James Joyce's "Ulysses" (abridged)
by Jess Winfield
As published in
New York
Newsday on
Bloomsday, June 16, 1995
My publicist calls me. New York
Newsday, he says, would like to see an abridged
version of James Joyce's Ulysses. Yeah, well, who
wouldn't?
They want you to write it, he says, it's part of their
Bloomsday coverage. Why me?, I wonder. A thought flashes
through my mind: am I the only person who's ever finished
Ulysses ? But then I realize that there are some real
freaks out there, some even freakier than I, like all those
people who watch "Home Improvement." Why, I bet there's
even some masochist who's read Ulysses twice.
So why have they chosen me? Newsday figures that
because I have co-written and directed The Compleat
Works of Wllm Shakespeare (abridged), I'm some sort of
expert on cutting classic works of literature down to size.
Jess Winfield, professional iconoclast. Literary luminaries
bastardized and bowdlerized while-U-wait. Dial 1-800-HACK
right now for a free estimate.
They'll pay, says my publicist...
Ding-ding! In this corner, the challenger, a literary
lightweight, a sophomoric from the University of
California... Jess Winfield. Smattered boos; a panicked
mother screams no, no, don't let them kill my baby! And in
this corner, the literary heavyweight champion of the
world, weighing in at a incredibly dense 718 pages, (the
hometown announcer booms) James Joyce's Uuu-LYSS-SEEESSSS!
My knees quiver as I rise from the stool in the corner. I
can't just run at the book like Quixote at a windmill,
flailing wildly, hoping to score a sucker simile, land a
lucky leitmotif. I need a strategy. A literary equivalent
of Muhammand Ali's Rope-a-Dope. What's the book on this
book? The last thing it'll expect? What foul currents flow
through its stream-of-consciousness mind--
Stream-of-consciousness, that's it! Beat it at its own
game. Joyce practically invented the technique, he'd never
expect it to turn against him like Werner von Braun against
the Germans. A stream of consciousness Ulysses Abridged.
Here goes. Joyce purists, run and hide.
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan..." Mulligan stew, Irish
stew. Meet Stephen Dedalus, a walking head, Deadalus
Headalus, all intellectualus. "The ineluctable modality of
the visible." Right, whatever. And eke Leopold Bloom: Irish
Jew, drinking his Jew's Harp lager.
So far, so smooth. I'm perfect for the job, this Bloomsday
fete of an Irish Jew, a Celtic Jew Like Me. Celtics vs.
Jews, what's the line? I'll take the Jews plus Ten
Commandments, unless the Celtics have the home Cork
advantage.
Bloomsday. A day in the life, just like the Beatles song.
Woke up, got out of bed. "Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish
the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked liver slices
fried with crustcrumbs..." Even a Liverpool connection.
Liver Pool... like a Blood Bank. Mickey Mantle took a
refreshing dip in the Liver Pool. He winds, de-livers, and
Mantle hits it hard, knocks it back, way back, it's a
goner!
Molly Bloom, in her bloomers, looming moonily in her
womb-like room. Good golly Mrs. Molly, she gets around
town, and when I say she gets around -- no, James Joyce
didn't rhyme all the time. Stop that!
Dignam's funeral, dig'n'im into the ground. Cheese sandwich
at Davy Byrne's pub (The Talking Head?), where I've been,
by the by. Had a moldy-'poldy cheese sandwich and
contemplated a statue of Joyce on the sidewalk outside.
Very lifelike. Maybe metempsychosis, the transmigration of
souls.
"Met him pike hoses."
Mets: them pikers, them hosers.
1904: A Dublin Odyssey. Peristaltic perambulation through
Dublin, then Dublin back the way he came, allusions,
extrusions, allusions to extrusions in the loo shunned by
the Moral Majority or whoever it was with a bug up there.
But at the time, it was racy material, book-burning up the
Middle of the American road. Cyclops, Sinn Fein, Ithaca,
the IRA... it's all Greek to him, Irish to me, I wonder if
I'm running out of room here how many words was this meant
to be?
Dedalus and Bloom (WIFE: The dedalus are in bloom, dear.
HUSBAND: Mm-hmm.); they meet, walk, and hold onto your cap,
Paddy MacMorris O'Grady O'Leary and sons, here's the big
climax...
They get stinking drunk.
It's Dublin, after all.
Why did James Joyce use a completely different writing
technique -- such as question and answer -- in each episode
of Ulysses?
Because he was a show-off.
How does James Joyce's Ulysses end?
Thus: finally home, Bloom abed, Molly is coddled and uh-oh
gotta do that monstrous Molly monologue thats so famous
well not as famous as to be or not to be but still pretty
famous the pressures on gotta do something brilliant with
it its the last scene the big boffo ending and very famous
because its got a lot of frank sexual references as in
references to sex with Frank go askin for him at McBells in
the Village a nice Irish pub good place to read Ulysses in
fact with Guinness on tap which really is better in Ireland
just like they say and great burgers now where was I oh
right the big Mollylogue its two or three run-on sentences
with no punctuation over twenty pages of femininity and my
California blood aside I dont know if Im really that in
touch with my anima so I think Ill just bail out and quit
while Im ahead since nobodys still reading by now anyway I
mean I made more sense than the bloody book but will I get
any credit for that I seriously doubt it I should probably
try to get back to that boxing analogy somehow oh forget it
but I hope Newsday will pay me yes Id better just fade out
quietly yes I hope the checks in the mail thats why I said
yes I will yes I did it okay now please pay me Yes.