Ulysses: POODOO chapter

Pick: the last section (though the next-to-last comes a close second)
Destroy: the third-to-last: I never got a foot in the door with that one.

Oxen is the "play" one, right? That's the chapter that got me excited about the book in the first place (though no, I never did get through it).

Pick: I.7, with IV and I.6 close behind.
Destroy: Oh, probably III.3 or III.4, since I never did get around to reading them much. Of those I did read, I.4 (though I'm halfway tempted to say II.2...).

The play chapter is Circe. Oxen is the one where Bloom and Stephen meet at the hospital (with the "maturing" English, starting from Latin and ending with American).

For FW, POO: ALP's soliloquy. And I'm in no position to destroy.

By "ALP's soliloquy" do you mean I.8 ("O tell me all about Anna Livia!", etc.)? That's neither a soliloquy or spoken by ALP. But it is a good place to start FW -- though it's also a bit played, and despite being quite nice is not the section that has brought me the most joy.

that's as it should be in a way because the chapters aren't named, by Joyce at least. they came to be commonly Known by the Odyssey section names once Stuart Gilbert's book came out (1930) Joyce himself thought the book should ultimately exist independently of its Odyssey references and that why he removed the chapter names.

anyway...

POO Sirens wins over Nestor (only just)
DOO Cyclops, maybe?

Telemachus

Nestor

Lotus-Eaters

Aeolus

Lestrygonians

Sirens

Cyclops

Eumaeus

Ithaca

and I guess j'aime the rest an' all.

You can't destroy Cylcops, sez I!

Second Bests: Penelope
Second Bests: Proteus
Second Bests: Nausikaa
Second Bests: Nausikaa

Worst: Eumeus

Second Worst: Cyclops

destroy: eumeus or cyclops. after three readings, they still never managed to hold my attention as much as the other.

I am not wholly alone in this possible view.

Admittedly, I'm 1.75 to the wind right now.

But I am still not certain whether I think it is, relatively, weak.

What I am getting at is not Molly's passivity, the chapter's saminess or anything like that - that's all good. I'm getting at the kind of doubt that eg. John Banville has about it, when he calls it a brilliant fraud. I think that the chapter has more *false notes* in it than the others -- I think that's what worries me about it, at the end of such a pitch-perfect performance.

shit, i almost forgot bloomsday

I only just realised today's date. Happy Bloomsday all.

Happy bloomsday y'all

My pick only one is hades, but all are essential

Happy Bloomsday!

I spent most of my Bloomsday wondering where the fuck my Ulysses edition is. A friend must have borrowed it... but who?

spent a bunch of the day thinking about fatherhood which seems apt

Hades my pick too. Love the finely calibrated disdain of Simon Dedalus and Powers for Bloom.

You only have one copy of Ulysses?? Xp

No, I have two, one in Dutch translation and an English one. But I can't read Ulysses - or a lot of books, really - translated. And it is precisely the English one that I am missing right now.

Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money.