Summary
Bloom’s thoughts are peppered with references to food as lunchtime approaches. He meets an old flame, hears news of Mina Purefoy’s labour, and helps a blind boy cross the street. He enters the restaurant of the Burton Hotel, where he is revolted by the sight of men eating like animals. He goes instead to Davy Byrne’s pub, where he consumes a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of burgundy, and muses upon the early days of his relationship with Molly and how the marriage has declined: “Me. And me now.” 8-917Bloom’s thoughts touch on what goddesses and gods eat and drink. He ponders whether the statues of Greek goddesses in the National Museum have anuses as do mortals. On leaving the pub Bloom heads toward the museum, but spots Boylan across the street and, panicking, rushes into the gallery across the street from the museum.
Although Bloom has no particular horror of the stuff that comes out of the intestines (rather the contrary), he does feel discouraged by the unending daily need to eat: “stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food: have to feed it like stoking an engine.” The cyclicality of food becoming waste and re-entering the mouth reconstituted as food has been anticipated earlier as he stood on the bridge, gazing at the feces-laden Liffey: “If I threw myself down? Reuben J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage.” The alimentary channel forms a torus through which the physical environment flows uninterrupted. Eater and eaten, food and excrement, make up an endlessly repeated cycle.
The elemental need to fill one’s stomach day after day discourages Bloom. In one brief passage of a few paragraphs, he thinks of how dinner invitations bait young men into joining the revolutionary cause; how trams and policemen go in and out, in and out, every day of the year; how dead bodies are “carted off,” and screaming babies “tugged out,” every day of the year; how an entire “cityful” of people is replaced with a new “cityful” of people, over and over again; how cities themselves, and their wealth, are “worn away age after age.” His conclusion: “No one is anything.” Even planets and stars wink in and out: “Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid: then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, like that pineapple rock.” Later, his contemplations of transience become personal as he remembers kissing Molly on Howth Head and accepting the chewed seedcake from her mouth while a nannygoat walked by, “dropping currants.” The passage of food reminds him that the passage of ten years has destroyed his marital happiness: “Me. And me now.”
Schema
Since Joyce identified the art of his chapter as “architecture,” it seems likely that he meant for the imposing buildings flanking Bloom as he walks—the Ballast House, the “surly front” of Trinity College, the Bank of Ireland, the canyon of Grafton Street, the bend into Duke Street—to evoke the cliffs that frame the Lestrygonian harbor.
Odyssey Allusion
In book 10 of Homer’s epic, just after the story of Aeolus and the winds, Odysseus recounts how his men rowed for six days to reach the land of Laestrygonia, where they found a harbor like a mouth:
We reached the famous harbor, all surrounded
by sheer rock cliffs. On each side, strips of shore
jut out and almost meet, a narrow mouth.    (88-90)
Most of the ships dropped anchor inside this harbor, but Odysseus cautiously moored his vessel just outside it. Three men were dispatched to go inland and see who lived there. They met a girl fetching water—the daughter of the king, Antiphates—and she took them back to the palace, where her mother, a giant, grabbed and ate one of the men. A force of giants led by her father pursued the other men back to the harbor, wrecked the anchored ships by bombarding them with huge boulders, and speared the floating sailors for supper. Only Odysseus and his crew escaped.
Episode Notes
Bloom is approached by YMCA evangelicalist
- “Are you saved? … Elijah is coming” 8.10
- He dimisses it as for-profit advertising
Bloom notices Dilly Dedalus, one of the Dedalus children
- He pities her, “Good lord, that poor child’s dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks too.” 8.43
- Thus he scorns so-called large catholic families: “Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution” 8.44
Crossing O’Connell bridge, Bloom sees Guinness barge
- He thinks about how the “rats get in too,” fall in, and “drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter.” 8.48
- Thinks how gross it would be to drink that Beer, of course, thinks, “Well, of course, if we knew all the things” 8.50 He isn’t exactly absolved from this…
- Bloom then throws out the Crumpled Throwaway Elijah is coming
Bloom sees some adverts and judges them
- An ad for trousers on a tethered boat
- “Good idea… it’s always flowing in a stream, never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream.” 8.95
- He thinks about Molly, about if Boylan might have STD’s
- Sees a “H.E.L.Y.S.” ad as signs on five men’s heads, it’s the HELYS Sandwhich-board Men
- He criticizes the ineffectiveness of this kind of ad and thinks back to the advertising ideas he had suggested to Mr. Hely during his tenure in that job, all rejected
- He thinks to himeslf, “Happy. Happier then.” 8.170 Happier then
Bloom runs into Mrs. Breen a former girlfriend
- They catch up about each others families, both seem unhappy with their spouse
- They exchange various figures of speech: “In the pink,” “Getting on like a house on fire,” “Turn up like a bad penny” simply the language of the modern Dubliner
- Mrs. Breen discusses a card sent to her husband containing only “U.P” 8.257
- 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)
- There could be many meanings, need there be a right one?
- He randomly thinks about Matcham’s Masterstroke again “Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ Club. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.”
- They talk about Mina Purefoy who has spent three days in Holles Street Maternity Hospital for childbirth
- They spot Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell
- Mrs. Breen spots her husband and must leave
Bloom does more walking, thinking
- He thinks baout the add he put out: “smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work” 8.326
- Of course the only one who’s responded is Martha Clifford
- He times his eating: “Eating with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute.” 8.360
- Comes up with a Socialist idea to start a fund for every child born that compounds interest until 18, adding up to a “tidy sum” 8.386
- Another bout of Money Making Schemes
- Of course adds, “Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for nothing.”
- Which of course refers to his son Rudy Bloom who died in infancy
- He thinks about Home Rule
- Thinks about Money Making Schemes
- Thinks about Vegetarianism: “nly weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity.” 8.536 Metempsychosis
- Thinks about the passage of time: ” Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, for the night. No one is anything.” 8.489
- He pauses for an optical trick of “blotting out the sun” with his thumb 8.566
He thinks about Molly and Boylan, Rudy
- With subtle stroking hands, Boylan and Molly made clear their reciprocal interest in each other which Bloom notices: “He other side of her. Elbow, arm […] Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.” 8.589
- Bloom shakes it from his mind, “Stop. Stop. If it was it was” 8.592
- He sees Bob Doran on an apparent bender
- Bloom thinks to himself, “I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I?” 8.608 Happier then or was that I
Bloom enters The Burton
- He is disgusted by seeing everyone eating lunch
- “Stink gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slop of greens. See the animals feed. Men, men, men.” 8.650
- “Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew.” 8.655
- Yet he reflects, “Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an angry man.” 8.662
- Making an excuse to leave, he “raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said:— Not here. Don’t see him.” 8.694 Two fingers doubtfully to his lips
- Leaving, “He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill!” 8.7003
- He opts for something vegetarian: “After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic of course it stinks Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too.” 8.720
Bloom instead eats at Davy Byrne’s Pub a “moral pub”
- He is greeted by Nosey Flynn, a rather greasy, somewhat unpleasant man perched in a corner of the pub
- Bloom orders a glass of burgundy and a gorgonzola cheese sandwich
- He thinks about Plumtree’s Potted Meat again, ” Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree’s potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s potted meat.” 8.744 Plumtrees Potted Meat
- Flynn asks about Molly, and asks if Boylan is “mixed up in it?” 8.787
- Bloom needs a drink: “He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down” 8.796
Bloom thinks about food, the past
- As Flynn scrates his crotch “snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good meal,” 8.799 Bloom’s mind wanders
- Bloom wonders if he should give the Tip on Throwaway but decides not to
- He thinks when he should go home, “Then about six o’cloud I can. Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She.” 8.853
- He thinks about how we know what foods are safe and what are poisonious
- He drinks wine, which reminds him of pinic date with Molly long ago, 8.917 Me. And me now
- He thinks about how eating is like “stoking an engine” 8.930 And thinks to look at some statue’s butts, as a continuation of his apparent fascination with Excrement and The Anus
Bloom leaves as Davy Byrne and Nosey Flynn converse
- The two exahnge compliments of Bloom, but also point out that he is a Free Mason, and say, “They give him a leg up.” 8.963
- They also point out his jewishness, saying “Nothing in black and white” 8.988 Nothing in black and white
- I kinda just like this passage, “Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one: — Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!” 8.969
- Paddy Leonard, Tom Rochford, and Bantam Lyon enter
- Paddy offers a round which is turned down, to his surprise
- Rochford is dealing with indigestion and Bantam Lyons orders a ginger ale
- The men discuss the upcoming horse race
- Bantam Lyons says Bloom gave him a Tip on Throwaway, to which Paddy is incredulous
Bloom walks, his mind wanders, he helps a blind man
- He thinks about his Finances and decides he will be good
- Thinks of buying Molly a new underskirt, and then thinks of The Affair
- Must interrupt, “Today. Today. Must not think.” 8.1062
- he sees a blind man trying to cross the street and kindly helps him across
- He thinks, ” Wonder if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse’s legs: tired drudge get his doze. That’s right. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a horse.” 8.1099
- Considers his perspective: “Queer idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he walk in a beeline if he hadn’t that cane?” 8.1110
- Also thinks about how his other sense of smell must be stronger, “Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring, the summer: smells. Tastes? They say you can’t taste wines with your eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no pleasure.” 8.1121
- Also something about a piano tuner TODO
Bloom sees Boylan
- He glimpses a man in a straw hat, “Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is.” 8.1168
- He immediatey crosses the street, as his heart and mind race, worrying Boyland saw him
- Bloom pretends ot admire some architeture of the musuem
- Then he pretends to search his pockets:
- I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman. Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Purse. The Potato. Where did I? Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart. His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah, soap there! Yes. Gate. Safe!” 8.1188
Themes
- Doting on the Past
- Thinking about the dead
- Thinking about Molly and Boylan