Love, Poetry and Revolution - Wednesday 17th May 2023

A slightly better night, thanks in part to Lemsip Max Day and Night. As I'm still feeling lousy, I start the day with a COVID test (remember those?)

Early morning I had a brainwave.  I'm going to get rid of a load of books.  Sell them. Give them to charity. Give them to book club members if anyone is interested. The computer books will have to be trashed, I guess, since not even charities want these. I'm going to buy a new book case too.  I'm probably delirious.  Must be the cold.

I shower whilst it's cooking and when I come out it's negative, thankfully. Still feel crap though.

Talking of which, it's work today, so let's see how I can manage with cotton wool for a brain.

It's over. Next up, 'Ulysses For All' and the final lesson/discussion on 'Circe'. I have a confession to make. I am behind and have not found time to finish this chapter, so I shall have an uphill struggle for next week.

Unlike all the other episodes, 'Circe' is written in the form of a play, though a play unlike any other.  Is it a dream? Is it a fantasy? Is it an exploration of the subconscious of the two main male protagonists? Whatever it is, it is an extraordinary, fun and incredibly filthy read. 

Amongst the explorations of fetishes and submission and domination, strange things happen. Characters change gender and explore those aspects of their nature. Women dominate men. Men discover what it's like to be a prostitute, and how they are treated.  The episode is marked by the detailed descriptions of the clothes characters are wearing, especially detailed are the descriptions of women's underwear, which won't come as much of surprise to those who've read any of Joyce's letters to Nora.

The strangeness continues. Fans talk. Fans change from being representatives of femininity to something more priapic.  We discussed the relationship between fan and fanny, which resulted in one of the best lines on the chat from one of my US colleagues, "'jeez, doesn't EVERYBODY call an arse a fanny???". Several of us from this side of the pond enlightened her.  At the time Joyce wrote 'Circe', his library included works by Freud, Krafft-Ebing and Sacher-Masoch, which he clearly consulted.

'Circe' is such a lively, surprising, confusing, and life-affirming episode, it is worth the price of admission alone. 

Son #1 made dinner as the course came to a close and we sat down and watched the third episode of 'Colin From Accounts' together.

Off to bed as soon as possible.

Friends / 'I'm His Girl' / 'Manifest!'


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