Blooming Yes!
This is a strange one, a bonnie, bonnie strange one. Be warned, now is the time to avert your gaze, or plug up your ears. Be advised, we’re entering Joyce territory. God, but I’m going to feel really stupid reading this blog.
You see, Bloom’s Day is upon us, ‘Yes, Yes, Yes!’ Or maybe no, not for you. Perhaps you are one of those who refuse a breakfast of devilled kidneys, not because veganism is the latest short cut to enlightenment, but because you can imagine that the lingering taste of urine, hinted at by Joyce, haunts kidneys you might otherwise enjoy. Ulysses and urine, there is so much of the stuff one wonders if Myopic Jimmy is taking the piss. Allegedly, James Joyce’s masterpiece is full of humour, but ask yourself who these critics are before agreeing with them.
First, I must say that this blog is prompted by my mother’s reaction to RTE’s promotion of all things Bloom, no, not the annual flower show in the Phoenix Park, Bloom as in Ulysses. Our national broadcaster is obsessed by the work. The D4 crowd are so taken by it that they believe Molly’s famous potty-sex monologue is a perfect marmalade and toast accompaniment. Thankfully, the yes, yes, yesing in the background never seems to penetrate my morning mind-fug. The advertisements would go unnoticed, pass me by, as though they were news headlines, except that they wake up the critic in my mother. RTE’s harmless potty-sex fetish, no doubt a tonic to Joyce scholars everywhere, makes this one-hundred-year-old book, or its promotion, a problem for me. You see, just a snippet of the monologue can irritate my mother for hours on end. And she shares her irritations with me, which is why I’m writing this blog. This is a stress relief exercise on my part, one which should keep me sane until the 16th of June has passed.
“Doggerel,” is often my mother’s, pre-nine a.m. opening gambit. And she is not criticising me for a change. “I heard someone call that book poetry, but another critic said his poetry is pure doggerel. Not a poetic bone in his body. You can’t have it both ways.”
My mother likes the romantics, so I stay dumb by way of keeping my head attached to my shoulders. As the add rumble on she becomes even more annoyed.
“Nothing more than an alcoholic.” She tells me, “And as for that Nora Barnacle, her ignorance probably made him feel big about himself.”
“Would you prefer them to be promoting a reading of ‘Normal People’?” I ask by way of distraction. “They say she’s the new Joyce.”
In fairness my mother will not be distracted, so I get an extra ten minutes of criticism on Joyce.
Reflecting on her comments and sometimes comparing Ulysses, in my own head, to ‘Normal People,’ (yes I realise that this is a ridiculous activity,) I had a sudden, Eureka moment. You should never listen to critics; you will find life much more enjoyable without looking over your shoulder to see if they are watching before allowing yourself pick up an Agatha Christie. Having said that, here is something you might want to bring to Joyce’s masterpiece.
Joyce is nothing more than an intellectual Benny Hill, a man with a urine fixation, a purveyor of bum jokes disguised as literature. A man of his times in fact, a time when you had to make your own fun, when neighbours were for laughing at and bodily waste-fluids were stored under your bed at night. Stepping in dog do-do was a cause for laughter among friends and, as for falling on your bum, that caused hilarity all round for months on end.
My grandmother was born at practically the same time that the Bloom’s Dublin odyssey took place. For most people, this was a time of outdoor plumbing, with chamber pots serving as primitive ensuites. Say what you will about them, squatting over one every night was a great form of granny yoga, a way to keep the old supple enough to function on a daily basis. Fancy potties were decorative to the point of competing with Ming dynasty vases, tin sufficed for poorer bums. It was a time when limps, squints, and stammers were openly mocked, and as far myopic young lads were concerned, they were the joke.
My grandmother and her friends were all practical jokers and none of them would have needed to read Joyce to improve their minds. Their minds were active enough already and their neuroses formed the foundations of their individuality. Potties would have featured in all of their lives. But they would never have considered writing a doctorate paper on the symbolic significance of Molly straddling one. There were other, more humorous uses for the potty in their lives. My grandmother, about the time Joyce was presenting Ulysses to the world, came up with a novel use for the chamber pot. This was a new pot, I hasten to add, a decorative one. My grandmother was having guests to dinner, and this was a special occasion. The food was good, it was always good where my grandparents were concerned. My grandmother made her famous onion soup (as served in her restaurant) and poured it into her tureen for the day. She then walked into the dining room, placed her new chamber pot on the table and invited everyone to present their bowls.
As gags go, I’ve seen worse.
As writers go, Joyce would miss the cut on my comic writers list. But at least a woman on a potty, scratching an itch, and screaming yes into the night is a positive scene. Molly knows what she wants and does something about it. Yes, she does. Yes, yes, she does.
The millennial tale Normal People might be considered a masterpiece by many, but I ask you, where is the fun in the work?
Imagine a millennial style sex scene in Ulysses: Bloom enters Molly’s chamber late at night, drunk but standing, he tells her to get off the piss pot. This might be the conversation which follows.
Molly: “Do you want to fuck me?”
Bloom: “Yes.”
Molly: “I want to fuck you too.”
Bloom: “We will need each other’s written consent first.”
Molly: “Yes.”
Bloom: “And have to get naked.”
Molly: “Yes.”
Bloom: “And to…”
Molly: “Yes”
Bloom: “And…”
Molly: “Yes.”
Bloom: “And an orgasm?”
Molly: “No. No. No… Not for me. For you maybe, but not for me. For me sex and disappointment must forever remain linked.”
Would Molly ever dream of being so drearily normal? Maybe Joyce is not a lost cause after all. Still, I will never convince my mother to change her mind on the subject. Nor would I want to. And as Bloom’s Day approaches I can not imagine my mother incanting the words, yes, yes yes: unless, of course, she discovers a free, wheelchair parking place at the steps to the library.