Passage of the day - 4 March 2004 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Mephisto2 · 03-04-2004, 04:34 AM

It's been quite a while since I posted one of these.

I'm not sure how many people will read the following, but this is perhaps the most famous passage from the most famous book of the 20th century. It may be a bit tough going at first, but it's worth it. Trust me... :-)

Quote:

"...the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didn't know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figures in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain 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 to he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Closing passage of Molly Bloom's soliloquy.
Ulysses by James Joyce

Mr Mephisto

ratbastid · 03-04-2004, 05:20 AM

Just gorgeous. It's been a LONG time since I read Ulysses.

water_boy1999 · 03-04-2004, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ratbastid
Just gorgeous. It's been a LONG time since I read Ulysses.

Me too. I am about to turn 30 and I believe I read it last in the 5th grade. This is truly a beautiful literary passage. Thanks for the post Mr. M.

clifclav · 03-04-2004, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Me too. I am about to turn 30 and I believe I read it last in the 5th grade. This is truly a beautiful literary passage. Thanks for the post Mr. M.

You read Ulysses in 5th grade. What the hell school were you in, The Doogie Howser School of Sado Masichistic English Teachers.

I slogged through Ulysses in a 300 Level Honors English Couse in College and could barely comprehend it much less enjoy it. I have a feeling that fifty years from now the whole academy will take their collective heads out of their collective behinds and say, "You know what we just shitting all of you. Writers like Proust, Joyce and Pynchon were all really just a crock trying to make you feel insignificant and stupid."

Of course that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Mephisto2 · 03-04-2004, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by clifclav
I have a feeling that fifty years from now the whole academy will take their collective heads out of their collective behinds and say, "You know what we just shitting all of you. Writers like Proust, Joyce and Pynchon were all really just a crock trying to make you feel insignificant and stupid."

Of course that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Well, I agree that reading Ulysses in 5th grade seems a bit odd, but I can't agree with your feeling that Joyce et al were shit.

Ulysses introduced the "stream of consciousness" concept in writing which is very evident in the above passage. This alone was groundbreaking at the time.

You don't think with commas, full-stops and in nice orderly grammatical constructs now, do you? If you do, you are very very strange... :-)

Yes, Ulysses is difficult to read. Famously. But it's undoubtedly a very rewarding one if you "get into" it, and it's a very important book (probably the most important book) in 20th century literature.

Mr Mephisto

clifclav · 03-04-2004, 10:37 AM

Well I didn't really call them shit. What I was sort of railing against were the professors who told me that if I didn't enjoy the writers I mentioned that it was my fault because I wasn't "getting it". I was on the Dean's list as an English major in college/university and I felt that I was "getting it" just fine I just wasn't enjoying it or appreciating it.

In regards to how I think. I sort of feel that I do think with pauses, stops, in a grammatical sort of fashion when I am concentrating on a subject. When I am sort of free floating in thought I guess stream of conciousness is a close approximation of how I would transcribe it although to do it properly it would take countless reams of text. (I am glad Joyce didn't do this or Ulysses would have been 18 volumes

I do enjoy re reading some of Joyce's other work very much and I love Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49". "Gravity's Rainbow" on the other hand is three weeks of my life that I am never getting back.

Finally I differ greatly that Ulysses is the most important book in 20th Century Lit. I would probably argue for Steinbeck or Faulkner for that but I am a bit predisposed towards American Realists. And boy am I in the minority in that nowadays.

Good discussion, thanks.

Mephisto2 · 03-04-2004, 10:45 AM

Yeah, I shoudn't have paraphrased you by using the word "shit".

For the record, I find Pynchon very difficult to read, though I do like Umberto Eco. He can be a bit too "clever" sometimes though.

With regards to Ulysses' designation as the most important book of the 20th century, don't blame me but take it up with the general English literature academics.

I have to say that I like Faulkner and Steinbeck both, but they were no way as influential as Joyce.

Mr Mephisto

03-04-2004, 10:37 AM	#6 (permalink)
clifclav absolute relativist Location: D.C.	Well I didn't really call them shit. What I was sort of railing against were the professors who told me that if I didn't enjoy the writers I mentioned that it was my fault because I wasn't "getting it". I was on the Dean's list as an English major in college/university and I felt that I was "getting it" just fine I just wasn't enjoying it or appreciating it. In regards to how I think. I sort of feel that I do think with pauses, stops, in a grammatical sort of fashion when I am concentrating on a subject. When I am sort of free floating in thought I guess stream of conciousness is a close approximation of how I would transcribe it although to do it properly it would take countless reams of text. (I am glad Joyce didn't do this or Ulysses would have been 18 volumes I do enjoy re reading some of Joyce's other work very much and I love Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49". "Gravity's Rainbow" on the other hand is three weeks of my life that I am never getting back. Finally I differ greatly that Ulysses is the most important book in 20th Century Lit. I would probably argue for Steinbeck or Faulkner for that but I am a bit predisposed towards American Realists. And boy am I in the minority in that nowadays. Good discussion, thanks. __________________ Neither rain , nor cold, nor dark of night shall.......ahh whatever, just get me a beer! Last edited by clifclav; 03-04-2004 at 10:51 AM..

03-04-2004, 05:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Just gorgeous. It's been a LONG time since I read Ulysses.

03-04-2004, 10:45 AM	#7 (permalink)
Mephisto2 Junkie	Yeah, I shoudn't have paraphrased you by using the word "shit". For the record, I find Pynchon very difficult to read, though I do like Umberto Eco. He can be a bit too "clever" sometimes though. With regards to Ulysses' designation as the most important book of the 20th century, don't blame me but take it up with the general English literature academics. I have to say that I like Faulkner and Steinbeck both, but they were no way as influential as Joyce. Mr Mephisto