I'M DONE!!!

The class is over, I think my final went well, and I can now honestly say, "Yeah, I've read Ulysses." I think I'll find excuses to bring it up in conversation.

IF GORGONZOLA IS THE ONLY LIVING CHEESE, IS IT STILL THE CORPSE OF MILK?

Jenny and I went to Davey Byrnes Pub today and we each had, you guessed it, a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of burgundy. The sandwich wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and it was a bit overpriced, but it was completely worth it to have eaten the same meal in the same pub as a character who never actually ate anything in any pub, because he is entirely fictitious. Also, the wine was fantastic. I'm not an expert by any means, but it was some of the best I've ever had in my life. Thankfully, our meal didn't have quite the same repercussions as Bloom's did.

After Davey Byrnes, we went to Penneys, which is basically the Target of Ireland, because my shoes had holes in them and I heard that cheap clothing could be found at Penneys. That was true, but the shoes they had were hideous--except for one pair. And this pair had no tags or price. And they just happened to be in my size. Turns out someone had stolen shoes, and left their old ones in the store, so the security guard just kind of let us take them. Yeah, they were used, but who am I to turn down free shoes?

We met up with Bush, the unfortunately named tour guide from the Joyce Centre at the Stag's Head, and chatted for a while about books and theatre and various other trifles. Jenny, being the siren that she is, had him under her spell almost instantly, and from that point forward, Drew and I were entirely nonexistent. Bush stopped buying the drinks, Drew and I became third and fourth wheels and we decided to throw in the towel. I got a pretty decent amount of reading done and had a good long chat with Miles, and now I am off to bed!

I CAN NOW HONESTLY SAY I'VE TRANSLATED A PART OF ULYSSES INTO A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE (AND BY LANGUAGE, I MEAN LEET)

Ten points to the first person who can tell me what chapter it's from:
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YEAH, I'M PRETTY SURE WE UNDERSTAND THIS...

We went to the National Library today to hear John Banville speak about Yeats. The talk was interesting at first, and Banville was actually pretty witty and likeable until he started talking about what a terrible writer Cormac McCarthy is and referred to “that old fraud, Ezra Pound.” Oh really, John Banville? And what literary movement were you so influential in establishing? Modernism? Oh no, wait…that was Ezra Pound. He didn’t even really seem to like Yeats that much, which was odd, since he was speaking at a Yeats exhibit about Yeats to an audience that was only there because they love Yeats. To be fair, I haven’t read any of Banville’s writing. He may be perfectly justified in his pretension. It’s quite possible that he is, in fact, better than both McCarthy and Pound. His writing could equal, nay, exceed that of Hemingway, Eliot, Joyce, Frost, Yeats, and all the other geniuses whose writing careers were directly influenced by Pound. But I doubt it. My new goal is to become a famous author, so that I can some day refer to Banville as “an old fraud” at a McCarthy or a Pound exhibit.

KNOCK, KNOCK! WHO'S THERE? LEOPOLD AND MOLLY BLOOM, THAT'S WHO!

We went to the Joyce Centre today, where they have the original door from 7 Eccles Street, where the Blooms live in Ulysses (the actual building doesn't exist anymore), so of course I nerded out and knocked on it. Though the building didn't have quite as much history as Martello Tower, it was still fantastic. They had a room set up to look like the one Joyce stayed at in Trieste and a few 10-minute documentaries that were pretty interesting. Jenny and I ended up talking to our tour guide (about books, what else?) for a few minutes afterwards, and we decided to meet up at a pub later this week to continue our discussion. The only downside of talking with him was that it forced me to come to the painful realization that even Joyce scholars say, "Oh, like Snoop Dog!" when you tell them you're from Long Beach.

It's a beautiful sunny day, which is rare for Dublin, and I'm in a lovely mood. Even if it does stay light until ELEVEN here, I still have to admit the city's growing on me. I'm off to read for a while, look out my window, see that it's starting to get a little dark, think it's six, realize it's eleven-thirty, shout "fuck" as loud as I can and get four hours of sleep again, because the sun comes back up at three-freakin-thirty. Splendid.

I'M PRETTY SURE MY BOOK IS CONSPIRING AGAINST ME

I'm not sure whether the Gabler edition of Ulysses' tendency to fall apart is a mark of shoddy workmanship, or a reflection of the cyclical nature of the novel. Just as the book defies a linear read, the pages refuse to stay bound, preferring instead to jump around, whether it be to other spots in the book (perhaps to be nearer to episodes whose company they prefer over the ones they were placed with) or to the bottom of my bag.

MARTELLO TOWER AND OTHER JAUNTS

We took the train to Martello Tower (now better known as “Joyce’s Tower, though Oliver St. John Gogarty paid the rent—how is that fair?) today after class, and stopped by the 40 foot bathing area (known for forty foot soldiers--that is there were forty of them, not that they were forty-feet tall, awesome as that would have been--that bathed there, not the depth or width of the area). The beach was strikingly beautiful—a nice respite from the busy streets of Dublin. The tower was fantastic as well, but six euro seems a little steep for two small rooms of Joyce memorabilia, especially considering the Yeats exhibit at the National Library was free, and significantly more comprehensive. Then again, Yeats didn’t actually live at the National Library—apparently bona-fide history comes at a premium.

The curator of the museum seemed to be a parody of himself—he was incredibly knowledgeable, and told amusing Joyce anecdotes, but he exhibited all the characteristics one would expect from a curator in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, down to the Oxford accent and the rosy cheeks.

I was dozing off the entire train ride back, which is a pity because the scenery was beautiful. On the way back, with aspirations no loftier than a long nap, we (or rather, Drew) noticed Sweny’s (which was a feat in itself, as the entire façade was obscured by a mass of hideous green scaffolding), and, unable to resist, we went in to buy bars of lemon soap. They were all out, but said they’d ring the hostel when they got some in.

Worn down, and soaked through with rain, we trudged our way back to the hostel, where I attempted to read further in Ulysses, only to get entranced, once more, by the third episode, which, frustrating as it may be, I cannot seem to stop re-reading. It’s as if I have a cursed copy of the book, doomed to fall open to the third chapter, regardless of which one I am attempting to read. I suppose it’s a bit like a train wreck—it’s a mess, and it’s painful, and I know that if I were in my right mind, I wouldn’t subject myself to it once, let alone upwards of seven times, yet somehow, it’s impossible to pull myself away. The strangest thing is that it’s probably my least favorite chapter. It upsets me, not because it is difficult, but because it sucks you into Stephen's mind and makes you feel the frustration of constant, disorganized thought that he feels daily.