however. I felt very Dedalus. Try it sometime, Ulysses in hand. You’ll look like an American tourist but it’s fun.