Episode 8: Lestrygonians

With Stephen heading off at the end of “Aeolus” for a few pints, Mr. Bloom is once again the sole focalized character of the “Lestrygonians” episode. We join him at 1:00 pm - lunchtime - as he moves south on O’Connell Street from the newspaper office toward the River Liffey. Food is on the brain as he passes Graham Lemon’s Confectioner’s Hall, a candy shop. The episode is peppered with many references to food, and the schema lists “peristaltic prose” as the technique of this episode. In digestion, peristalsis refers to the intestinal muscles contracting and relaxing to push food along; Joyce’s style in “Lestrygonians” employs this concept as Bloom moves in starts and stops through the belly of downtown Dublin.

He accepts an evangelical flyer from a young YMCA fellow, skims its contents (“Are you saved? … Elijah is coming” (8.10-13)), before dismissing this sort of proselytizing advertisement as a for-profit enterprise.  As he approaches the River Liffey, he glances to his right to see Dilly Dedalus waiting outside of Dillon’s auction house on Bachelor’s Walk. Stephen’s little sister appears malnourished and wears a tattered dress.  Bloom presumes that she is selling off furniture and reflects on the collapse of the Dedalus household since the passing of Stephen’s mother; he notes the folly of enormous Catholic families.

Crossing O’Connell bridge, Bloom observes a barge carrying Guinness for export to England and considers with some measure of disgust the frequent occurrence of rats falling into the vats of beer, drinking themselves drunk, puking, and eventually drowning - “Imagine drinking that!” (8.47-49), he exclaims, but soberly reconciles himself to the inevitability of ingesting horrible stuff, saying “Well, of course, if we knew all the things” (8.50).  In our own era of industrial food production, we probably would rather not know what we may be eating.  He watches gulls flapping in hungry hope of food, and he tosses into the river the “Elijah is coming” flyer he has just received and crumpled up (remember this little vessel as it begins its voyage down the Liffey - we’ll see it again).  He contemplates what makes for poetry, then buys two Banbury cakes to toss generously into the water for the gulls.

He sees an ad for trousers on a rowboat anchored in the river, admires the cleverness of that placement, and thinks of other smart ads he’s seen.  In a moment of panic, he wonders whether Boylan has an STD but decides surely not and encourages himself to “think no more about that” (8.108), repressing his anxiety over the afternoon meeting between Boylan and Molly, which he knows will happen at 4:00.  He looks at the clock on the Ballast Office across the river to see that it is just after 1:00.  As the clock ticks toward his cuckolding, Bloom thinks of this morning’s conversation with Molly about metempsychosis and her “O rocks!” (8.112) rejection of pretentious vocabulary.  Bloom then argues with himself over whether or not his wife is clever.  

He sees men walking toward him wearing sandwichboards bearing the letters H-E-L-Y-S, for Wisdom Hely’s stationary shop, where he previously worked, and criticizes the ineffectiveness of this kind of ad while thinking of the advertising ideas he had suggested to Mr. Hely during his tenure in that job. We get a few memories from his professional and personal life, leading him to muse that he was “happier then” (8.170) than he is now.  Sad.

His absorption in memories of Molly is interrupted by Mrs. Breen, formerly Josie Powell, an ex girlfriend of Mr. Bloom. They ask about one another’s families, and Bloom’s interior reveals his smooth strategies in conversations with women (smoother, it seems, than his social interactions with men).  Mrs. Breen shares with Mr. Bloom the trouble she’s having with her slightly unhinged husband, who last night woke up from a nightmare, explaining that “the ace of spades was walking up the stairs” (8.253), and is currently meeting with John Henry Menton to research libel laws in regards to a postcard he received this morning that reads “U. p: up” (8.258). The meaning of this card is unclear, but Breen has clearly taken offense. Gifford explains a few speculative interpretations, including Richard Ellman’s suggestion that it means “when erect you urinate rather than ejaculate” and that “U.P.” is used by an apothecary’s apprentice in Oliver Twist “to announce the imminent death of an old woman” (Gifford 163).

Bloom shifts the topic of conversation to poor Mina Purefoy, a mutual friend, who has spent the past three days deep in the throes of childbirth at the Holles Street Maternity Hospital (n.b., Mr. Bloom will spend the 14th episode of Ulysses, “Oxen of the Sun,” at the hospital waiting for news of Mrs. Purefoy’s labor).  Then, a Dublin eccentric named Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell passes by Bloom and Mrs. Breen, wearing a too tight hat, carrying a coat, a stick, and an umbrella, and walking outside the lampposts.  Mrs. Breen then spots her husband and takes off after him.

Bloom resumes his walk southward, passing by the offices of the Irish Times and considers dropping in to collect any new responses to his wanted ad for a “smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work” (8.326-27).  Out of the forty-four he has already read, he began his correspondence with Martha Clifford, the most recent missive of which he collected and read in the “Lotus-Eaters” episode, you’ll recall.

He stops to consider his dining options, notes that he needs to visit the National Library later and therefore opts for the Burton over Rowe’s due to its location on the way.  He moves along.  Remember the schema’s identification of this episode’s “peristaltic” style as you feel the stop-and-start quality of Bloom’s physical and mental passage through this episode.

Bloom thinks again of Mina Purefoy, laments the awful pain of childbirth, and proposes a social savings plan whereby the state would give everyone 5 pounds at birth to grow at interest over the lifespan to a “tidy sum” (8.386). As we will see in greater detail later, Bloom leans toward socialism.

As he passes the Irish House of Parliament (now the Bank of Ireland), he sees a flock of pigeons and imagines them plotting out “who will we do it on?” (8.402) like a bombing formation fixing its target.  He continues through the heart of Dublin, crossing “under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger” (8.414), prominent on the statue of this Irish poet, singer/songwriter, and entertainer.  He sees squads of policemen in formation, thinks about Irish revolutionary groups, and passes by Trinity College’s “surly front” (8.476).  He enters a rather gloomy mental space, culminating in the thought that “No-one is anything” (8.493).

He thinks of John Howard Parnell, brother to the late Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish political leader, and then coincidentally sees him right there on the street.  A.E. (the poet George Russell) along with his associate in poetry Lizzie Twigg then pass by on bicycles, and we catch a snippet of their conversation.  Mr. Bloom, having thought about these two a few minutes earlier, is astounded by this second coincidence, and muses about the taste and fashion sense of aesthetes.

Bloom pauses for an optical trick of “blotting out the sun” (8.566) with his finger, and continues down this avenue of thought as his mind returns to curiosity about the notion of parallax.  

Molly’s impending affair returns to the forefront of Bloom’s thoughts as he remembers an evening just over two weeks ago when the three of them, Bloom, Molly, and Boylan walked together after a performance. With subtle stroking hands, Boylan and Molly made clear their reciprocal interest in each other, and Bloom noticed: “He other side of her. Elbow, arm […] Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.” (8.589-91). Bloom then attempts to shake this memory and all that it portends from his mind, thinking “Stop. Stop. If it was it was” (8.592). Bloom is simply tortured.  He spies Bob Doran bobbing through the street on a bender, then returns to his thought that he was “happier then” (8.608), hearkening back to the previous decade, the era prior to the loss of Rudy. He thinks, “Could never like it again after Rudy” (8.610), hinting toward what we will learn about the Bloom marriage in the “Ithaca” episode: there has been “a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete” (17.2282-83). Clearly, the loss of baby Rudy left a deep wound in Bloom and profoundly impacted his relationship with Molly.  Knowing that they have shared a largely sexless marriage since Rudy’s death provides more context for the conditions leading to the impending affair with Boylan, as well as Bloom’s response thereto.

He reaches Grafton Street and window-shops outside Brown Thomas, a fancy store, thinking of what to get Molly for her birthday (September 8th), still nearly three months away.  Even in the midst this hour’s gloominess over what is to come later in the afternoon, Mr. Bloom thinks of Molly.  He turns onto Duke Street and pops into The Burton, a restaurant, and witnesses a disgusting display of table manners from the lunchtime rush of men eating there. “Mr. Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said: - Not here. Don’t see him” (8.694-95). Cleverly tactful, Bloom is acting like he’s looking for someone he is supposed to meet there, and he uses not seeing that imaginary person as an excuse to leave. He opts instead to eat a light lunch at Davy Byrne’s “moral pub” (8.732).  

Once inside Davy Byrne's, Mr. Bloom is greeted by Nosey Flynn, a rather greasy, somewhat unpleasant man perched in a corner of the pub, and orders a glass of burgundy and a gorgonzola cheese sandwich.  Nosey Flynn asks about Molly’s upcoming performances and rather unkindly but subtly twists the Blazes Boylan knife into Bloom, who needs a drink: “He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down” (8.796-96). My word, what a sentence.

Nosey Flynn scratches his crotch and praises Blazes Boylan as a winner in gambling.  They discuss the Gold Cup horse race to be run today, and Bloom considers telling Nosey Flynn about Lenehan’s tip but decides against it. Bloom, not a gambler, doesn’t want to encourage another’s bad habit. He enjoys his wine and mentally makes a plan to go home around six o’clock, by which time he expects Molly will be done with Boylan.  

Bloom thinks about how we know what foods are safe and tasty and which are poisonous, oysters for instance.  He imagines himself as a waiter in a swish restaurant and notices two flies stuck together, perhaps copulating, which leads him to the memory of his picnic date with Molly up on Howth Head, a lovely hilly peninsula overlooking Dublin Bay from north of the city.  This is a beautiful, romantic passage, and it leads Bloom to compare “Me.  And me now” (8.917) - himself in that afternoon of passionate young love, and himself this afternoon of despondence and imminent cuckoldry.

Bloom’s attention shifts to the beautiful curve of the oak of the bar, then to the curves of the statues of goddesses in the National Library Museum and then to his curiosity as to the anatomical realism of those statues...he resolves to subtly check whether they have holes in their undercarriage when visiting the museum later today.  He’s an odd duck, no two ways about it.

Bloom heads to the restroom, but the narrative perspective remains in the front room of the pub. Davy Byrne inquires into Bloom’s profession.  Nosey Flynn explains that he works as an ad canvasser for the Freeman, but he goes on to explain that Bloom is a Freemason, a member of the secretive “ancient free and accepted order” (8.962), and that they “give him a leg up” (8.963) beyond what he makes in advertising.  The two men go on alternatively to praise Mr. Bloom for his moderation and kindness and cast aspersions on his rumored aversion to swearing an oath or signing a contract because he is Jewish.

Paddy Leonard, Tom Rochford, and Bantam Lyons, who Bloom encountered earlier in the morning at the end of the “Lotus Eaters” episode, come into Davy Byrne’s Pub.  Paddy Leonard offers to buy a round and is flabbergasted to hear that both men are passing up a drink - Rochford is dealing with indigestion and Bantam Lyons orders a ginger ale.  These men, plus Nosey Flynn, discuss their wagers on this afternoon’s Gold Cup horse race, and Bantam Lyons, just as Bloom walks out of the pub, tells the others that Bloom has given him a tip on Throwaway.  Paddy Leonard is incredulous.

The narrative perspective returns to Mr. Bloom as he returns to the streets of Dublin and makes his way toward the library to procure the art from another ad in the Kilkenny People newspaper for the Keyes ad he’s working on.  His mood has improved after drinking the glass of burgundy, and he does a bit of mental accounting to tally up his accounts receivable and projected income and decides he’s in good financial shape.  He considers using these funds to buy for Molly a new silk underskirt, prompting his mind to turn again to what is to happen later this afternoon.  He tries to escape those thoughts by considering organizing his own singing tour with Molly, taking her to the south coast of England.  

He passes another sweetshop and a bookstore before coming to an intersection where a  young blind man appears tentative about crossing the street.  Charitable, kind-hearted Mr. Bloom helps him cross the street and wonders about the senses and how a blind person experiences the world - do different colors have different feels?  He experiments on himself, feeling his own dark hair and light skin, and then wonders how blind people dream, having never seen.

As Mr. Bloom approaches the library, he glimpses a man in a straw hat, wearing tan shoes and cuffed trousers…Blazes Boylan.  His heart and breath betray his panic as he moves swiftly toward the museum, hoping to evade his rival.  He pretends to be fascinated by the architecture of the museum, then pretends to search his pockets for the lemon soap.  He reaches the gate of the museum, safely avoiding what we can only assume would have been an excruciating encounter with the man who will spend the late afternoon having sex with his wife.