Lectures on Literature

by Nabokov, Vladimir

  Characters: A dozen or so mourners, among them in the backseat of a horse-drawn four-seat carriage Martin Cunningham, a good kind man, beside Power, who unthinkingly talks of suicide in Bloom's presence; and facing them, Bloom and Simon Dedalus, Stephen's father, an extremely witty, ferocious, cranky, talented fellow.

  Action: The action of this chapter is very simple and easily read. I prefer to discuss it from the point of view of certain themes.

  Bloom's Jewish-Hungarian father (whose suicide is mentioned in this chapter) married an Irish girl, Ellen Higgins, of Christian Hungarian ancestry on her father's side and a Protestant so that Bloom was baptised as a Protestant and only later became a Catholic in order to marry Marion Tweedy, also of mixed Hungarian-Irish parentage. In Bloom's ancestry there is also, in the past, a blonde Austrian soldier. Despite these complications, Bloom considers himself a Jew, and anti-Semitism is the constant shadow hanging over him throughout the book. He is always in danger of being insulted and hurt, even by otherwise respectable people, and he is regarded as an outsider. Looking up the question, I find that in 1904, the date of our day in Dublin, the number of Jews living in Ireland was around four thousand in a population of four million and a half. Vicious or conventional prejudice animates most of the people whom Bloom meets in the course of his dangerous day. In the carriage going to the cemetery Simon Dedalus lustily ridicules Reuben J. Dodd, a Jewish moneylender, whose son was almost drowned. Bloom eagerly tries to tell the story first in order to have some control over it and to avoid insulting innuendos. Throughout the book the theme of racial persecution pursues Bloom: even Stephen Dedalus rudely offends him with a song, in the next to last chapter, which is a parody of the sixteenth-century ballad about young Saint Hugh of Lincoln, believed in early times to have been crucified by Jews in the twelfth century.

  Synchronization is a device rather than a theme. Throughout the book people keep running into each other—paths meet, diverge, and meet again. Turning from Tritonville Road to Ringsend Road, the four men in the carriage overtake Stephen Dedalus, Simon's son, who is walking from Sandycove to the newspaper office along much the same route as the funeral procession is following. Then further on, in Brunswick Street, not far from the Liffey, just as Bloom is reflecting that Boylan is coming that afternoon, Cunningham sees Boylan in the street and Boylan receives the salutations of Bloom's companions in the carriage.

  The Man in the Brown Macintosh is, however, a theme. Among the incidental characters of the book there is one of very special interest to the Joycean reader, for I need not repeat that every new type of writer evolves a new type of reader; every genius produces a legion of young insomniacs. The very special incidental character I have in mind is the so-called Man in the Brown Macintosh, who is alluded to in one way or another eleven times in the course of the book but is never named. Commentators have, as far as I know, not understood his identity. Let us see if we can identify him.

  He is first seen at the funeral of Paddy Dignam; nobody knows who he is, his appearance is sudden and unexpected, and throughout the long day Mr. Bloom will keep reverting in thought to this small but irritating mystery—who was the man in the brown raincoat? This is how he appears at the funeral. Bloom is thinking of dead Dignam while the grave diggers set the nose of the coffin on the brink of the grave and loop the bands around it to sink it into the hole. "Burying him.... He doesn't know who is here nor care." At this point Bloom's eye roving for a minute over those "who are here," is arrested by the sight of a person he does not know. The stream of thought takes a new turn. "Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know? Now, I'd give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of." This thought bumbles on, and presently he is counting the small number of people at the funeral. "Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen." Bloom's thought wanders to other things.

  So who is that lanky fellow who seems to have been engendered out of nothing at the very moment when Patrick Dignam's coffin is lowered into the grave? Let us pursue our inquiry. At the end of the ceremony Joe Hynes, a reporter who is taking down names at the funeral, asks Bloom, "—And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the... but at this point he notices that the fellow has disappeared, and the sentence remains unfinished. The dropped word is, of course, macintosh. Then Hynes goes on, "—fellow was over there in the...." Again he does not finish and looks round. Bloom supplements the end of the sentence: "—Macintosh. Yes, I saw him.... Where is he now?" Hynes misunderstands: he thinks the name of the man is Macintosh (compare this with the Throwaway horse theme), and this he scribbles down. "—Macintosh, Hynes said, scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that his name?" Hynes moves away, looking around him to see if he had jotted down everybody. "—No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

  Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord, what became of him?" At this point Bloom's thoughts are interrupted when a seventh grave digger comes beside him to pick up an idle spade.

  In the last section of the seventh chapter of part two, the chapter devoted to the synchronization of the various people in the streets of Dublin around three o'clock of the afternoon, we find another allusion to the mystery man. The viceroy, the governor of Ireland, on his way to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer's Hospital (it is at this bazaar that later, at nightfall, a certain significant display of fireworks is produced in chapter 10)—the viceroy as he drives with his following past a blind youth, then "In Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and unscathed across the viceroy's path." What new clues are added here? Well, the man exists; after all, he is a live individual, he is poor, he walks with light steps, he somehow resembles Stephen Dedalus in contemptuous and aloof motion. But of course he is not Stephen. England, the viceroy, leaves him unscathed—England cannot molest him. A live man and at the same time as light as a ghost—who on earth is he?

  The next reference comes in chapter 9 of part two, the chapter where kind, gentle Bloom in Kiernan's bar is pestered by a hoodlum, the anonymous citizen, and the dreadful dog belonging to Gerty's grandfather. Bloom with a very tender and grave intonation (which raises him above his own too physical individual level in other parts of the book), Bloom the Jew is speaking: "—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant." The citizen sneers at him, "Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

  —I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom....

  —But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life."

  What is that, asks Alf, the barkeeper. "—Love, says Bloom." Incidentally this is a main support of Tolstoy's philosophy—human life is divine love. Love is understood by the simpler minds in the bar as sexual love. But among the various statements: "Constable 14 A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle.... His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen," etc.—our mystery man reappears for a moment. "The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead." We note that he stands out here in marked contrast to the constable and even to "Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet [who] loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye." A poetical something has been added to the mystery man. But who is he—he who appears at crucial points of the book—is he death, oppression, persecution, life, love?

  In chapter 10 at the end of the masturbation scene on the beach, during the bazaar fireworks Bloom briefly recalls the Man in the Brown Macintosh he had seen at the grave side; and, in chapter 11, in a bar
just before closing time at eleven o'clock, a bar between a maternity hospital and a house of ill-fame, the mystery man through the fog of liquor is briefly seen: "Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the macintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by James. Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love; Walking Macintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. Pardon? See him today at a runefal? Chum o yourn passed in his checks?" The passage, like the whole last scene of the chapter, is unnecessarily obscure, but there are clearly references to the man avidly eating Bovril soup and to his dusty shoes, torn socks, and lost love.

  A brown-macintoshed man pops up in the bordello scene, chapter 12, which is a grotesque exaggeration of broken thoughts passing through the mind of Bloom: broken thoughts acting on a dim stage in a nightmare comedy. This chapter should not be taken seriously, nor should we take seriously Bloom's brief vision of the Man in the Brown Macintosh who denounces him as the son of a Christian mother: "Don't you believe a word he says. That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins." Bloom's mother, who married Rudolph Virag of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London, and Dublin, was born Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born Karoly—a Hungarian) and Fanny Higgins, born Hegarty. In the same nightmare Bloom's grandfather Lipoti (Leopold) Virag is sausaged into several overcoats over which he wears a brown macintosh obviously borrowed from the mystery man. When after midnight Bloom orders coffee for Stephen in a cabman's shelter (part three, chapter 1), he picks up a copy of the Evening Telegraph and reads therein the account of Patrick Dignam's funeral as reported by Joe Hynes: The mourners included—here follows a list of names ending with M'Intosh. And finally, in chapter 2 of this last part, a chapter which is composed in question and answer form, there occurs the following: "What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom [as he undressed and gathered his garments] voluntarily apprehending, not comprehend?

  Who was M'Intosh?"

  This is the last we hear of the Man in the Brown Macintosh.

  Do we know who he is? I think we do. The clue comes in chapter 4 of part two, the scene at the library. Stephen is discussing Shakespeare and affirms that Shakespeare himself is present in his, Shakespeare's, works. Shakespeare, he says, tensely: "He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas...." and this is exactly what Joyce has done—setting his face in a dark corner of this canvas. The Man in the Brown Macintosh who passes through the dream of the book is no other than the author himself. Bloom glimpses his maker!

  PART TWO, CHAPTER 4

  Time: Noon.

  Place: Newspaper offices, the Freeman's Journal and Evening Telegraph, at Nelson's Pillar, the center of the city just north of the Liffey.

  Characters: Among the characters there is Bloom, who has come in order to arrange for the publication of an advertisement of Alexander Keyes: high class licensed premises, a liquor store or pub. (Later, in chapter 5, he will go to the National Library to procure the design of the two crossed keys with the legend, house of keys, the name of the Manx parliament—an innuendo bearing on home rule for Ireland. To the same newspaper office comes Stephen with Deasy's letter on hoof-and-mouth disease, but Joyce does not bring Bloom and Stephen together. Bloom is aware of Stephen, however; and other citizens, including Stephen's father, back from the cemetery with Bloom, are glimpsed at the newspaper office. Among the journalists there is Lenehan, who riddles a pun, "What opera resembles a railway line?" Answer: The Rose of Castille (rows of cast steel).

  Style: The sections of the chapter bear humorous titles in parody of newspaper headlines. The chapter seems to me to be poorly balanced, and Stephen's contribution to it is not especially witty. You may peruse it with a skimming eye.

  PART TWO, CHAPTER 5

  Time: After one o'clock, early afternoon.

  Place: Streets south of Nelson's Pillar.

  Characters: Bloom and several people he happens to meet.

  Action: From Nelson's Pillar Bloom walks south, riverward. A somber YMCA man places a leaflet, "Elijah is Coming," "in a hand of Mr Bloom." Why this odd construction, "in a hand of Mr Bloom"? Because for the distributor of leaflets a hand is merely a hand into which to place something: that it belongs to Mr. Bloom is incidental. "Heart to heart talks.

  Bloo ... Me? No.

  Blood of the Lamb.

  His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, druid's altars. Elijah is coming. Dr. John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the church in Zion, is coming.

  Is coining! Is coming!! Is coming!!!

  All heartily welcome"

  Presently we shall follow the fate of that pamphlet, called a throwaway.

  On his way to lunch in town Bloom passes a few people. Stephen's sister is outside Dillon's auction rooms, selling off some old things. They are very poor, Stephen's motherless family of four girls and Stephen, and the fatheir, an old egoist, does not seem to care. Bloom sets foot on O'Connell bridge and sees gulls flapping and wheeling. He is still holding in his hand the leaflet he has been given by the YMCA man, announcing the evangelist Dr. Dowie on the subject Elijah is coming. Now Bloom crumples it into a ball and throws it from the bridge to see if the gulls will snatch at it. "Elijah thirty-two feet per sec is com." (Scientific Bloom.) The gulls ignore it.

  Let us briefly follow through three chapters the Elijah theme, the fate of that scrap of paper. It has fallen into the flowing Liffey and will be instrumental to mark the passage of time. It started on its river voyage eastward, seaward, at about half past one. An hour later, riding lightly down the Liffey, it has sailed under Loopline bridge, two blocks east from its starting point: "A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay." A few minutes later, "North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains, sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the ferry-wash, Elijah is coming." Finally, a little after three o'clock it reaches Dublin Bay: "Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street past Benson's ferry, and by the threemasted schooner Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks." At about the same time, Mr. Farrell, just before he brushes by the blind stripling, frowns "at Elijah's name announced on the Metropolitan Hall" where the evangelist is to speak.

  In another synchronizing theme, a procession of white-smocked sandwich-board men march slowly towards Bloom in the vicinity of Westmoreland Street. Bloom is brooding over Molly's coming betrayal and thinks of ads at the same time. He has seen a sign on a urinal—post no bills—and some chap has changed bills to pills. This leads Bloom to reflect in terror—what if Boylan has gonorrhea? These sandwich men advertising Wisdom Hely's stationery shop are also going to walk through the book. In Bloom's mind they are associated with his happy past when he worked at Hely's in the first years of his marriage.

  In this same chapter 5, Bloom on his way south to lunch meets an old flame of his, then Josephine Powell, now Mrs. Denis Breen. She tells him that some anonymous joker has sent her husband an insulting postcard with the message U. P.: you pee, up (a reference to the tag "U.P. spells goslings," meaning it's all up with a person). Bloom changes the subject and asks of Mrs. Breen if she has seen anything of Mrs. Beaufoy. She corrects him, you mean Purefoy, Mina Purefoy. Bloom's slip of
the tongue is due to his mixing up the name Purefoy with that of Philip Beaufoy, the pseudoelegant name of the chap who wrote the prize titbit "Matcham's Masterstroke" in the Titbits pages which Bloom took with him to the toilet after his breakfast. As he talks to Mrs. Breen, Bloom even remembers part of the passage. The mention of Mina Purefoy being in the maternity hospital and going through the throes of a very stiff birth suggests to compassionate Bloom visiting the hospital, which he does eight hours later, in chapter 11, to find out how she is. One thing leads to another in this marvelous book. And meeting Josephine Powell, now Mrs. Breen, sets going a train of retrospective thought in Bloom's mind, the happy past when he first met Molly and now the bitter and ugly present. He remembers a recent night when he, Molly, and Boylan were walking along the River Tolka, near Dublin. She was humming. Perhaps it was then that her fingers and Boylan's touched, and a question was asked and the reply was yes. The change in Molly, the change in their love, occurred some ten years before, in 1894, after their little boy's birth and his death a few days later. He thinks about giving Molly a present of a pin cushion, perhaps for her birthday on 8 September. "Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo." The ve in love has been cut off to show what happens. But he cannot prevent her affair with Boylan. "Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all."

  Bloom enters the Burton restaurant, but it is noisy, crowded, dirty, and he decides not to eat there. But being very careful not to offend anybody, even stinking Burton, kindly Bloom goes through a little rigmarole of private courtesy. He "raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said.

  —Not here. Don't see him."

  An invented person, a pretext for leaving the place, the mannerism of a very good-hearted and very vulnerable Bloom. This is a preview of his motions at the end of the chapter when he runs into Boylan and feigns to be searching in his pocket so as not to give the appearance of seeing him. He finally has a snack at Byrne's pub in Duke Street—a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of burgundy—where he talks to Nosey Flynn, and the Gold Cup is on everybody's mind. Crushing the glowing wine in his mouth, Bloom thinks of the first kiss Molly gave him and the wild fern on Howth hill, just north of Dublin on the bay, and the rhododendron and her lips and breasts.