' Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.'
What did he mean by this?
>>8010167
It might just be because I grew up around Irish people who talked all types of retarded but I can read Ulysses just fine.
He didn't mean anything. Literature is a scam on the middle class.
>>8010167
Most likely Joyce was drunk or high on metamphetamines while writing it. Luckily he started making a bit more sence in his more entry level diddly called Finnegans Wake.
>>8010167
I remember reading this years ago when my English was still pretty mediocre and I could barely understand those few lines.
>>8010167
this dude comes down the stairs
he pretends like he's a priest doing mass with the shaving shit
Maybe I'm a bit thick, but fuck this wank type of writing, sounds like pure arse poop.
Am I being memed or can people really not understand this?
I get when he uses words that don't really exist or writes sentences that run on for miles but this is pretty basic English.
>>8010226
Mate
>>8010233
I think we're being memed desu
>>8010233
I can understand it, it's just a fucking boring stale way of expressing yourself, you can tell the author is jerking his cock to how much of an intellectual tosser he is "Christ im an artfag!" fap fap fap.
>>8010244
Alright lad?
' Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. '
Why do people call Ulysses deep when Joyce did the equivalent of going to the thesaurus and finding the most archaic synonyms to use for describing things?
>>8010261
Because plenty of people can point things like this out but few can do it.
>>8010261
because it came at a time before such posturing was actually prevalent in literature, so people actually had every reason to believe that it was a sincerely smart piece of work.
>>8010261
Dunno mate, that stream of consciousness thing was pretty fucking neato. Evolution of language not necessarily in Ulysses but certainly in Portrait is why I go back to Joyce.
Bloom leaving things unsaid with his wife's infidelity and then going mental at the pub was top.
Motherfuckers all the time now go on about national identity in literature but Joyce was all about that shit.
People look retrospectively at stuff with a pair of 2016 eyes and just lump stuff in together as tropes or wanky. We can't look back to the day but surely we can appreciate its impact? There's a reason why people go back to Joyce, Prost etc and I think it goes beyond intellectual posturing.
>>8010261
He's describing everyday things through the lens of a Catholic mass. Go to church sometime and like magic you'll get it.
> inb4 but I am an enlightened le gentleman
At the very least you're uncultured and cannot into basic references. If you're European really you just need to get out and do things
It means, literally "Teeheehee, what am I referencing now?"
>>8010281
For every Joyce there's a Waugh, a Chesterton a Muggeridge or -shudders- a Greene. Catholics are judged by the company they keep so it shouldn't be a surprise if nobody has a clue about those Fenian practises when their standard bearers let the faith down.
>>8010298
>-shudders-
Faggot.
It's the intense and damn near incoherent ramblings of a severely autistic drunk faggot who had nothing better to do in his shitty Irish town other than consume literature and be a fucking bitch.
The whole 1000 pages of cold turd is literally just him saying "haha look at these unique irish feelings you british faggots don't even know. braveheart best day of my life"
Video related is literally Joyce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4PTf7LgsIE
Is this really what lit has become? This seems like an incredibly simple passage to understand once you translate the Latin, which means "I will go to the altar of God," and when coupled with the fact that his, "mirror and razor lay crossed."
>>8010306
yes, it's saying buck mulligan is a ostentatious, boisterous dork
graduate 6th grade already, /lit/
>>8010298
Now this comment here is a piece of wanky prose.
>>8010306
wow its literally jesus hahaha what a hard hitting reference
>>8010306
>once you translate the Latin
Go to a Christian mass where they have communion wine, you'll see the chalice raised and blessed like this.
>>8010314
I see you're applying the Joyce method of using unnecessary synonyms.
>>8010298
How astutely ostentatious of you, mate.
>>8010298
There are no gods, but I'd rather read Waugh or Greene than bogtrotting pimple-scratchers like Joyce.
Reminder that Joyce leaked two Sparknotes of Ulysses to his friends.
Reminder that people only think Ulysses is good because Joyce's fucking cheat sheet said it was.
>>8010335
no because if i was writing prose i'd give the words room to breathe, which joyce does
so epic memed!
>>8010368
You supercilious fucknugget
>>8010167
It's proof that people with syphilis shouldn't write.
>>8010368
You can't even describe what you mean by that you pretentious shit.
>>8010410
euphony
am I getting memed or do you people really not understand that
if you wanted to pick an actual word wankery passage from Ulysses there are a lot to choose from but you'd only know that if you read past the first paragraph
>>8010324
Yeah I meant, assuming there was nothing else you could take the hint from. It literally says it in plain text what he is talking about.
>>8010248
Omg i kekd so hard on all this quotes. Thanks anon
Joyce is like the Nickelback of /lit/
>>8010530
10/10
>>8010287
It's an analogy to a catholic mass. Considering that he is Irish it's extremely obvious to what he is doing. It's hardly him being the riddler in this instance.
>>8010167
He meant to begin the day.
>>8010298
Please tell me you don't actually speak like this ad are just trying to impress /lit/
Buck Mulligan walked up onto the roof of the fort that he lived in. He had with him a bowl of shaving lather on which he had placed his mirror and razor. They were placed across the bowl in the shape of a cross. His dressing gown wasn't tied (as a priest's vestments would be) and was blowing in the wind. He held the bowl of lather in the air and spoke in Latin as if he were performing a mass.
"Introibo ad altare Dei" he said.
>>8011469
I am so fucking mad right now. This is how I imagine a "Joyce for Dummies" transcription would read.
>>8010167
Gosh, what I would give for a jpg of an old edition that has fresh jizz on it.
>>8010167
How do you not get it
It's very simple and is simply describing a funny scene.
>>8011491
He paused and looked down the stairs that circled the inside of the tower. In a hoarse voice, he called to his roommate. His roommate's name was Stephan "James Joyce" Dedalus, but Mulligan liked to call him "Kinch."
"Kinch, come up here, you Jesuit!"
Mulligan, still acting like a priest, walked forward to the short wall at the edge of the roof. He looked around, and mockingly blessed the tower, the country around the tower, and the mountains. Then he saw Stephan Dedalus coming up the stairs. Mulligan bent towards him and made crosses in the air while gurgling and shaking his head. Dedalus was tired, and he wasn't amused. He looked coldly at Mulligan. Mulligan's hair wasn't cut like a monk's hair. It looked like it was made of oak. Mulligan had a long face, like a horse. Finishing his mock blessing of Stephan, Mulligan lifted the mirror so he could peek, just for a moment, into the bowl (or perhaps " the chalice") underneath it.
"Back to barracks!" he said sternly, and put the mirror back down. Mimicking a preacher's voice, he added: "For this is the genuine Christine: body, soul, blood and wounds. Now start the slow music. Everybody, close your eyes. I am having some trouble turning my shaving cream into white blood cells. Please be quiet."
Mulligan looked up and whistled. He paused, and his white teach with gold fillings were visible. A mouth of gold. Hmm. You could describe a skilled speaker as having a mouth of gold. Mulligan whistled twice more.
"Thanks, old chap," he said, implying that his whistles had been signals to a hidden assistant. "You can turn of the electrical current now. The chemical reaction is over."
>>8010220
he comes up the stairs you silly billy
>>8011775
lol
>>8011775
this is legitimately what /lit/ needs so they stop acting like autists
You can tell who has no sense of euphony if they think he's just pulling random words out of his ass.
A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still,
212 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had
changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.
Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure
save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself
as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as
ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes
of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down.
Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and
dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s, soft and
slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged
dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and
touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she
felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned
to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or
wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly
withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the
stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and
thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke
the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells
of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint
flame trembled on her cheek.
>you will never write this
>>8010167
IMO Mulligan was taking his shaving materials with him down stairs in a 'mass esque' way to the toilet to not only shave but probably take an early morning shit, the toilet being 'golds alter', mocking the catholic church
>>8010226
How is this even wank writing though? It's just a couple of relatively simple sentences and then some Latin.
