Post by Bob Kolodney on May 8, 2008 1:25:58 GMT -5
HISTORIC COMPROMISE ACHIEVED
Harvard Club and Washington Independent Writers Decide Upon Text
After much hard bargaining, and a minimum of insults, slaps and other manifestations of disaccord, two groups, which pride themselves on their disinclination to intellectual compromise, have agreed upon part of the text that should be read on Bloomsday, 2008. Donald Graul, the Executive Director, of Washington Independent Writers, announced the interim agreement with respect to words that should be included, and expressed confidence that a meeting of the minds with respect to a complete script would be achieved before, during or after June 16, 2008.
The challenge facing these organizations is immense because they have chosen to devote only 3 hours to reading highlights from a text of 250,000 words with a vocabulary of 30,000 words that takes some 24 hours to read aloud in its entirety. It was difficult enough for the two groups to decide to work together - since they have been living the Irish Question vicariously in order to better understand the novel. Their agreement necessitated overcoming many years of animosity, and a history of terrorism, resentment, and discrimination - due as much to economic competition as to religious differences - one of the intractable problems of the 20th century - that these two rival Washingtonian cliques have foolishly chosen to extend into the 21st.
In the course of discussions, the negotiators have repeatedly shown the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A member of Washington Independent Writers, David Stewart, is a Joyce scholar, which augured well for the collaboration. But, his group for a time insisted that only the Proteus section of the novel be read because Mr. Stewart had written a thesis on the subject. Partisans of other sections of the novel also proved to be bitter enders - and the foundering collaboration was for a time headed for shipwreck. Fortunately, calmer heads procrastinated, prevaricated and eventually prevailed.
One of the other hang-ups was the refusal by members of both groups to believe that Joyce had actually died on January 13, 1941- this matter was resolved by a field trip to the author's grave in Zurich, and the disbelievers ultimately determined not to take offense at Mr. Joyce's failure to respond to an invitation to visit Washington this June.
The basic terms of the agreement provide that all members of both groups should read or re-read the book in its entirety (the text being found on www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 ) in order to facilitate the final text choice - nobody being permitted to read anything else by Joyce such as Dubliners ( at www.gutenberg.org/etext/2814 ) or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (at www.gutenberg.org/etext/4217 ) for background, or to listen to Ulysses on LibriVox ( librivox.org/ulysses-by-james-joyce/ ), or to read the wikipedia article on Ulysses (at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel) ) or that on James Joyce ( at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce ) or to consult any of the other free resources with respect to Joyce on the internet (such as the Literature Network at www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/, Read Print at www.readprint.com/author-52/James-Joyce , The Brazen Head homepage of The Modern World at www.themodernword.com/joyce/ , or the James Joyce Portal at www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/portal.html ).
Anyone wishing to consult the BloomsdayDC2008 website, must do so at their own peril.
The text from Ulysses that the Washington Independent Writers and the Harvard Club of Washington DC have agreed upon this far is the following:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
--Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak...
***
...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 figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the 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 so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes
Harvard Club and Washington Independent Writers Decide Upon Text
After much hard bargaining, and a minimum of insults, slaps and other manifestations of disaccord, two groups, which pride themselves on their disinclination to intellectual compromise, have agreed upon part of the text that should be read on Bloomsday, 2008. Donald Graul, the Executive Director, of Washington Independent Writers, announced the interim agreement with respect to words that should be included, and expressed confidence that a meeting of the minds with respect to a complete script would be achieved before, during or after June 16, 2008.
The challenge facing these organizations is immense because they have chosen to devote only 3 hours to reading highlights from a text of 250,000 words with a vocabulary of 30,000 words that takes some 24 hours to read aloud in its entirety. It was difficult enough for the two groups to decide to work together - since they have been living the Irish Question vicariously in order to better understand the novel. Their agreement necessitated overcoming many years of animosity, and a history of terrorism, resentment, and discrimination - due as much to economic competition as to religious differences - one of the intractable problems of the 20th century - that these two rival Washingtonian cliques have foolishly chosen to extend into the 21st.
In the course of discussions, the negotiators have repeatedly shown the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A member of Washington Independent Writers, David Stewart, is a Joyce scholar, which augured well for the collaboration. But, his group for a time insisted that only the Proteus section of the novel be read because Mr. Stewart had written a thesis on the subject. Partisans of other sections of the novel also proved to be bitter enders - and the foundering collaboration was for a time headed for shipwreck. Fortunately, calmer heads procrastinated, prevaricated and eventually prevailed.
One of the other hang-ups was the refusal by members of both groups to believe that Joyce had actually died on January 13, 1941- this matter was resolved by a field trip to the author's grave in Zurich, and the disbelievers ultimately determined not to take offense at Mr. Joyce's failure to respond to an invitation to visit Washington this June.
The basic terms of the agreement provide that all members of both groups should read or re-read the book in its entirety (the text being found on www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 ) in order to facilitate the final text choice - nobody being permitted to read anything else by Joyce such as Dubliners ( at www.gutenberg.org/etext/2814 ) or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (at www.gutenberg.org/etext/4217 ) for background, or to listen to Ulysses on LibriVox ( librivox.org/ulysses-by-james-joyce/ ), or to read the wikipedia article on Ulysses (at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel) ) or that on James Joyce ( at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce ) or to consult any of the other free resources with respect to Joyce on the internet (such as the Literature Network at www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/, Read Print at www.readprint.com/author-52/James-Joyce , The Brazen Head homepage of The Modern World at www.themodernword.com/joyce/ , or the James Joyce Portal at www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/portal.html ).
Anyone wishing to consult the BloomsdayDC2008 website, must do so at their own peril.
The text from Ulysses that the Washington Independent Writers and the Harvard Club of Washington DC have agreed upon this far is the following:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
--Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak...
***
...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 figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the 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 so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes
