May 31st 2011: chapter fifteen – ‘Circe’

‘The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer...’

The end is nigh, or near at least. Tonight’s reading at the Navan Ulysses Reading Group takes us to ‘Monto’, Dublin’s infamous red-light district. Follow Bloom who follows Stephen into and through Night-Town before defending him against the duplicitous whore-mistress and two angry policemen. As the two leave Monto together the final nostos of Joyce’s Ulysses has begun.

Join us at 6:30 in Navan Library for two hours of Joycean fun!

May 17th 2011: chapters thirteen and fourteen – ‘Nausicaa’ and ‘Oxen of the Sun’

In perhaps the most ambitious evening’s reading so far, Navan Ulysses Reading Group will tackle two substantial chapters of Ulysses on May 17^th. The group kicks off at 6:30pm sharp in Navan Library and all are welcome.

Nausicaa, the thirteenth chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses is set on Sandymount Strand and sets in parallel two arenas of action. Gerty McDowell, ‘in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see’, flirts with ‘the man in black’ close by on the beach. As things between the mutual voyeurs heat up, so also do the references to the other scene of action central to the chapter: the ceremony of Exposition and Benediction in the nearby Star of the Sea church. In a beautiful conflation of sex and spirit, the mid-summers day draws to the end of its daylight hours.

As we journey back into the city in the book’s fourteenth chapter – Oxen of the Sun – things take on a distinctly different hue.  Set in a drinking cubbyhole secreted in a Maternity Hospital, the linguistic style of the chapter itself seems to gestate and develop from beginning to end. An immensely challenging read, we will be dipping into and out of the more decipherable bits of this mammoth literary achievement which brings Bloom and Stephen ever closer to their [re-]union.

See you there – Tuesday at 6:30!

3rd May 2011: chapter twelve – ‘Cyclops’

“I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes. ...”

Navan Ulysses Reading Group continues tomorrow night [Tuesday] 3^rd of May with a reading of the uproarious Cyclops chapter. Bloom turns up at Barney Kiernan’s pub on Little Britain Street on an errand of mercy only to be accosted and falsely accused by his fellow Dubliners lead by ‘The Citizen’. The cyclops-Citizen [modelled on Michael Cusack, founder of the G.A.A.] is one of the most memorable characters in Joyce’s novel and his haranguing and eventual attack of Bloom is one of the most memorable pieces of writing in Joyce’s entire body of work.   

Join us for an evening of sheer fun and enjoyment tomorrow evening from 6:30 onwards in Navan Library.

All welcome, suggested donation €5.

April 19th 2011: 'Wandering Rocks' and 'Sirens'

“Bronze by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel...”

Tonight, following our abbreviated session on April 5^th, Navan Ulysses Reading Group will be making its way through the remainder of the ‘Wandering Rocks’ chapter plus the magnificent, musical ‘Sirens’ chapter.

Join us as Bloom meets Richie Goulding for lunch; Simon Dedalus, Ben Dollard and friends engage in a mid-afternoon booze-fuelled sing-song; and Blazes Boylan journeys towards his meeting with Molly Bloom in 7 Eccles Street.

All welcome. 6:30pm start in Navan Library. € 5 per person, tea and coffee provided.

5th April 2011: Chapters 9 and 10 – “Scylla and Charybdis” and “Wandering Rocks”

“The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S.J. reset his smooth watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? Dignam. Yes. Vere dignum et iustum est. Brother Swan was the person to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic: useful at mission time.”

This evening’s chapters – set in mid-afternoon of 16^th June 1904 – are quite a contrast. We begin, in Scylla and Charybdis, in the National Library on Kildare street where Stephen Dedalus is treating a small group of literati to an exposition of his theory of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hoping to be able to hold centre stage himself, Stephen is in fact upstaged by Buck Mulligan who enters and injects the entire scene with his characteristic levity and bawdiness. Mr Bloom, seeking out the advertisement for Alexander Keyes, makes a brief appearance as he passes between the two young men towards the end of the chapter.

Wandering Rocks is a snapshot of a multitude of characters who are traversing the city between the hours of 3 and 4 in the afternoon. Bookended by representatives of the two major powers in turn of the century Ireland – the Catholic Church and the British Empire – the chapter gives a delightful selection of snapshots into the afternoon activities of a series of the book’s characters.

All are welcome to attend the group. Suggested donation 5 euros.

22nd March 2011: Chapters 7 and 8 – “Aeolus” and “Lestrygonians”

Before Nelson's pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company's timekeeper bawled them off ...

Navan Ulysses Reading Group continues its meanderings this week ‘in the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis’. The seventh chapter of Ulysses sees our hero, Leopold Bloom, engaged in a series of near misses and frustrating disappointments as he seeks to place a newspaper ad on behalf of his client Alexander Keyes. In the newspaper offices, then as now, all is bombast and oratory as the assembled parties discuss everything from the Ancient Classics to Home Rule, racing tips and British imperialism.

Lestrygonians, the eighth chapter of Ulysses, sees a hungry Bloom meander across the city from the newspaper offices on Prince’s Street / Abbey Street to Duke Street. After his walk which is replete with images, tastes and smells of food, Bloom arrives in Davy Byrne’s pub where he has his much celebrated lunch of gorgonzola cheese sandwiches and burgundy wine before having another ‘near miss’ as he almost runs into Molly’s lover, the jaunty Blazes Boylan.  

Everybody welcome, suggested contribution of € 5 per person.

8th March 2011: Chapters 5 and 6 – “Lotus Eaters” and “Hades”

‘He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.’

Navan Ulysses Reading Group continues apace on Tuesday evening coming, 8^th March 2011, between 6:30pm and 8:30pm in Navan Library. This evening we’ll be covering the fifth and sixth chapters of the book, ‘Lotus Eaters’ and ‘Hades’.

Join us as we venture out into the city with Mr Bloom, collect a letter from a secret correspondent, meet a couple of acquaintances, buy some soap and take a bath in the public baths at Lincoln Place. From there we’re off to Paddy Dignam’s funeral, during which a small group of mourners make their way across Dublin to Glasnevin Cemetery, cracking jokes as they go.

Everyone welcome, suggested donation €5.