Re:Joyce Episode 286 - Flossing & Fretting

Vested interests in the editor’s office.

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Comments

[lawrence lebin]

just how much careful thought did joyce put into this, one might ask? here's a trivial example: in this weeks text, bloom uses the editor's phone to call a prospective client named keys about an advertisement. the number he dials is 2844. if we add the numbers together the total comes to 18. so what? how many chapters are there in this novel? 18. where are we? in the kingdom of the winds, where in ULYSSES, Ulysses is about to get the bag of winds which will take him directly home,as the telephone seems to promise. there is no writer before or after joyce who packed so much into his work. and finnegans wake is even more so. don't you just love him?

[Barbara Stoner]

I had no idea that dental floss was known in Joyce's time - my regular excuse to my dentist for not having used it for years was that I had never heard of it before the age of 35 and then my first thought was, string in my teeth? Are you nuts? Sadly, they turned out to be right and I became a very good dental patient.

I'll tell my dentist about that next time I see him. :)

[Ken Fletcher]

lawrence lebin

Sorry, but your numerology theory is wrong. Bloom doesn't dial 2844. At the last moment he seems to realise that he has misremembered the number and corrects it to 2044.

"-- Twenty eight ... No, twenty ... Double four ... Yes."

Given that he gets through, he seems to be correct.

Adding those numbers together gives 10. The precise number in "James Joyce", proving nothing.

There is enough to find in Ulysses without adding spurious 'facts'.

[Ken Fletcher]

@lawrence lebin

Actually, Bloom doesn't dial anything. Phones had no dials at that time. He is speaking to an operator.

Either my theory of misremembering is correct or the telephone operator mishears Bloom.

Either way, the numerology theory barely stands up.

Also Bloom's client is Keyes, not 'keys'.

What makes you think Bloom's call promises to take him home?

[Lawrence lebin]

There's still twenty eight ...double four equaling 18. Note: after twenty eight period "no" period & then double four comma "yes" (last word in ULYSSES). 18 takes bloom home (the wind through telephone line) but he corrects the number to twenty which adds up to ten the wandering rocks chapter which is halfway through. The "no" & "yes" play a significant part in my theory. Again note the positioning of the "no" & the "yes". don't know about phone dialing but if you're right how can we understand "whirred"? Sorry about Keyes. Your correction of my spurious facts actually strengthen my reading; bloom has been thinking of home & then trying not to think of what's going to happen there since chapter 4. Thanks for your response.

[Lawrence lebin]

A couple of revelations. First Joyce solves the "whirred" telephone problem on 106 Gabler; you're right there's a bell Joyce describes as "whirred". Second I identified the 10 (2+0+4+4 = 10 as a reference to chapter 10 in ULYSSES the beginning of the second half. Bloom appears in that chapter in the auction house known as Dillon's where he went to find Keyes. I was & still am happy w/that reading. But there's more to 10 (in addition to the Pythagorean). In Homer's ODYSSEY book ten (10) is where the episode of Aeolus takes place. Gotta love the beautiful care & complexity of this Joyce masterpiece, maybe not so spurious

[William Keller]

Re: # 287. Frank Delaney's two explanations for the phrase "Small nines" are, I think, especially enlightening as the second such definition, "parentheses," helps replicate in delightful, albeit malicious fashion Bloom's bandy-legged gait. Such are his legs as he proceeds on his size nine shoes.