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There is a problematic sentence in Ulysses (Ithaca p.629, Oxford World's Classics) I would like to subject to your High Wordinessess's scrutiny. Context: While Mr. Bloom (central character of said novel) is making cocoa for himself and Stephen Dedalus (let's call him an acquaintance, it's not important for our purposes) he, Bloom, notices on the kitchen counter the stubs of two betting tickets from the Gold Cup, a horse race which ran earlier in the day. Seeing them he is temporarily troubled by the fact that he did not act on certain portentous signs he received throughout the day about the winning horse named Throwaway. Throwaway was an outsider; a dark horse, but all the same Bloom's intimations were unexpectedly prophetic: Throwaway won. The chapter proceeds as a series of questions and answers. The question asked at this point is : Quote:
What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations?
And the answer, and the proposed subject of this thread, is :
Quote:
The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed
its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge
and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum
of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation."
I would like to compare notes with someone on the correct interpretation of this sentence!
Is Bloom, as I see it, quite simply consoling himself that it is difficult a) to interpret signs, and b) omit from one's thoughts the "sum of possible losses" (which is equal to all possible bets at stake on the total number of horses racing minus the winning horse?)
This seems the obvious interpretation.
However, another Ulysses reader puts it simply thus:
Quote:
I think the idea is: you play a number, you win 100 dollars, you decide it's your lucky number and keep playing it until you lose more than 100 dollars.
My reason for posting is I have difficulty leaving it at this because these double-negative word-pairings seem oxymoronic : "counterestimate against [...] by failure to interpret" It seems possible a third, perhaps far more complex, interpretation might be necessary.
On the two heads are better than one (particularly if neither of them are mine) principle, I will leave it at that, anxiously awaiting the chance to extend a humble and appreciative welcome to alternative interpretations.
Regards,
HL
Last edited by Homo Loquens; 11/24/05 03:34 PM.
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I read it as quite close to your interpretation, with a slight twist.
Bloom's consoling himself that
a. It's hard to read such portents, and
b. It's impossible to accurately forecast the total losses that may arise from even a sucessful initial stake
~ ie, even if you win a bet, it may turn out to be, in the long run, a losing option.
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Quote:
I read it as quite close to your interpretation, with a slight twist.
Bloom's consoling himself that
a. It's hard to read such portents, and
b. It's impossible to accurately forecast the total losses that may arise from even a sucessful initial stake
~ ie, even if you win a bet, it may turn out to be, in the long run, a losing option.
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huh! All I get is
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Quote:
huh! All I get is
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semper similaris frater
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don't know no Latin...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
Sponsored by:
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don't know no Latin...
Neither do I, but I'm sure my Yang will get it anyway.
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> my Yang will get it anyway hey, I thought this was my week to be the big yin?! moonshine
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Quote:
I read it as quite close to your interpretation, with a slight twist.
Bloom's consoling himself that
a. It's hard to read such portents, and
b. It's impossible to accurately forecast the total losses that may arise from even a sucessful initial stake
~ ie, even if you win a bet, it may turn out to be, in the long run, a losing option.
Thanks for your reply. Without it, the thread would have been completely hijacked by Google-ad bibble-babble.
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> Google bibble-babble.
yeah, sorry, sort of like a regular conversation.
I didn't feel that I have much to offer when it comes to Joyce, other than to think that your friend was swayed (incorrectly, in the end) by the word "sum". seems to me that mav has the best of it.
I also got a bit thrown by the whole "acoustic/electrical" thing. what's up with that?
formerly known as etaoin...
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I don't presume to understand the sentence 'acos I don't very much.
But the "acoustic/electrical" thing might refer to thunder and lightning? The one always follows the other.
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Quote:
I also got a bit thrown by the whole "acoustic/electrical" thing. what's up with that?
Oh, that. Easily explained :
Quote:
The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge
In other words: Event is to portent what thunder is to lightning.
It's what is meant by counter- in
Quote:
The difficulties of [...] counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation
that's troubling.
Counter- as in counterespionage (which would make counterestimating the opposite of estimating hence by a failure to interpret) or as in counterpart (which would make by failure to interpret difficult to interpret -- how can you find it difficult to fail to do something? I find it terribly easy to fail myself) ?
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Quote:
… how can you find it difficult to fail to do something? I find it terribly easy to fail myself) ?
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
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What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Homo Loquens's thoughts about Faldage's thoughts about Homo Loquens, and Homo Loquens's thoughts about Faldage's thoughts about Homo Loquens's thoughts about Faldage?
He knew that he thought that he was an idiot, but he knew that he knew that he knew that he was the idiot.
Last edited by Homo Loquens; 11/25/05 04:54 PM.
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"The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed
its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge
and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum
of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation." -- James Joyce
I would like to compare notes with someone on the correct interpretation of this sentence!~ Homo Loquens
My interpertation:
It is hard to interpret any event yet to occur since the importance of the clues you recieve from the world around you are as variable as the length of time it takes a thunderclap to retort from a flash of lightning.
And if you overthink the clues that foretell of the event by finding other explainations for the clues that foretell the event because you are afraid of losing, you might become befuddled; so you must delineate all the other possibilities and act only upon the one of your original inspiration.
Artistically I see two possibilities
(1) By offering the reader this convoluted paragraph James Joyce was attempting to imitate the convoluted thinking that is used in deciphering omens.
(2) James Joyce was well into the latter stages of insanity and the avant-garde crowd simply embraced his insanity as high Art.
Last edited by themilum; 11/25/05 07:43 PM.
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>James Joyce was well into the latter stages of insanity
in actuality, these were the early stages; in the latter stages he wrote Finnegan's Wake
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As someone who adores his earlier writing I agree, tsuwm. If he starts to disappear up his own arse with Uselessease, he's somewhere around the upper colon with the Wake. Still, it's to a novel as a crossword puzzle is to a conversation I guess... 
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If he starts to disappear up his own arse with Uselessease, he's somewhere around the upper colon with the Wake.
Our boy Maverick knows how to turn a phrase.
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He sure does Father, but as for me I have enough trouble understanding James Joyce.
But once in a blue moon I can turn a phrase myself.
Like when I sit down at my computer with a bottle of Jack Daniels and have intercourse with my goodbuddies on the Internet.
My Internet pals are unsophisticated. They usually write back in acronyms, like "WTF". And, sadly, the following morning, as I re-read what I have written the past night, I find out that I don't know "WTF" myself.
But to my great satisfaction as I try to decipher what I have written, I find that I sound a little bit like Maverick and a lot like James Joyce.
My heros.
Last edited by themilum; 11/26/05 09:27 AM.
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> My reason for posting is I have difficulty leaving it at this because these double-negative word-pairings seem oxymoronic
This kind of odd construction implies a major theme of the work. An attack on idealistic notions regarding love, linearity and logic. It's a little like a long Zen koan or lots of little ones:
'the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.'
It does so surprise me that possibly the greatest writer of the 20th century is so maligned by word lovers. Here's someone who spent his life trying to conjure the Philosopher's Stone into book form and he's accused of self-love.
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Ulysses was intended to be understood?
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lol!
yeah, in about the same measure as a crossword puzzle is designed to transmit clear information.
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