Sep 18th 2014

Goodness in Leopold Bloom

by Mary L. Tabor

Mary L. Tabor worked most of her life so that one day she would be able to write full-time. She quit her corporate job when she was 50, put on a backpack and hiking boots to trudge across campus with folks more than half her age. She’s the author of the novel Who by Fire, the memoir (Re)Making Love: a sex after sixty story and the collection of connected short stories The Woman Who Never Cooked. She’s a born and bred liberal who writes lyric essays on the arts for one of the most conservative papers in the country and she hosts a show interviewing authors on Rare Bird Radio. In the picture Mary L.Tabor

Note to my readers: This essay is a follow-up to my rereading of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse that is more personal essay than review and my rereading of Kafka’s The Trial. I’ll culminate this series with a discussion of how these three seminal modernist novelists examine and articulate the issues of moral ambiguity.

In this brief essay, I focus on James Joyce’s Ulysses —even in the face of the seeming impossibility of doing that with this tome of a novel. This is a good story, a compelling story, a story full of humor and life that captures the heart and imagination if we’re willing to read it as a good story. 

Ulysses has an imposing reputation and a difficult narrative style. For goodness sakes, those of us, like me who read it in undergraduate and graduate school, read it along with a book that was longer than the novel—Ulysses Annotated. That book is the key to the allusions that pepper every page. I’ve done it that way twice and as a writer and always learning.

UlyssesI suggest that for non-scholars, the novel should be read for the powerful story that it is. When you get caught up in trying to understand every allusion—and Joyce did something incredibly complex on that score—you lose the story, the life of the book. I argue that this book has lasted not because it’s so complicated but because it really does live and breathe. 

The writer Anthony Burgess in a terrific little book in size ReJoyce, but large in ease of reading, says about Ulysses: “Let it join the beside library along with Shakespeare and the Bible.”

Joyce’s Ulysses is a big book. Joyce is imposingly erudite, but the novel is no solemn text. Joyce was a great humorist and humanist. 

M;aryline Monroe
Courtesy by OpenCulture
openculture.com 

His style changed the modern world of literature. He recreates what thought might be like if written down. We get jolting shifts in style, and we get a disjointed narrative that makes sense.

I’ve come to understand what the critic Hugh Kenner meant when he called Joyce “The Arranger.” He plays games with us and it’s well worth playing along. 

By the second half of the book, where the chapters get longer and longer, it’s almost as if he’s recreating what someone is saying in real time. The book has the quality of great cinema—it engulfs me in its world.

I focus my camera here on the remarkable main character Leopold Bloom, who journeys through the one day June 16th on a parallel latitude in Dublin with the young man Stephen Dedalus until their paths inevitably cross. 

Joyce has created in Leopold Bloom a character who embodies goodness—not the spiritual goodness of a saint, but that of a man confronted with his own sensuality, his own failures and the world as it is, not as one might wish it to be.

Leopold Bloom is the most human, flawed, forgivable and forgiving character ever to appear in literature. He embodies goodness, not the spiritual goodness of a saint, but that of a man confronted with his own sensuality—this is a very sexy book and not just in the famous Molly Bloom soliloquy at the end. 

Bloom who becomes our hero, our fallible Ulysses, like us is confronted with his own failures. In this world Bloom is an outsider, a Jew, shunned by others, the object of derision and anti-Semitism, an ordinary man, cuckolded by his wife, the woman he loves.

The power of the story comes from his simple nobility and his unfailing inability to pass judgment. We see him unfold before us moving inevitably and surprisingly toward the high-browed intellectual, self-important Stephen Dedalus, a sad much younger man in much need of the simple wisdom and unfailing humanity of Bloom. 

Bloom is filled with thoughts of his own bodily functions and of sensuality. He exhibits a rather perverse obsession with women’s bloomers, as just one example of our anti-hero’s nature.

The pun on his name and his obsession is comically intended as we see in Molly’s soliloquy that closes the novel. Her soliloquy is not only oft-quoted but likely more often read that the novel itself, and I’m here to say that’s a misunderstanding of the achievement of the novel, of the power of the character made live in Leopold Bloom. 

The sentence I quote from begins at line 748 in Chapter 18, the last chapter entitled “Penelope.” Ninety-one lines later with no punctuation intervening at 18:839, Molly says,

“…and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I suppose theyre called after him I never thought that would be my name"

Bloom is hardly the picture of the Homeric hero.

And yet, I am left by novel’s end with a pervasive sense of Bloom’s nobility, a nobility based in his actions, his opposition to violence, his sense of his own guilt and responsibility. I wonder if I hear Joyce’s voice in Bloom’s words, “It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong ...” “Eumaes” Chapter 16: 1093-4). 

This unwillingness to pass judgment is the source of Bloom’s nobility, evidence of Joyce’s embrace of humanity with all its flaws, and one of the reasons that this novel—with all its difficulties and challenges to analytical thought—touches the heart.

Bloom’s deeds, though hardly broad and sweeping, define him, as actions define each of us in our lives. The seed of Bloom’s actions lies in his sympathy for others. Here are some examples that make me love him. 

In Chapter 6, “Hades,” where Bloom crosses paths with Stephen’s father Simon, a character named Martin Cunningham appears. Cunnigham also appears in the short story “Grace,” in Dubliners, and there too, he’s a man of mixed qualities, though his intentions seem good. Cunnigham interrupts Bloom: “Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely” (6:277). Yet it is Bloom who recognizes goodness in Cunningham: “Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. Like Shakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say” (6:344-5).

It is Bloom who remembers Mrs. Sinico (6:997), “Last time I was here was Mrs Sinico’s funeral”. Mrs Sinico also appears in the short story “A Painful Case,” in Dubliners and is portrayed there sympathetically, lost to love and ultimately to drink. 

It is Bloom whose “heavy pitying gaze absorbed her [Mrs Breen’s] news” in Chapter 8 “Lestrygonians” (8:287) of Mina Purefoy’s “very stiff birth” (8:284) and it is Bloom who subsequently goes to visit Mina.

It is Bloom who helps the blind man “tapping the curbstone with his slender cane” (8:1075) and is careful not to condescend to him. 

And it is Bloom who “put his name down for five shillings” to help the widow Dignam. Indeed, that mission of mercy lands him in the midst of the vicious attack by the citizen and the derision of others in Barney Kiernan’s pub, for he has come “about this insurance of poor Dignam’s” who has died and left his wife penniless.

By the measure of others, Bloom who is the butt of much derision, nonetheless fares well: Davy Berne says, “Decent quiet man he is” (8:976). ... He’s a safe man, I’d say.” (8:982) And of course that oft quoted line, “There’s a touch of the artist about old Bloom,” (10:582) spoken by Lenehan, a character also seen in “Two Gallants,” in Dubliners and described there as “a sporting vagrant” and a sponger, quite unlike Bloom.

The touch of the artist I assert here is Joyce’s recognition of the artist’s sensitive nature, the artist’s inability to avoid seeing, to avoid hearing, to avoid the bombardment that is life in a city and in this case that city is Dublin, Ireland. 

In one of the most powerful chapters of the book, “Cyclops” Chapter 12, Bloom  expresses his opposition to capital punishment. “So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes out with the why and wherefore...” (12:450-5). What follows is a humorous discussion of what happens to the “poor bugger’s tool that’s being hanged” (12:457).

What interests me is that Bloom was the one who had thought about the issues involved in the killing of the guilty. 

Bloom’s opposition to violence is noteworthy because it does not arise from a submissive nature, though one could argue that Bloom behaves in a subservient manner in the novel. His opposition arises from conviction.

Significant as well is his strong verbal attack against the citizen: “Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. (12:1431) ... And I belong to a race too, says Bloom that is hated and persecuted. (12:1467) ... I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.” (12:1474)

Bloom understands, confronts, and deflates the arrogance and pomposity of both prejudice and nationalism that lead to violence in both word and deed. 

One of his finest moments comes when it is he who preaches love: “Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred” (12:1485).

The citizen, or Polyphemous, if you will, is blinded by sun, not by violence, and it is he who hurls a biscuit box at Bloom to no avail. All this occurs amidst much jocularity as well as the parody of pompous language. 

But can the serious point be missed? I think not. Bloom makes clear in his retelling of the event to Stephen Dedalus that his views arise from conviction: “I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form” (16:1099).

This is a gentle soul. 

No wonder then that Bloom shall be the one to lead another, Stephen Dedalus, with a slender stick, the ashplant, to safety late in the novel. One must be struck by the gentleness Bloom offers to Stephen when he rescues him in Nighttown: “Come home. You’ll get into trouble.” (15:4511) “Face reminds me of his poor mother” (15:4949).

There’s no question he is helped in his personal journey by the meeting with Stephen, a personal journey, particularly, in his relationship with his wife Molly and the loss of his son Rudy. 

Honesty characterizes this imperfect man: It is Bloom who makes us aware of his role in Molly’s betrayal. We learn from him that he has not slept with Molly for eleven years since their son Rudy died shortly after his birth: “Could never like it again after Rudy” 8:610.

Bloom’s love of Molly is clear throughout. Even with his awareness of her tryst with Boylan, the man who is her lover, he thinks of her wit. He thinks often of Molly’s beauty, as when he purchases the orange flower water for her: “Brings out the darkness of her eyes” (5:494). 

In the Circe chapter, which Molly haunts, pervades, Bloom says, “Last of my race. ... Well, my fault perhaps. No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?” and the narrator comments, “He bore no hate” (11:1066-68).

Cuckolded he is by Molly and Blazes Boylan, but his love of Molly persists as does an awareness of his own responsibility.

In Chapter 13, which ends with nine cuckoos, Bloom, who has ejaculated to the sight of Gerty MacDowell, a young woman, writes in the sand with a stick. Sticks as leitmotif, perhaps? He writes, a message for her perhaps. He writes, “I” (13:1258), “AM. I” (13:1264). 

He echoes Stephen’s personal exploration. We hear Stephen, early in the novel in Chapter 3:452, “And the blame? As I am. As I am.” A reference to his guilt, his search and we hear the echo of Jesus in The New Testament, John, 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Bloom’s surrealistic trial in Nighttown confirms for me his sense of guilt. “A fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing Kol Nidre” (15:1407-8). Kol Nidre, of course, is the solemn prayer that opens the service on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.

I assert that here is man, an ordinary man, examining his life

In that examination, in his kindness to others, in his commitment to tolerance and forgiveness, I find goodness and nobility. In Joyce’s technique, the use of stream of consciousness, the jolting shifts in style, the disjointed narrative, I find the chaos of existence and moral ambiguity shown in the very way he tells the story, and I marvel at his embrace of humanity emerging out of it all.

The writer John Berger in his essay “The First and Last Recipe: Ulysses” has said that Ulysses is an ocean. You don’t read the book, you navigate it. And I argue that one of the best ways to do that, after reading it in academia with all the tomes and references written about it, is simply to read it. Get the story, get that great story for its simple, raw, erotic humanity.

 


For Mary L. Tabor's own web site please click here.

You can follow Mary on Twitter and on Facebook.



    

 

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Essays

Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "When it comes to economic policy, Carter is sometimes blamed for excessive regulation, government spending, and runaway inflation. His successor, Ronald Reagan, is often credited with ending the era of “big government.” But the conventional narrative fails to acknowledge that it was Carter who launched the deregulatory push that bore fruit during the Reagan years."
Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "Buffett's status as the Oracle of Omaha stemmed from his ability to develop the wisdom and judgment that transformed him from a good conceptual investor into an exceptional experimental one."
Sep 26th 2024
EXTRACT: "Last year, a social-media trend featured women asking men how often they thought about the Roman Empire. The answer, it seemed, was “very”: many men claimed that the ancient empire crossed their minds weekly or even daily. That did not surprise Mike Duncan, the host of the popular 'History of Rome' podcast, and probably not Tom Holland, who has written multiple bestselling books on the topic. Mary Beard certainly understands the popular fascination, too. Her study of ancient Rome – together with her unpretentious style and brash charisma – has made her what one observer called 'a national treasure, and easily the world’s most famous classicist.' ” ----- "Beard challenges this mythology of whiteness, arguing in her 2016 book SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome that the story of the Roman Empire, which was necessarily ethnically diverse, is 'the history of people of color'. In fact, the book concludes with Emperor Caracalla’s grant of citizenship to all the empire’s subjects. The old Roman aristocracy lost its privileges, because it had not shared them."
Sep 22nd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Since the golden age of Athenian democracy, freedom of speech has been viewed as a defining feature of open societies, even as it remains under constant attack. The Athenians believed that the proper functioning of government depended on free and honest exchange of ideas, no matter how controversial or unpopular. In ancient Rome, by contrast, only senators enjoyed anything resembling free speech – and even then, as the statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero learned the hard way, speaking out could have deadly consequences." ----- "In our hyper-connected world, where mobile phones outnumber people and most of the global population has internet access, the decline of traditional news outlets has deepened our dependence on social media. As opaque algorithms shape the news we consume and our perception of reality, the corporations and oligarchs controlling these platforms pose a growing threat to free speech. Although they claim to be its ultimate defenders, their business model, by amplifying disinformation and identity-based grievances for profit, renounces the responsibility that sustains it."
Jul 27th 2024
EXTRACT: "Some conservative intellectuals think the west has already adopted Christianity-lite. Many point to the book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019), by historian Tom Holland. Holland argues that despite declining religious belief, Christian ideas remain central to western civilisation. He views liberalism – our dominant political philosophy – as secularised Christianity. For him, core western ideas, like universal human rights, equality and dignity, stem from Christianity."
Jul 26th 2024
EXTRACTS: "We often hear about the importance of the human microbiome – the vast collection of bacteria and fungi that live on and inside us – when it comes to our health. But there’s another, equally important part of this microbial community that remains far less known: the virome." ----- "Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with an estimated 10³¹ viral particles globally and about 10¹³ in each human being." ----- "Understanding the virome could revolutionise medicine and public health."
Jul 16th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Trump joins tens of thousands of Americans treated for non-fatal gunshot wounds each year. Such experiences can shatter people’s assumptions that they are living in a safe, understandable and controllable world, leaving them feeling unworthy, unsafe and unsure. As a result, survivors of non-fatal gun violence face increased risks of depression, anxiety, substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can feel overwhelming." ---- ".... some trauma survivors experience post-traumatic growth. They may develop greater empathy, stronger relationships, deeper spirituality and find new meaning in life. After being shot in 1981, the then president Ronald Reagan’s trauma seemed to deepen his sense of empathy and humility. He felt God had spared him for a reason, spurring him to reduce nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union."
Jul 15th 2024
EXTRACTS: "Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose are not metabolised by the human body so they are excreted – this is what makes them low-calorie sugar alternatives. And that’s where the environmental problem begins. Current wastewater treatment plants are unable to remove these sugar mimics, meaning they end up in our environment – in our water, rivers and soil." --- "Forever chemicals are increasingly present in our streams, rivers and oceans – most notably per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that don’t degrade. PFAS are synthetic chemicals found in many consumer products, including skincare products, cosmetics and waterproof clothing. PFAS can remain in the human body for many years, and some present significant risks to our health – potentially causing liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, infertility and cancer."
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACTS: "Psychologist, James Hillman had concerns about what I like to call the 'loneliness-as-pathology' "---- "....Hillman went on to argue...: 'If loneliness is an archetypal sense built into us all from the very beginning, then, to be alive is also to be lonely. Loneliness, therefore, will come and go as it chooses in the course of a lifetime, quite apart from our efforts to deny or avoid this reality.' "
Jul 3rd 2024
EXTRACT: "How can we be at least 15 times richer than our pre-industrial Agrarian Age predecessors, and yet so unhappy? One explanation is that we are not wired for it: nothing in our heritage or evolutionary past prepared us to deal with a society of more than 150 people. To operate our increasingly complex technologies and advance our prosperity, we somehow must coordinate among more than eight billion people."
Jun 25th 2024
EXTRACTS: "What’s interesting about the entire Russia-North Korea showy display of camaraderie is China’s response: silence. China has misgivings about how things are unfolding, which reports suggest prompted Chinese president Xi Jinping’s call to Putin to call off the latter’s visit to Pyongyang. Obviously, Putin didn’t heed Xi’s request." ----- "The Sino-Korean animosity dates back centuries and took shape when Korea was a vassal state of imperial China. Unfortunately, this animosity extended to modern times when Mao Zedong decided to station Chinese troops in North Korea even after the conclusion of the Korean war, and when Beijing did not aid Pyongyang in its nuclear ambitions. It didn’t help either that the founding leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, was suspected of espionage and was nearly executed by the Chinese Communist party in the 1930s."
Jun 19th 2024
EXTRACT: "Ultra-processed foods (such as packaged snacks, sugary drinks, instant noodles and ready-to-eat meals) often contain emulsifiers, microparticles (such as titanium dioxide), thickeners, stabilisers, flavours and colourants. While research on humans is limited, studies on mice have shown that these ingredients alter the gut microbiome (the community of microorganisms living in the intestines) in several ways. These many microbiome changes can in turn affect the way the immune system functions."
Jun 9th 2024
EXTRACT: "Alzheimer’s disease can be split in two subgroups, familial and sporadic. Only 5% of patients with Alzheimer’s are familial, inherited, and 95% of Alzheimer’s patients are sporadic, due to environmental, lifestyle and genetic risk factors. Consequently, the most effective tactic for tackling Alzheimer’s is preventative and living a healthy lifestyle. This has led researchers to study risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s."
Mar 8th 2024
EXTRACT: "This study suggests that around 10% of people diagnosed with dementia may instead have underlying silent liver disease with HE causing or contributing to the symptoms – an important diagnosis to make as HE is treatable."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACT: "Health disparity is a powerful weapon in the savage class warfare otherwise known as neoliberalism. (In 2020, the RAND Corporation did a study of the transfer of wealth over the last several decades from the working-class and the middle-class to the top one percent. Their estimate is a staggering $47 trillion – that is how much the “upward redistribution of income” cost American workers between 1975 and 2018.) Neoliberalism is a brutal form of labor suppression, which uses health as a means of maintaining and reproducing a condition in which wealth is constantly being redistributed upwards, and the middle-class is kept in a constant state of fear of sinking into the ranks of the poor. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcies in America – and that’s according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. The ballooning costs of healthcare serve to maintain a system marked by morally unacceptable health inequity and injustice."
Jan 28th 2024
EXTRACT. "But living longer has also come at a price. We’re now seeing higher rates of chronic and degenerative diseases – with heart disease consistently topping the list. So while we’re fascinated by what may help us live longer, maybe we should be more interested in being healthier for longer. Improving our “healthy life expectancy” remains a global challenge. Interestingly, certain locations around the world have been discovered where there are a high proportion of centenarians who display remarkable physical and mental health. The AKEA study of Sardinia, Italy, as example, identified a “blue zone” (named because it was marked with blue pen),....."
Jan 4th 2024
EXTRACT: ""Tresors en Noir et Blanc" presents 180 prints from the collection of the Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, also known as the Petit Palais.  The basis of the museum's print collection is 20,000 engravings amassed by a 19th-century collector, Eugene Dutuit, " ----- "This wonderful exhibition, the tip of a great iceberg, serves to emphasize how unfortunate it is that the tens of thousands of prints owned by the Petit Palais are almost never seen by more than a handful of scholars who visit them by appointment.  Nor is the Petit Palais the only offender in this regard,....."
Jan 4th 2024
EXTRACTS: "And that is the clue to Manet’s work. He paints painting, regardless of his subject: he paints the medium itself, it as if he is constantly reminding us that this is a painting," ..........."This is a new conception of painterly truth at play here, a new fidelity to truth. Manet is the Kant of painting because he initiates a similar kind of “Copernican revolution” – we do not see the world as it is but as we are. " -------- " Among the most remarkable but unfamiliar of Manet’s work on display are those depicting the bloody aftermath of the Paris Commune of 1871.There is no question regarding Manet’s condemnation of the Versailles government’s actions following the defeat of the Commune, when some 25,000 Parisians were gunned down, including women and children."
Dec 27th 2023
EXTRACT: "Think of our brain like a map. When we’re young, we explore all corners of this map, sending out connections in every direction to make sense of our environment. Before long, we figure out basic truths – such as how to secure food, or where we live – and the neurological paths that make up these connections strengthen. Over time, a network emerges that reflects our unique experiences. Regions we re-visit often will develop established paths, whereas under-used connections will fade away. ---- Conditions such as addiction, chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterised by processes such as repetitive negative thinking or rumination, where patients focus on negative thoughts in a counterproductive way. Unfortunately, these strengthen brain connections that perpetuate the unfavourable mental state."
Dec 14th 2023
EXTRACT: "While no one was looking, France has become a melting pot of European peoples. Its neighbors have traditionally been welcomed, and France progressively turned them into French boys and girls in the next generation."