Nommer 47 Stammers vervolg
I
Ulysses (1922) van James Joyce, daardie groot modernistiese roman, is ‘n antwoord op Homeros se klassieke teks die Odusseia.
Alles speel af op een dag in Joyce se roman: 16 Junie 1904.
So word die karakters opgesom in die Britannica:
- Leopold Bloom: Odysseus (Ulysses)
- Stephen Dedalus: Telemachus; St. Stephen (first Christian martyr); Daedalus (mythical Greek craftsman); James Joyce
- Molly Bloom: Penelope; Nora Barnacle (Joyce’s wife)
- Buck Mulligan: Antinous; Oliver St. John Gogarty (Joyce’s former roommate)
- Mr. Deasy: Nestor; Francis Irwin (Irish headmaster and Joyce’s former employer)
- Blazes Boylan: Eurymachus; Augustus Boylan (Irish tenor); James Daly and Ted Keogh (two Irish horse dealers)
- Simon Dedalus: John Stanislaus Joyce (Joyce’s father)
- River Liffey: Bosporus
- AE: George William Russell (Irish poet and Joyce’s publisher at The Irish Homestead)
- The citizen: Cyclops; Michael Cusack (cofounder of the Gaelic Athletic Association)
- Bella Cohen: Circe; Ellen Cohen (English sex worker and brothel owner)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ulysses-novel-by-Joyce Besoek 6 Junie 2024
Molly se beroemde monoloog word geloof om die bewussynstroomtegniek. Sy, anders as Penelope, was ontrou aan haar eggenoot, ene Blazes Boylan. So eindig die roman op bladsy 704:
…yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Trieste-Zürich-Paris, 1914-1921
Waarom hierdie kwessie van ontrouheid of die vrees hiervoor? In die werklike lewe het Joyce verneem dat sy vrou, Nora Barnacle ontrou was aan hom. Hulle het wel later versoen.
Ofskoon dit nie waar was nie, is die vrees vir verraad, ‘n tema wat ons regdeur sy werk aantref.
II
En dit is onderliggend aan Stammers se gedig.
Hy skryf immers:
So it was that I saw two sides of an antinomy take hold
and go to undo me like a zip
and I saw that it was writ
that we should be the critics of our own juxtaposition,
to deconstruct what there was between us
and discover if it was all just so much periphrasis
or something more.
*
Periphrasis is immers om iets langer en minder direk te sê, sogenaamde circumlocution.
Dublin (Joyce) teenoor Parys (Derrida).
Joyce moes klagtes van obsensiteit verduur. Veral oor Bloom se ablusies.
Virginia Woolf en D.H. Lawrence was krities oor die roman. Dit staan alles opgeteken in die nawoord tot Ulysses deur Richard Ellmann en die sensuurpolisie wat veral werksaam was in die VSA.
Molly Bloom se uitgebreide monoloog is as ‘n degradering van die menslike kondisie beskou.
Winston Churchill het die boek bestel. Ezra Pound en T.S. Eliot het dit as ‘n meesterstuk beskou. Stuart Gilbert het sy studie in 1930 begin.
Odusseus is ‘n samestelling van outis (‘n niemand) en Zeus.
Die Dubliner in Joyce se boek is ‘n Ierse Jood, beklemtoon Ellmann wat die skrywer se ambivalensie jeens sy stad beklemtoon en die huis op Ecclesstraat nommer 7
Jood wat bekeer is tot die Katolisisme en Protestantisme; altyd tussen werke; ‘n “cuckold”:
”Bloom would have the artist’s talent to to shift perspective, to turn humiliation into absurdity …(Nawoord: 709).
Boekverbrandings waarop Joyce sardonies gereageer het dat dit die vure van die purgatorium vinniger sal maak.
‘n Roman van peregrinasie, reise, wandelinge tussen Ithaca en Dublin.
Eweneens ‘n reis tussen stede, boeke en teorie. Hélène Cixous het immers ‘n groot studie geskryf oor James Joyce: The Exile of James Joyce. 765 bladsye. Oorspronklik in 1968. In Engels 1976.
Bronne:
Cixous, Hélène Cixous. 1976. The Exile of James Joyce. Londen: John Calder.
Derrida, Jacques. 1996. Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
https://monoskop.org/images/e/ef/Derrida_Jacques_Archive_Fever_A_Freudian_Impression_1996.pdf Besoek 1 Junie 2024
- Writing and Difference. Londen: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gilbert, Stuart. 1969. James Joyce’s Ulysses: A Study. Londen: Penguin.
Joyce, James. 1983. Ulysses. Londen: Penguin.
Joan Hambidge
8 Junie 2024