Nine Feet Underground

Monday in Liverpool.  Roadworks outside. Cloudy sky.  After breakfast together, Q heads off to work and after washing up, I begin by reading 'Cyclops'. By way of a change of pace, I go outside to hammer the new washing line all the way into the ground.  Once I found some wood and the sledgehammer, this process became much easier.  The difficult part had already been done, that is making it vertical, and so brute force was all that was required. Such a brute 😂 Returning to 'Cyclops' and finishing it in plenty of time for Wednesday's lecture.  At the heart of the chapter are explorations of Irish nationalism and anti-semitism, culminating in Leopold Bloom (who is an Irish Jew) being chased out of the pub by 'the Citizen' and his dog. It is a fascinating episode with two challenging elements: it gradually becomes apparent that the episode is being narrated by someone who is present in the action, but unnamed; and, the action is littered with sections parodyin...