You Can’t Argue with Cyclops: Session 13 of the Steemit Book Club, plus details for session 14

"A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place." — James Joyce, Ulysses.

Chapter twelve opens at 5pm with an unnamed, first-person narrator describing the events of his afternoon.

The narrator meets Joe Hynes on the street, and decides to grab some drinks together at the Barney Kiernan’s pub so Hynes can tell the citizen about the foot-and-mouth disease.

Once at the bar, we see Alf Bergan entering while laughing at Denis Breen, who was just passing by. Bergan tells the story of Breen’s mysterious “U.p: up” message.

Leopold Bloom enters the pub as well since he was supposed to meet Martin Cunningham there. Hynes upon seeing Bloom tries to offer him a drink, but Bloom politely declines.

Hynes orders another round anyways while the narrator sounds resentful of the fact that Bloom will not drink nor buy rounds.

Bloom says that the bottle is “the curse of Ireland,” and “Ireland sober is Ireland free” which causes him to appear even more of an outsider than he already is.

Nanetti is brought up in the conversation as we learn that he’s running for mayor. The citizen doesn’t hesitate in pulling the ‘foreigner’ card by fixating on Nanetti’s Italian origins.

The citizen here appears to be appealing to a particular type of Irish nationalism that there is mainly based upon the dangerous idea of racial purity.

The conversation then turns to capital punishment and Bloom starts giving scientific arguments against hanging people in public, but a character known as The Citizen being so reactionary interrupts him with more narrow-minded sentiments. He is, in short, The Cyclops, with his one stubborn and near-sighted perspective.

The Citizen then turned the conversation around to talk about Ireland’s troubles and assign the blame to other groups of people. He quickly escalates and starts making anti-Semitic and xenophobic remarks while looking at Bloom in the process.
Bloom just ignores him.

Lenehan then enters the pub and informs the narrator about the Gold Cup race, where the winner as you might have guessed is Throwaway. This is the horse that people thought Bloom was betting on when Bantam Lyons misunderstood him.

Of course, in a clear metaphor, no one bets on Bloom’s horse – and Bloom’s horse wins.

The Song Remains the Same

For most of the recorded human history there has been countless societies that fell prey some variation of the infamous “Us VS them” philosophy. Those theories although dangerous and groundless, are usually very popular.

The principle is very simple: pick a group of people, point the finger at them and say it’s their fault. And everything that is wrong with your life also must be their fault as well.

Sadly, this principle persists today.

It’s simple but effective, the other group of people (them) then become a channel into the which you start to transfer all your fears and frustrations.

"Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project." — Nic Pizzolatto, True Detective.

The Man from Nowhere

In the Cyclops chapter, as the Citizen continues denouncing the exploitation of Ireland, it doesn't take him long to shift the blame to the English. He longs for the day when Ireland can strike back and respond to the wrongs England has committed against his country, and how Ireland should respond with force.

Or maybe an eye for an eye and we all turn into cyclops.

Bloom tries to appeals to his sense of reason, he entertains the possibility that persecution can only perpetuate more nationalistic hatred.

But it backfires and immediately Nolan and the citizen start quizzing Bloom about his nationality.

In The Odyssey Polyphêmos asks Odysseus: “Who are you? And where from?” At first he eludes the questions, but after getting Polyphêmos drunk (thus the pub parallel), Odysseus lies and tells him that his name is noman.

Bloom tries to avoid simple identification in a very similar manner and responds that love and life are better options than force and hatred, and then he leaves.

The citizen ridicules Bloom’s call for love as a last resort of a man with no answers and no arguments.

Cunningham, Power, and Crofton arrive to the bar, and Cunnigham asks for Leopold, who has just left to look for him.

As the conversation goes on, Martin Cunningham reveals Bloom’s Hungarian origins and original family name, Virag.

The citizen, using sarcasm, implies that The Wandering Jew is the new Messiah for Ireland.

Bloom comes back to the pub looking for Cunningham who has just has arrived. Cunningham, perceiving that the mood is becoming too aggressive, proceeds to escort Bloom, Power, and Crofton outside to his car.

Yet another indication that Cunningham is truly an upstanding person, as seen in the Hades chapter.

Chapter Twelve correlates to the adventure in which Odysseus and his men become trapped in the cave of Cyclops, the one-eyed monster. The cave this episode is represents by Barney Kiernan’s pub.

Cyclops

Blind faith tends to impair your judgment and causes you to put blinders on, metaphorically speaking. And as your vision is being compromised, you have no way of realizing that in fact you are being led towards a one single path, because in the end, there is only one direction that you can see.

Your sight becomes mono-dimensional, as if you were a one-eyed Cyclope.

All along chapter twelve, it becomes fairly obvious that it’s the citizen who is the most direct representation of the belligerent, one-eyed monster. The citizen’s single-sided viewpoints render him Cyclops-like, especially with his narrow-minded, inflexible, and even xenophobic brand of Irish nationalism.

In clear contrast to the citizen’s one-eyed presence, lies Bloom who remains totally able to consider more than one side to the story and reconcile different opinions.

The chapter ends with the citizen throwing a biscuitbox at Bloom, where he escapes in Martin Cunnigham’s car.

This is just like the Cyclops throwing boulders at Odysseus in his escaping ship. Similarly, just as Odysseus brags as he escapes and reveals his actual name to the Cyclops, so too does Bloom reveal his identity to the citizen near the end.

And in an epic conclusion, just like almost every other chapter in Ulysses, Bloom’s escape becomes not just Odysseus’s escape, but Elijah escaping to heaven on a chariot. Perhaps even Christ’s resurrection.

Let us know your thoughts below, especially if you have any ideas about what could the meaning of the cryptic “U.p: up” “joke.”

Note from @the-alien: "I apologize to all for not having been able to make it to last week’s session, I was unable to log in with the admin account and the session was unfortunately not recorded. I naturally assume the mea culpa, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

It will back to normal next week and, I’m looking forward to more great sessions with all of you."

Note from Neil: Adil has written another amazing post, and to boot he picked up a brand new microphone. It was a great session, and looking forward to next week’s.

NEXT WEEK’S SBC CALL
Steemit Book Club, Session 12
Book: James Joyce, Ulysses (Preferably Gabler Edition)
Reading Assignment: Chapter Thirteen (“Nausicaa”)
Date: Monday, December 12th
Time: 6 p.m. PST / 9 p.m. EST / 2 a.m. GMT / 11 a.m. (Tuesday) UTC
Phone: (800) 719-6100 or (218) 339-7800, access code 629-1831#
Web audio link (and location for international call-in
numbers): https://hello.freeconference.com/conf/call/6291831
Chat: #steemit-book-club channel on steemit.chat

Best,

@neilstrauss, @the-alien, and the #steemit-book-club

P.S. Note that the Comments section of this post will also serve as a discussion forum for the current reading.