It is not folly to have some sympathy for Garryowen; he is a dog, always with a character, and men have been companied by dogs for a long time, and strangely, men sometimes seem to adopt the character, even the facial expression of their dogs, this an inversion of what we might normally expect. 

They are more alert that most of us; more loyal than most of us, more responsible than most of us.  Trained, as at any dog training school, they are better behaved than most of us.

Which makes us think that perhaps all of us, as children, should attend child training schools; early lessons in, say, the Ten Commandments, would without question reduce the sullen flow of juvenile delinquents through our courts.  This not for religious reasons; simply to benefit the child, with a clear, simple, firm, teaching; and through the child, society.

Many years of work in this field have convinced me that it is the parents, one or the other, so often should be standing trial for the offence, so many ignorant and unaware.

But back to the dog.

Garryowen denied the chase, the runnable stag, glen and hill; the horse, the hound, the wily fox. Denied of such glorious life, now but a mongrel dog a hanger-on in a cheap pub.

Bad luck Garryowen, but that’s life.

Terribly so, with many of this world's children.
 

This Autumn evening, the sunset pink and grey, old Sol himself a blaze of gold, the river at peace, the tide at the full, the birds wheel in great flocks from the gathering trees; echelons of delight, to the nights roosting trees, their chatter a happy seeming acknowledgment of another perfect day in paradise; not the least of that paradise; the young couples; so often with children; taking the evening air.  Often a picnic tea on the river bank. 

So it is at our pad, a good day, the thousand words achieved, extracted from storage, dusted off and arranged in order for mine own pleasure, and one trusts, for trust is stronger than hope, for yours also.
 

Our Greek friend is again critical of my reference of Australia; I imagine he persists in the hope of correcting me.  “You say Oz, is that right?”

I repeat that which I have said earlier, “It’s simple, quick to write, easy to spell, and not prone to hideous mispronunciation.”

He is not impressed. He loves this place. It has been so good to him and his large extended family and he does not like the usage, simply because he himself has no trouble in pronouncing ‘Australia,’ as it should be said, clearly and distinctly. 

So many fail this simple necessity.

So I defend Oz to him on the simple grounds that so many mispronounce the name that Flinders gave. 
 

Listen to them, TV, Radio, all, at any level from the supermarket to the federal parliament and all the parliaments between, mayors and councillors, sportsmen and policemen, there’s a thousand variations of the name which Flinders gave to this country, the variations are a multitude and most if them ugly. 

TV and Radio, the public platforms should indeed have a duty to ensure a proper standard pronunciation.  Why not!  We accept too much of weak professional standards.

The media has a clear and strong responsibility in moulding public standards.

They touch up the face, the dress, tidy the hair, of presenters; they should ensure regular and acceptable use of the name of this potentially great country.

This country, Australia, should insist that it’s national and thus international standards be high, for the simple reason that they are all representative of us. That which we broadcast to the world should tell the world what we are; Australians! And decent and responsible citizens.  Our broadcasters are shaping, day after day, that elusive Australian identity which the political guru has been seeking for so long, and by which, day by day, the world is judging us.  We should be careful that no British or American cartoonist gives us a label that sticks, imposes an identity on us that we will not like.

Careless language, gutter language, ill spoken language, tells the world that we are already shaping ourselves for Paul Keating’s threatened 'Third World Republic'. A good deal more of self-respect is desirable in many of our public figures.
 

The Greek friend is with us today, out on the balcony overlooking the river.  It is hot, well into the thirties but the river is cool. Fishermen along the banks, the boys along the river on their kayaks, a couple of good, keen men in their launches on the way up to the Cod Hole beyond the bridge; the parakeets and other birds coming in for the nights roosting and full of chatter and colour, brilliant in red and green and blue and gold. 

He is deeply concerned with the bushfires; forest fires he calls them, which calls to mind yet another who calls his bush, 'woods', you can’t see the wood for the trees; it is the loss of the trees concerns him.

Ulysses is at hand so we read aloud from Cyclops.  The references to Greece will please my Greek Odysseus.

'Where are the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of all mankind; with gold and Tyrian purple to sell in Wickford at the fair of Carmen; --------- as treeless as Portugal soon will be says John Wise; or Heligoland with its one tree, if something is not done to reforest the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast ------'.

'Save them', says the Citizen, 'The giant ash and the chieftain elm of Kildare, with a forty foot bole, and an acre of foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire O!'

He is impressed. He also has seen such vast trees; he’s interested to learn that his ancestors traded with Ireland. "That book,” he says, touching Ulysses, "So different, says many things."

That is a good comment on Ulysses, a little of everything. 

He asks, “Why Portugal?”

“They took the trees there to build the great Spanish Armada.”

“Why not England then, they had such a fleet?”

“The English replanted the trees. The New Forest.”

He nods. Tells us that the East is so much desert because the trees were taken; fleets, wars, firewood, houses, for so many, and for so long.  Asia is older than the western world. Greece and Persia stripped like Portugal, for the ships when the Greek fought the Persians. 

“How long” he asks, “before Australia is all desert.  They sell trees here, very cheap, just to make wood chips.”

All I can say is, “I know; they must protect the soil from the sun. Those Englishmen knew. He is looking a trifle gloomy, so tell him we are planting trees, many more than we are cutting down; forests of trees; one station owner alone has planted a million trees; we know their value.  So on to the next paragraph, this will cheer him up.

'The fashionable international world, this afternoon at the wedding of the Chevalier Jean Wise de Neaulan; grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley; Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Miss Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Pollash, Miss Holly Hazeleyes; Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake; Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees; Mrs Rowan Greene -----' there’s another three hundred words of this.

He thinks that this is a clever play with words and is amused that the happy couple are to spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest. 

But I, with many others wondering why we sell woodchips when the trees are a hundred times more valuable as lumber.

This indeed a universal function of literature; a happy hour or so across the world, and an age later, your book still alive in another mind.

Our thanks James, you would be happy to know that new generations are 'delicitated by the picaresquiness of your images'.
 

Other than the farcical matching of Miss Conifer Fir in the Cyclops episode Joyce, though offering a birth and a funeral, failed us on the middle station of life – marriage.

He refused the contract with Nora; possibly because of a probable flat refusal of the simple ceremony by Father Maher; one of his recollections of 16 Jane 1904 when he later wrote the book. 

He did though, offer his hand and his vows later; this to protect his descendants in the matter of royalties for that book.

Money, as well as matrimony has its responsibilities.  One wonders though if it was but the fear that he could not – may not – would not be able to honour the marriage contract.  So many have uttered the words but failed to honour them.  'Will thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife after Gods ordinance in the Holy offer of matrimony?  Will thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep her only unto thee, so long as ye both shall live'?

Book of Common Prayer.  Sadly we live in a time when a vow, a promise, an undertaking before witnesses can be as nothing.

The vows so often taken; so often denied.
They are strong indeed, who, forsaking all others, honour the word.
Yet about one in three marriages fail, despite the vows, that beautiful symbolic ceremony.
Almost certainly the failure is a weakness; often a folly: always a failure: and usually one or the other partners a victim.
Thanks be to the Gods, whatever their names, for that great strong middle class, happily married and the source and fount of all our future.
 

NAUSICAA Introducing Gerty Mac Dowell, a pert young miss.  Bloom still at large. Time about say 6.00pm to 7.00pm.

Nausicaa was a girl with ideas, acted on them, thus completing a useful piece of work. 

Thus also Ms Rowling has much more than Harry Potter to offer. 

She tells the most wildly improbable tale, but with a zest and freshness that touches our deep need for the archetypal hero; for courage, justice and confidence; the soul stuff of myth and legend; that same strong human spirit that ensures Homer’s epic journey is printed and read, treasured after three millennia.  Even her villians, greater then mere man.

This is the stimulation that our children need.

The achievement of Voyager, still sailing the void of space; Mars and the planets; man on the moon; the computer wizardry; all are too new in our consciousness for myth; they are intellectual adventures; the courage of the spaceman plainly engineered; too recent to be invested with mythos, too severely practical to touch the subconscious mind with magic.

So deep a touching may indeed occur; but the stories, the legends, and the myths not yet defined.  The loss of Challenger; such a name, comparable with the dream of Dedalus for his son Icarus.  In the sev’n thousand years this also to become a myth, the soul of magic.

Imagination real, visionary, a vast accomplishment; but imagination harnessed and directed. The mythos is fluid, a magic that flows through the mind; invested in the word, flooding our dreams, a song lifting and lilting in the creative mind; this is when and where the wonderful thing; the wonderful people become transformed into myth and serve and inspire the mind and spirit of the future.

So for our children’s sakes, we must ask ourselves what are the humanised cartoon animals, the trivial song, the acted emotion the violence without pain; the frenetic body language of the low grade TV, doing to our children? 
 

The children have an instinctive hunger for depth and meaning, so essential for survival.

We must ensure that the right stories compete with, and compete successfully with the other.

The tinsel world has little to do with survival; just entertainment, but the reality is that we do need the higher skills, for the challenges and dangers exist still, but come to us in difficult and different ways.

The world is much the same as ever, the difference is mainly in such surface artefacts, and in our day, in the way, and the context, in which we rear our children.
 

Ms Rowling; a new voice, a teacher, weaver of dreams, of spells, and underlying the magic, the very foundation- stones of our civilisation; imagination, courage, skill; fast reactions, quick thinking; such intangibles all much the part of the mature human being, and all skilfully presented through Harry Potter and associates.

It is no surprise that Tolkien’s 'Lord of the Rings' has been in the Top Ten books of the world for so many years; no surprise that Harry Potter is ranked there too. No surprise at the flood of otherworld books. No surprise that Superman vies with James Bond in the heroic stakes. Deep down, we love excellence, love courage; respect loyalty and character; and most of us live by such principles in the suburban life and find in them the strength to survive happily.   Sadly, one so often notes the lack of one or another of these qualities in so much of our public life. 

Are the terrible suicides amongst our children because there is no such principle in the family? If the child is not taught, he does not know this the simple elementary truth. The suburban life, the street corner and a Coke or a beer are not enough. Sadly the loss, the defeat, carried on through the family.  Truly as the old birds sing; so the young ones twitter.

And more suicides, nationally, than deaths from motor accidents!

So Ms Rowling is teaching us quite instinctively a reshaping of the ancient mythology; a fellow creature of most vivid colour; bright imaginings, vital power, a glimpse, a vision of a boy with god-like powers, a picture to stir and inspire the minds of our children.

This is the boy she saw. The child triumphant in life, for do not all women pray, to whatever gods they have, for their children?
 

The story of Nausicaa is alive, colourful and positive in Homer’s poem. 
Nausicaa, fed up with her brother’s grubby clothing, tells the father that she intends to take it all down to the river and wash the lot.

Dad agrees, harnesses the old horse to the cart; the girls, Nausicaa and her maids load up and off.

At the river, she discovers Odysseus asleep naked; caked in sand, dripping seaweed, washed up on the beach. 

Rescues, cleansing and robing him, she gets him safely into her fathers great hall.

Alcinous, King of Phaecia is renowned, wealthy beyond dreams. His hall is lined with great gold and silver dogs; the torches held in the hands of boys all made from gold. Outside, his gardens, famed through Attica. Every fruit here ranged in long rows, variety ripening after variety, in that climate harvested through the year; grapes for table and for wine, and row upon row of fresh greens, ever good eating in his Hall.

The guest accepted; his god-like physique admired by all, how he thus warmed the heart of lovely Athena; and here after games and sports in which Odysseus is challenged and is victorious, he tells the long story of his journey. The story which has lived three thousand years.

Here too, the story of Hephaestus of the Greeks; the cunning artificer, he who created the armour of Achilles. His wife, the lovely Aphrodite, is in adultery with Aries, the God of War. The story of the smith’s revenge, a yarn for the centuries.  Here too, we are granted a glimpse of the court Bard Demodocus, a blind singer, telling of Troy, the sacking of the city, singing of events never mentioned in the Iliad or the Odyssey.  Could this indeed be a hidden picture of Homer himself?

The King’s heart turned to compassion; and the guest is granted god speed in a swift black ship laden with great treasure. Thus he arrives at last on the shores of his native land.  'Just a swift trip thru the night'.

The long journey ended. Home.
 

Homer’s Nausicaa is a girl-woman; such as James Joyce could never hope to portray. I call her ‘girl-woman’ because she is but a girl; but there, as in many societies today, of marriageable age; that is, from about thirteen. They would laugh at the folly of our women who put off marriage in favour of a career. Bearing children at a late age would seem to them, the height of folly.  In those heady days they grew up with their children; not old with them!  Child marriage; a custom inherited from our primitive years, still practised widely in the Old World.  Surely such will have no place in the global village?
 

Our Greek Odysseus, embarked on the perilous seas of life, is ever, and particularly today fearful for the future of his children.  He tells me all, unburdens himself of his fears.  Our children grow up, from their utterly innocent babyhood, in a most unnatural world.

It’s baby time into child care – play school, kindy, pre school; then to school; and TV and the peer pressure; so much that is pretend; sweet and lovely animals; lions and tigers a dreadful lie; even crocodiles smile; by the sixth year hooked on the Simpsons, Banana’s in Pyjamas; thanks be for the Wiggles; at least they are real if only playboys.

As adolescents, still at school, still in an artificial over protected world.  Little of home making; even at home, the old home crafts no longer learned; the boys still immature in their experience of life, and the process moves on into University.

Lastly the young people will move into the reality where self confidence creativity and training in a trade or profession brings a more realistic maturity.

The unhappy after shock from the Israelite experience of kabbitz training of children has created thousands of unhappy people, cursed with the knowledge and feeling of rejection, denied the family bonding so essential to self confidence, deprived for life of their simplest most profound natural security – mother.

Little wonder of the disturbed adolescent, learning the hard way that life is not all play; that life demands courage, a touch of endurance; the everlasting challenge of self reliance.

Little wonder that so many marriages fail.  So many men still boys, and spoilt boys; so many women still girls trapped in the magazine world of unsatisfied 'wants'.

Thanks be, that so many achieve the simple goal of life, a confident maturity: So I console him.  "Not to worry; just keep on as you are; the home life will protect them; they have been well cared for; they have good parents; they will grow into good people; in their time be good parents.”
 

Gerty MacDowell, in reverie on the beach, beside the surf-sighing sea; a dear sweet innocent girl; or is she indeed a Celtic Maev, a young female Celt and the time is Spring, with all its regenerative powers; its eternal drive to replenish the earth. 

Opposite her, his ox eyes, she knows, undressing her; so she humours him, and her female self, by exposing her legs, her bloomers, they were called in those days and lay back against the rock her legs as far apart as her kilted skirt would allow. 

The wench knows full well what the man is up to and is enjoying every moment of the mutual experience; and Mr Joyce imagines her internal monologue to be about cloth and prices and other rubbish; utter rubbish. 

So much for what he knows about women.

There are many, too many perhaps, modern writers who could let Mr Joyce into a fuller understanding of the probable content of Gerty’s interior monologue. It would be utterly different from the imaging of Joyce. 

Although the times are different, men and women have been the same for a very long time and no doubt will continue to be the same for a very much longer time into the future, and whilst the social background and its conditioning is constantly changing, the interior monologue as the psychologists will assure you, is the same as any yesterday.
 

An incident, a mere seventy words amongst so many others, one of the bitterest burdens suffered by women in any society.

The great lie. 

'The man who, while courting her, declared himself as lover, friend, protector, father to be of her children, becomes after the ceremony of marriage, the bully, the drunk, the coward, and in the last infamy, the final degradation of his manhood, strikes her'.

As Gerty MacDowell thinks, he is the lowest of the low. One of a thousand of the bullyboys, without the wit, the strength, the decency to become a man.

Keep the faith, Gerty. When you get your man, be certain he’s a good one.

The old-fashioned word; goodman; had real meaning to it. What pity, what shame, that such things be, and here too, in God’s own country.

The curious thing is, that some mothers bring them up this way. 
It is interesting that Joyce, undoubtedly exercising his own opinion, puts these words into Gerty’s mind. One of his few serious moments in this day. 
 

Her character is cut down in our; or is it his eyes; in an act so banal, that the first response in the reader is to say; 'a girl like that wouldn’t do a thing like that'.

The Gerty he has been writing about has shown a considerable degree of self-respect.

This seems to be a flaw in the story.

He does somewhat the same with Mina Purefoy. Written down from the high emprise of mother to become a foil for the boys. Yes, indeed, they discuss the thousand vicissitudes of motherhood; but why so ribald?

Bronze and Gold also made a sensuous pair but, he would probably say, so they were. 

As for Molly, though shown as a competent, attractive singer; a good wife and mother; though accepting an assignment with yet another man. Of the half a dozen she can remember, none were a love affair; the unfortunate woman is subjected to enormous slander in the insavoury end of this mock epic yarn. 

Shakespeare’s Anne suffers such fate; she becomes the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire; Queen Bess becomes Carroty Bess, the gross virgin, every woman in the story he cannot help but turn into a caricature.

As he records, Bloom pouring mayonnaise on his plums, thinking it custard, so does James to all his women.  And they talk of genius!!
 

Napoleon 'All men are equal before God. Intelligence, virtue and science are the only distinctions between them'.
I get the feeling sometimes that Bloom, being the husband of Molly Tweedie is what makes him different.
 

To describe Gerty, he uses four full pages, only five paragraphs and that’s only for starters. The first terrible paragraph is graced with the question 'why have women such eyes of witchery'; With those eyes Gerty also has been given a good measure of self-respect.

Gerty is to be found in thousands in the cities of all the world; good to look upon, fresh-faced, bright-eyed, quick-witted, deeper than most fellows realise, ever confident, heir apparent, mothers of millions, the very life of nations; the good companion and much, much more. Little of which virtue is considered in the seven thousand words which James had dredged up for her.  Almost any reasonable man in Ireland would look at her in spite of the lame foot. Interesting to speculate what made J.J. introduce such thoughts into Gerty’s dear little head.

True, Ireland is not immune from the disease of spouse abuse, and Joyce possibly heard such words from his own mother, who had good cause to take out a protection order against John Joyce. He would certainly have witnessed many bitter moments between his parents, heard many words better left unsaid.
 

OXEN OF THE SUN An extraordinary segment.  Why? 
The time appears to be about 7.00pm to 8.00pm, perhaps 8.30pm.

This episode of Ulysses is in some way inspired by the adventure in book twelve of Homer’s Odyssey.

As advised and warned by Circe, they avoid the Wandering Rocks; the Sirens, pass through Scylla and Charybdis with the loss of only six men, and make safely to the island of Helios, the sun God.  What, up North here, in the Pontius?  This surely where Homer nods; the Charybdis who took six men, surely that in the tidal rips between Sicily and the toe of Italy?

Warned of fearful retribution if they harm his flocks, Odysseus binds his men by an oath to leave them untouched.

They are detained on the island a whole month by a contrary south wind and run short on rations, and whilst Odysseus retires to seek the help of the Gods, the men kill and eat of the sun God’s cattle. Once again it is Eurylochus leads the men and the ship to disaster and to self destruction.

But is it too late for regrets. The harm is done and will not be forgiven.
 

Odysseus is speaking of his daughters again, two of them of marriageable age.  He fears for them.

I say, “That is folly.  They have been well reared; they are confident, and they have an instinctive common sense, which is very different from our mens understanding.”
Their mother is not so worried?  “No, Georgina encourages them.”
“Properly so, even though she will lose so much help in the house.”
“It will cost a fortune for the weddings; two weddings.”
“Try for a double wedding; and a quiet one; only a few friends, not the entire Greek club.”
He is hurt a little at that; he’s been planning on all the Greek club.
He says, “The dresses cost hundreds.”
I say,  “Possibly thousands.”
“My wife, my oldest daughter; and a grand daughter made their own.  All beautiful; cost very little.”

Later, he told me all.  Rather hesitantly; yes it was a double wedding, yes all the dresses those wonderful dresses made at home; yes, married the greek way, at home;  yes all the greek friends; the barbecue going all day; all the gifts money to help them get a start; and all planned and executed by the girls – in spite of those expensive magazines.

I said nothing, remembering my own wife and my daughters.  They also sewed their dresses; the patterns culled from the magazines of the day.  I imagine thousands of girls do the same.  In spite of 'Things' being different.  Then, a girl would be delighted to receive a sewing machine as a wedding gift.  He confessed he hardly noticed the cost.  The girls had their savings; all his daughters have beautiful glory boxes; a largish chest packed with goodies against this very day; all stocked with manchester, hardware and haberdashery.  All been planned saved and worked on for years.  Dear God, that wonderful world of middle class mums.  Backbone of nations.

Blooms daughter Milly probably had a glory box but Joyce does not mention it.
 

There is something here, some powerful thing, a principle, an august and solemn word for we who live in the West.

Here, as in Homer’s Hall of the Dead, it is not the heroes, not the men who died face to deadly face on the bloody fields of Troy. It is not these that Persephone, august Queen of our last habitation, sends to greet him, but the mothers. 

Splendid women all, who carry the gift of life to all men.

In Dr Holles hospital is the beginning of life; the trauma of the mother. 
 

He said somewhere; 'I want patience with those without wit to enlighten or learning to instruct'.

Well now; he uses twenty-eight pages to instruct his readers in the half dozen or so styles of English 'as she is wrote'. From Chaucer onward to something like a style of Wilde, but sadly without Wilde’s wit, and ultimately to Irish dockside jargon. 

We all want patience. I wonder if, when he wrote it, if he wondered who would read it; wondering as they read why he wrote it.

But forget genius. It is too wearisome to be excellent, too artificial to be genius, too much like an exercise in some English lit. classroom.

Even there, few would be able to manage the last pages of dockside nonsense. Swelp me Gawd; likewise the opening paragraph of Deshil Holles. 
 

The medical students, companions with Stephen, are now in the talkative mood, not yet the aggressive stage, just the ribald laughter mood.

The subject of their entertainment is the unfortunate Mina Purefoy, three days in labour, in pain and in fear of death for both self and child.

The men are as ever, talking, but not football today.

Nothing less than the mysteries of conception, of contraception, pregnancy with its risks and complications, the rights of the mother over those of her unborn child; when the grim decision must be made; do we save Mother or the child? The Church says one thing; the husband another; why is not the Mother entitled to decide?

Abortions, rapes, miscarriages, stillbirth; what must, what should a woman do? At the last, should the birth be normal, induced or Caesarean? There is not talk of post-natal complications, depression, or the hardships of care in the face of desperate poverty.

Universal problems all, and all intensely personal, individual, and all, at some time demanding the humane, the loving, caring, answer.  Such subjects are rarely treated in literature other than perhaps medical journals and Joyce makes all such to be the ribald context of this chapter.  The Homeric reference as ever, is obscure, but no doubt Mr Joyce had his reasons.  Joyce had two children and must have known the burden of pregnancy as born by women.  Nora had both her children in Trieste, far from any family support and must, many times, have felt the loneliness of alienation.  Men owe a greater debt to wives and mothers than this, a tipsy spree.  Fatherhood is a small achievement at it’s best.

Why no celebration, no suggestion of sympathy after the birth of his own children? Or is such here, hidden, disguised with analogy, allegory, or some delightful complexity of phrase or word; even in one of these ribald paragraphs?

Perhaps I missed it?
 

Yet another tiny self-revelation of Mrs Joyce’s little boy Jimmy. He reports, 'Hither to silent, whether to better show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested, or in obedience to an inner voice, he delivered briefly and as some thought perfunctorily, the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has joined'.

This remark relates to the famous Siamese Twins, Eng and Chang, born in 1811.

They were joined at the waist, they enjoyed reasonably good health and were show people for many years.  They married sisters, had normal children and died in their 60’s, united still in death.

There were other notable pairs, Czech sisters, Rosa and Josepa; these also enjoyed some exhibition life, married, and Rosa mothered a normal son.

The resilent courage of the human spirit indeed, and great debate about the, then, remote possibility of separating them.  This ever a most dangerous operation, successfully accomplished in a marathon operation in our day, the operation and the speculation followed for weeks on the TV networks, worldwide.

This no less, his opinion as to the rightness or the wisdom of attempting the separation of Siamese twins, and, despite his musings on artistic integrity, he take refuge in the ancient paternal dogmatism of the church.

At twenty-two years of age, and a failed potential priest; he surrenders his own integrity and delivers the edict of the Church, the easiest way out.

The reference to his garb; his second-hand coat; the trousers of one Mulligan, another mans boots, the wrinkles formed by another mans feet, the swagger cane, the quarter hat.  A rather tragic recollection, but an honest memory of his youth.

For all that, Stephen is the man about town and his own man. Though implacably conditioned by the poverty of his family, the parental arrogance of his father, and haunted by the reproach in the eyes of his dying mother, he is the best man in this ribald party. The curious dignity of his garb not withstanding. A good Irishman, one of the boys indeed. 
 

There is, very early in the Book of Genesis, one of those remarkable visionary insights of Moses, or other author of that book.

The Gods looked down and said, “Now there is nothing that they imagine that they will not perform.”  It is us, mankind, of whom they are speaking.

We need but look around this most beautiful bountiful world; look at the things that we have made from its simple chemicals and parts, to realise the truth of that early vision. Some will be able to look further into the future, their vision providing guidelines for growth, the administration of that growth, and a sure and certain governance of the great powers and opportunities which lie in the future of mankind.  That creativity and the human qualities which empower it, are generated and nurtured, brought to maturity, at the mother’s knee, in the secure home.

Our Arts and Literature are also of such creativity. The best we will preserve with luck and good judgement, for millennia. 

James hoped for a thousand years for his book. Time is in that judgement seat. 
 

Many are granted the vision, but the work, the unrelenting work to bring the visioned thing into reality, too often defeats the vision.

What then, when, with monumental effort we obscure the vision? Gurdijeff, the mystic of the twenties said “Too much effort destroys the work.”

Deshil Holles does such. 

Think of DaVinci, haunted through a lifetime with that glimpse of reality in a woman’s face; the face now known to millions.  Such our affinity with the reality of that Beauty.
 

Yet another trifle from the past; 
“A victim of his own integrity, forcing himself to do his best even when he would have preferred to do nothing at all.”
It is the thought of yet another great man commenting on the divine discontent, the powerhouse of every creative soul. 
It is, of course, Michelangelo. James Joyce would have known exactly what he meant.
 

Joyce suffered continually from a seriously disturbed glaucoma, and because of it, well before the completion of Ulysses, was writing only with great difficulty. I imagine revision of the work would be doubly difficult, having to read his own writing.

One thinks of Beethoven and deafness; Milton, blind, dictating to his daughters; Homer, blind; Helen Keller, blind and deaf; Stephen Hawking, terribly handicapped – Roosevelt. so many others great in talent and heavily disadvantaged. But never surrendering to circumstance.

That magnificent resilient spirit of mankind.
 

Throughout Ulysses and the Wake, James raises gloomy doubts about his work. 'Flummery' seems to have been a cheerful adjective for his own work. Here in Deshil even more serious doubt is expressed.

'He encircled his gadding hair in a circlet of vine leaves, those leaves, said Vincent; will adorn you more fitly, when something more, and greatly more than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see you bring forth the work you meditate'. 

Thus his friends. The capful of odes would be Chamber Music. He thought and spoke of his opus as requiring ten years to produce. But it seems required only seven to complete, though it is probable that the ten years may have been needed had not Sylvia Beech prodded him into a furious activity with the promise of publication.
 

In our own family, mother had twelve children of whom ten survived, and she had six boys before there was a girl in the family.

I have a clear recollection of the umbrage of the older boys resentful of losing their precious bedroom when the girls started to arrive. A large family in the average home is an excellent training ground in good manners, consideration for others, and a strong sense of self-preservation. All such qualities of great value in the battle.

In the main however, the big families suffered from many deprivations, often desperately; many in the great cities reduced to a degradation unknown in today’s compassionate and educated society, this of course the story of the Joyce family and that of Mina Purefoy. 
 

These notes were, in the far beginnings of the re-reading of Ulysses, intended to be a précis of the story, the simple plot reduced to say a few of thousand words or so, an essay rather than a book. However, the very substance of the story denies such plan any reasonable end.

The characters each, and all and every one, are so deftly and so deeply drawn; to select the leading actors alone would rob the story of a dozen smaller contributors but all so well drawn; every one a concise and beautifully limned character, that it would be a pity to write them out. 

Here in Deshil we meet only a few of the full cast, but one wonders as we read just why they are in the story at all and the same doubt is alive in the mind over the ribald exeramination of five hundred years of English literature. 
 

It had been said that all men are liars. A comment on lies is attached, hopefully for your interest. In extenuation it must be remembered that some men are congenital liars.

Some, congenital? Yes and some women. 

Some women? Indeed and some children.

Good lord! Lies are also infectious. As the professor said, “Sedentary occupations tend to lessen the endurance.” The smart pupil said, “I see Sir, the more one sits; the less one can stand.” The professor capped this with; “And if one lies a great deal, ones standing is lost completely.”  This an old University quip, but worth repeating.

This is well said! The thought will live in my consciousness.
 

HERE LIES

There’s lies; of course there’s lies
Such useful things; think of the gain
That one good lie might well obtain.

Then fibs. These little lies
A nuisance, rather like our flies.

And subtle inexactitudes
That mock the good intent
Of the Beatitudes.

And silence too, can tell a lie
Often a big one, as can the sly evasive eye.

Then blatant lies, deceitful gain
Contemptuous of the others pain.

Then statistics
Enable experts to pervert the truth
With amazing mental gymnastics
These often seem, ‘tis no surprise
To be none other than damned lies.

Lies; lies; both plaintiff and defendant cried
But justice is blind, when the truth’s denied.

Then there’s the loyal family lies
To guard such secrets as our families prize.

Envoi
'Bear no false witness', so the book demands
But sadly truth can only be
As law allows and as the Court commands.

In Joyce’s day the best the poor and destitute could hope for was the workhouse, James told us nothing of these; we must read Dickens and others for such grim understanding.

Today, throughout the West, we have social security, pensions and superfunds to ease the burden at every level.

But there are dangers still.

That which is offered to ease the burden is quickly assumed to be the way of things, and we all too soon begin to lean on the good, ask for more.

The result all too clearly seen; is the slow loss of initiative; of self-responsibility, the easy acceptance. Which is a terrible pity.

Many argue that we will never again raise the men who gave us the Anzac tradition; and many argue that never again will we provide the men who moved into the 'outback' and made us wealthy.

Well, the outback is still there; by no means tamed; it is capable of infinitely greater wealth than it now offers, but that closer settlement still means courageous men and women.  Unemployed in City; work still to be done Outback!

But the easy way is terribly addictive, the spirit of it colours so much that we do.
 

The life of Joyce makes clear the simple natural truth; the child must be, not only taught about life and living, but be nurtured with understanding to a confident maturity.

This is done, in millions of lives without that which we, in the modern world, call 'education'.  It is accomplished simply and naturally by the father and mother, at mother’s knee, on mother’s lap, the gentle nurturing of a sturdy confidence in self, in the family, in life.  Mother ever the best nurse; the best teacher.

All the rest is but the life and interests of the society of the country in which they live.  Neither wealth nor circumstance confer this natural confidence.  It is the gift of love, transmitted from parent to child.  The warm hearted father may grant the gift, sustain the child if the mother be cold or missing; but mother love is natures way, this supported and confirmed, strengthened by fathers.

There are good stories in plenty, of wise teachers who, knowing this truth, also give abundantly to the child.  Parents, in conferring the gift of such confidence in the child, reap rich reward.

This is the hidden significance behind, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ of the Decalogue. 

An ancient wisdom indeed, but as fresh today as flowers in the spring, and one of the great power houses of the human mind.

Joyce, his early confidence destroyed by the descent into a poverty created by his fathers folly, had his early confidence severely shattered.  Neither his mother, sharing that poverty – nor the pitiable life of his siblings; not even the teaching of the church, could heal the deep psychie wound.

His bell was flawed; his glass cracked; his confidence damaged by this terrible injury; this, as is ever with mankind, reflected in his work.
 

The opening paragraphs of this episode recalled vividly an early review of Patrick White’s 'Voss'. This by an early Robert Hughes, “At its worst it is a nightmare example of how a novel, or even a note to the milkman, should not be written. Reading the first hundred pages of ‘Voss’ is like assisting at some weird re-birth of the English language.”

That was unkind, only partly true, an assessment of Voss. White had a rare understanding of the somewhat mystical quality of the human spirit. His work is also a strong, individual contribution to the Australian ethos; very modern in many respects and has been an icon of our literature for many a young writer. A touch of Ulysses may however, be detected in his work. Here then are six lines only from Ulysses, just about one hundred words of an opening paragraph to the myriatricacies of Deshil Holles; “Universally, that persons acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitable by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in high minds ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour …………..”

In all about four hundred words of similar involuted extravagance is no 'lutend reality'. One of his own phrases. 

The paragraph goes on and on; and on again. After it are other paragraphs and all much the same.  It is an interesting thought.  What did Robert Hughes think of Ulysses?
 

CIRCE  Exotic, erotic invention. Eighty pages of it some grotty, much rich in imagination. The time say 10pm to11pm.

God alone knows the full story of these girls in Bella Cohen’s place; or of Bella herself; it seems clear that Bella has known a better life, as with as women all over the world she hopes and possibly prays for a better life for her child.

Has she not a son at Oxford, probably unaware of his mother’s profession, the source of his fees and allowances. 

There are many anecdotal stories of women choosing such a way of life with purpose; most for some special purpose, and mission accomplished, go back happily enough to the domestic life.  It is only her body; she will take good care of the inviolate spirit.

The full story but naturally never known. The natural driving force of survival so much stronger in women. 

As a growing boy, the story of Rose was well known in our street.  Mother, with other women helped Rose and her Mum, with food and what support they could, and Rose’s old man stopped many a wrathful tirade from neighbours, including on at least one occasion a beating from the men.

There is no doubt but that the modern Family Services keep records of such cases as come to their notice. The shameful abuse of spouse and children not unknown in Australia, but sadly, a growing problem despite the family services.
 

Rose is gone now
Her short life done
Died broken hearted
Battle not won

Her Dad was a boozer
A bad drunken sot
The worst kind of abuse
Rose copped the lot

Rose could have left him
She stuck with it there
Mum too was a victim
And needed her care

Then Mum died, and Dad
Brought his friends home to use
Rose for their pleasure
And pay for his booze
Mum gone from her side
Rose had no reason to stay
Rose died broken hearted
Rose gave it away

Rose was barely sixteen
But had given her best
To a cruel, rotten father
May Rose have her rest

Hear what Joyce has to say of singing;

“Glorious tone he has still. Cork air, softer too their brogue, silly man could have made oceans of money ………… it soared like a bird, it held it’s flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb, it leaped serene speeding, sustained to come …….. soaring high high resplendent, aflame, crowned high in the effulgence symbolistic, high of the ethereal bosom, high of the vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about all, the endlessnessnessness.”

'Bravo! Handclap, Goodman, Simon, clappy clapclap. Encore! Clapiclap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, unclap, said, cried, clapped all. Ben Dollard'.
 

Here with Circe, Elphenor, the youngest of his men dies, falls from the roof in a drunken stupor and breaks his neck.  Numberless young men fallen victims of strong drink; yes many women with them.

Odysseus meets with his shade in the Halls of Death, promises to return to Aeaea, and bury him with full warriors rites. This they do.

Circe feasts them again, loads the ship with stores, gives him a last well-remembered gift. She farewells them, in a dazzling see through gown; resplendent; a sight for the Gods; and these men are sailors, long years at sea! Circe beautiful, dangerous, never to be forgotten. Thus Homer. 

But nothing, nothing at all of such glorious imagery in the vision of James Joyce.
 

Chesterton said “In some real sense it is unnatural to be human. Either a divine being fell, or one of the animals went completely off its head.”

We now know that it was the latter.

A great sea change in the genetic matrix, of Homo Habilis or a cousin. A mere two or three percent change in the genes, made us stand up straight; gave us language, art, music, mathematics, architecture, war and law and other terrible abilities, altered the size and shape of the brain; and above all other gifts, gave us self consciousness, and creative hands.

Seems clear enough now that this cosmic change was but a phase in the long evolution of life and we now suspect that even further dramatic changes must lie ahead over a possible further ten billion years in the development of that brain and that consciousness, and the work, no doubt, will be complete and good.

If not for us, then some other.

I suspect that the full maturity will be both beautiful and bodiless, with possible galactic interests, perhaps a little above the angels.  But ever, we may be sure it will be men and women -–male and female; this division fundamental to all life, from the beginning, and thus, to the end.

Perhaps James had no such vision. Was well content with the body as it is, circumstances as they may be, and our only destiny a sleep, a dream in Mother Earth and, then, the same again. Perhaps.

The enormous sea change from ape to human may well indicate the nature of future change on our way to becoming 'just a little lower than the angels'.  For it now seems, despite the theorists; to detect purpose in the direction of evolution.
 

I rather like the contrast; here at Bella Cohen’s place.

It is Bloom, with the boys but not entirely with them, a kind of prisoner of his own kindness, for he is looking after Stephen. 

Despite the fun and games at Bella’s, he is unhappy; all the sleazy nonsense here, whilst at home, in his own bed, is the real thing, his Molly, talented and lovely still, led eagerly to bed, Boylan’s arms around her; satisfied with the rich contentedness which follows a joyful loving.

Here at Bella’s place, there is only the mockery; hollow fun, poor satisfactions; home is Molly, happy, pleased with him for this golden opportunity of such enjoyment. All three knowing, Molly, Boylan and himself, knowing that there is no deep affection for Boylan; just a happy acceptance, Boylan certainly happy to play his part. Molly secure in her understanding of Bloom; but Bloom certainly unhappy; but happy enough to give opportunity to his Molly without blame or anger, all too aware of his own failure in his waning marriage.
 

 'The heavenly trumpets sounded
 the angels shouted ‘come!’
 St Peter opened wide the gates
 And in marched Mum'

Woman in her wondrous glory; Mum.

Joyce, so lucky, had other women; other good women, rather different from the girls of Mabbot Street. Harriet Shaw Weaver; supported him with an extraordinary generosity and helped popularise his work in England; Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, who serialised parts of his work and made him popular in the United States. 

Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, who supported him in Paris and funded the publication of Ulysses, despite the difficulties. Nora Barnacle, his better half, the loved companion. All were integral to the Work. There were others. 

Could he have completed the work without the support of any one of these women?  And certainly the accusation in the eyes of his dying Mum, a sharp catalyst in his life and work.
 

In every species of mankind, the marriage ceremony is honoured, if only by the pair jumping the candle. In the western world, the convention is breaking down, many well satisfied with a relationship; or breaking up through incompatibility.

It’s a case of wait and see as to whether this breakdown is a slow demographic change instituted by the evolutionary complexity of our being, or simply too much liberty, too much money, not enough common sense, a weakening of character, or simply the lessening of the influence, and the rules of the church.

James certainly rebelled against the convention, but surrendered after the publication of Ulysses, to protect his children in the matter of royalties from his books, in which he was wiser and more kind than many others. 
 

Just think for one moment of the beautiful Irish love songs which we hear all too rarely in these days of hip-hop music. 

My Wild Irish Rose, Macushla, the Rose of Tralee, Danny Boy, so many lovely songs.

Joyce’s father, as the son, had a good tenor voice. This segment in the Siren’s offers a beautiful evocation of the father’s singing. 

It is surely some hint of the depth of his misery that there is no trace of love throughout Ulysses and even in the Wake; only by analogy with the River. 

Surely in Nora, he saw that light in the eye that we see in the Rose of Tralee? Yet we sense in his denials, denial of home and family, of his church and all it’s associations, his denial of Ireland, all these but the rather sad thoughts of some doomed soul such as the Croppy Boy or perhaps the Wild Colonial Boy. He might well have looked elsewhere amongst the songs and old stories of Ireland to find the elusive soul. Lady Gregory, much closer to that soul than was, most assuredly James Joyce.
 

The women in the life of Odysseus. Penelope, the faithful life; Helen, the faithless one, wife of Menelaus, consort of Paris; the face that launched a thousand ships. Circe, companion for one year, beautiful but so dangerous. Calypso, she kept him captive lover for seven years until commanded to release him by Zeus. Nausicaa, the girl who, finding him stranded on their island, took him to her father and thus to Ithica and home. Athena, daughter of Zeus, patron of the Greeks, and of Odysseus, whom she loved above all; others. Euryclea, his old nurse, friend and companion of Penelope. Others in passing. 
 

Bloom sees the ghost, the spirit of Rudi, his dead son as they leave Mabbot Street.

Are his tears for Rudi or for himself?

The lost hope, for all parents hope; the women pray; a better life dear God for the children. It has happened once, it well may happen again. 

The child, a leader? A teacher? A scholar? At least a splendid man, a magnificent woman.

This the hope of mankind, that the child might be the deeply desired, the long awaited Messiah. The new avatar. We sense the potential, but dear God, why do we so abuse that potential and the sweet innocence in which they are born?
 

The friendly critic, the Greek friend, one day said, “You sometimes give the impression that you approve prostitution.”

Frankly, I do.

That answer must be qualified. As Sir Humphrey would say, “The answer is yes and no.” 

Undoubtedly, the world would be a better place without prostitution, so no, I do not approve.

Because the world is not yet a better place, and never has been, and is likely to be no better for a long time to come, we should ensure that the profession is conducted on decent, humane, lines. So, a qualified yes, is the answer.

Sex slavery is abhorrent; the prostitution of children an unforgivable offence; but the trade or profession; it has both aspects, has yet another driving force which goes much deeper than the mere making of money.

Today few people will have read Radcliffe Hall’s 'The Well of Loneliness'. Men also suffer such loneliness. It is a fertile breeding ground for suicide in so many, both men and women in all modern societies. 

More so in men, than with women, who have a much deeper faith in life.

The Mabbot Streets of the world are born of such loneliness, the cities of the world, breed their Mabbot Streets.

All men and women are lonely to some degree until they meet the soul mate of romance, or more practically, the good companion, the mate for life and both more mature and certainly more happy for the finding.

The human being is rarely completely matured, perhaps never fully mature without the complimentary qualities of that opposite partner, companion or lover. 

Within that partnership, both have the better experience of that fuller maturity of the self, and the task of rearing the children in their turn, to their maturity, is part of the process.

Failing such companionship, the loneliness can destroy and so men have ever begged for the service which only women can offer as a strong physical need, born of a desperate spiritual loneliness.

That we in Queensland have decided to control that profession, insist on a fair deal and decent conditions is a better thing than to leave it in the hands of the pimp and the racketeer. 

Prostitution, as with poverty, to which it is closely related, is as much a personal problem as it is a social problem.  All too often exploited by the pimp the pandar, the racketeer.  So No, we do not approve.

Society has some responsibility to heal both.
 

Hundreds and girls and boys go into voluntary exile every year. Leave home, often good homes, and off to London or Paris or Dublin or Sydney or Brisbane and some of them never go home. 
 

Gold and Bronze, Joyce’s rather delightful names for the barmaids, but Gold and Bronze, Gold particularly, have been valuable adjuncts to man’s life through the centuries.

Gold, bronze, tin, copper, iron; these the currencies of early man. Iron always had the lower place in the order. Iron for axe and hammer. 

It was tin, in Homer’s day. Tin that transformed copper into Bronze. Bronze was the superior sword, the javelin and the plunging spear; all to tear open the precious liver and pour out the red wine of life; rich conditioner of the sands of time.

Gold, precious gold, ever the reward and the corruption of men. We have always hungered for gold, fought for gold and died for gold.

The gold mines of all the ancient lands were worked by slaves; the gold rushes of modern times, vast eras of failure for thousands; the gathered wealth all too soon, almost magically, transferred into the treasuries of a few; the finders, the hard men, the toilers and the battlers, brought out with paper money, the gold too valuable to be left in their hands. 

Buried some three thousand years, in the ashes of ruined Troy, the gold gleamed in the warn sun, when Schliemann and his Greek wife unearthed the treasure. The bronze swords corrupted with the rust of ages, but the gold still beautiful. 

So, also, the treasures of Agamemnon and Orestes.

So the treasures of Tutenkhamen and the treasures of the Aztecs, undiscovered, or taken by the Spaniards.

So insatiable our lust for Gold, we deny the dead their gold, rob and desecrate the graves of kings.

As for the vast treasure stored in Fort Knox and in the treasuries of other lands, only the future will tell of its fate.

Paper money; the fragile exchange of today’s world.
 

There’s a music, a song in y’r voice, a light mockery of me in y’r laughter. 

There’s a light in y’r eye and the lips invite, all y’r body’s alive.

What’s y’r name this time around? Sara, or Ruth, or Rachel, or is it Mary, or Moira again?

Tis well I know you, you with your nameless grace, yu’re all that’s best of dark and light, the dark and light dear woman, that lightens on your face. 

True Moira, we age, we eld indeed, we wear and wane but we have the year of best, a spring and a summer before the autumn glow, and flowers and fruits before the long rest. There’s the children and their children, all so young again, all beautiful.

Ah well, all over now, for this time round. Just a sleep again then awake again and by grace, better next time. 

So fare thy well. Don’t weep for me. We’ll meet again and love again. There’s a bird calling, dear loving woman, goodbye.