In search of lost plots...

I admit, I'm finding it quite hard to keep up the reading at the moment, guess life is intruding, especially now it's the end of the academic year, which is always a bit fraught. It wasn't that bad getting into it, but I am missing the plot part of it and I am only about a quarter way through (it seems). Not a book that can be picked up and put down at will either. I have been finishing off Rivals and am nearly done with the Stephen King doorstop too, I just have to focus more on the Ulysses. 

Another Bloom Chapter, the Laestrygonians (or Lestrygonians). We are walking through the maze with no guide here, my friends. Ito is not accompanying us this time, although I have found articles by him and on him, including one from Times Higher Education. I am charmed by the description, but must move on from minor crushes on critics.

Many pencil notes popping up in this chapter. I am struck by the imagery: food imagery mingling with birth, sex, death and decay. It is quite a visceral chapter, opening with the innocent children's sweets mingling with the religious 'Blood of the Lamb' then moving straight into more violent religious imagery. 

Politics plays a heavy part with frequent references, this can be quite difficult, sort of like watching Irish Victorian Mock the Week, as Mr. OQ described it. Footnotes are not really that helpful as they gloss over important points, so it can be helpful to read around it. That, or accept that it's going to require far more research than you want to do. I'm going with a mixture of the two approaches here. The Yale article is sufficiently illuminating if we can't have Ito. I have found an interesting image from an odd website called liberateUlysses, the purpose of which is to celebrate Bloomsday 2012. Surprised I haven't found it before. The image was created in 2004 by students at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
 
 Odysseus and his men meet cannibals, who feed in frenzied greed, much as Bloom meets the disgusting individuals stuffing their faces in the Burton's restaurant. He expresses concern for the large Catholic families who live in poverty and take more than their fair share of resources; comparing their religious customs and perceived greed to the Jewish practice of fasting. Bloom's outsider's perspective allows Joyce to potentially comment. Bloom continues to reveal episides from his past, in this case musing on his relationship with Molly and what happened to them after the death of Rudy.

As previously, images and slogans from advertisments play a part in the narrative, but in this case Bloom reacts more to them, criticising the stuipidity of Plumtree's potted meat. 

Anyway, onto Scylla and Charybdis. Quite an enjoyable part of The Odyssey, although I have never worked out how to pronounce the second one. Reminds me of wine. I'll have a nice glass of Charybdis, please.