Unraveling 'Ulysses' with 'Jung eyes'

C. G. Jung (1875 - 1961) announced he couldn't fathom out 'Ulysses' - audaciously, I've attempted to unravel the philosophy... with 'Jung eyes.' 

 

First thing is first; 'Ulysses' was written six years after 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,' which was a classic chronicling the life of Stephen Dedalus. This, such a man was destined to live in the head of James Joyce - the closest metaphor I can portray is a characterise simulation game not dissimilar to the 'SIMS' game phenomenon from the late noughties; the timescale seems endless; except 'Ulysses' is rigged to twenty four hours across a numerous of character portrayals. The scene is set in an intimately-rendered Dublin, yet Joyce's tone is starkly cosmopolitan, one of the benefiting factors of a well traveled author in the early 1920s. Without doubt this was seen as a byproduct of his sublime text, something to teach his readership and peers alike - his was a career engineered to a voyage of odyssey, and at his creative zenith stands 'Ulysses.' Still James Joyce tried to enrich his readership about the world beyond Dublin to somewhat of a historical impression of the world - it took a while for the creative sediment to rise for me alas when it did Joyce indeed gifted us with a meticulous impression of world history in 'Ulysses' - evidently more than he or I anticipated. I say he due to his ambition to inform his readership of worldly offerings after 'Ulysses,'  Understandably, Joyce seemed detached from his creation. Notably, the result is an art form of its own accord; why I'm not treating 'Ulysses' as a novel, but a movement, one of a creative opus i.e. modernism.

 

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel masterpiece took five years to complete, James Joyce's 'Ulysses' took half that time; even in the mist of scandal. The UK judicial hurdle was the 'Obscene Publications Act' a body who protected the public from obtrusive content namely immoral practices; whether a metaphysical explanation (s) could be considered to be deemed influential, who can be brainwashed by a rancid gender swap pipedream; you ponder.. apart from the bourgeoisie signing off 'Obscene Publication Acts' for the good of clean living; in so-called smog Britain? The morale and value card wavers incessantly in pursuit of liberty... like a bad smell it lingers and attracts who need to be protected from the likes of Joyce, this literature fiend. His stylistic exuberance takes us into the realms of fantasy in which customary realism, as if inadequate, seems to be left behind, yet somehow the reader is more than just knowingly acquainted with Leopold, Stephen and Molly...  the term intimately is a fair assessment; in a bygone age writing about being intimate was once far worse than fear, war, or biblical 'sodomy' parables. The result was ultimately satirical; Joyce had singlehandedly identified innate social realities; to the point they're embedded in conventional clichés - strung along by authoritarians clawing out wealth from loyal albeit uneducated servants. What is bitter is that it is the chieftains who complained the strongest at Joyce's publication. No doubt Joyce had likely enjoyed the fiasco he caused transatlantic relations; much of it was pure hyperbole, which literary agents... namely Silvia Beach cashed in on 'Ulysses' publicity - why the literature giants of the day regard 'Ulysses' a pioneering force for it conducted the rhythm to neologism and linguistic liberation.

 

'Ulysses' evidently took a lot from the author, of the notion Joyce didn't write for a year afterwards. He slowly engaged into his creativity again while writing a lengthily letter to Patron, Harriet Weaver. I tip my trilby to Joyce and 'Ulysses' (the name is Greek for: Wrathful). What I can announce is that both tend to demand your time and observation more so than a fleeting dip or so. You can't brush pass 'Ulysses' and simply file the book as a book. I find the epic a curious anticipation of what theorists in the literacy sense had to say thirty to forty years thereafter Silvia Beach first published it. Those worldly informed, view it as a thesaurus as a collective resource centre for Bakhtinian discourse formulas, a major contributing factor for the school of Russian prose. A grand statement for a 'book' depicting urban Dublin warts et all. Refreshing transparency being a valid contribution to Russian prose, that's quite a find. Surely, Joyce's epic contains more than emptiness then? I may at this time embark on something unilaterally obvious, for the 1930s was a harpooning time to pick anything that the West finds uncomfortable and re-evaluate it per se - the Bakhtinian school grabbed the opportunity with vigor. Predominantly the reasoning was to defrag dialogue construction, to underline the sociohistorical pathways and textual representation - for those who are adept with Joyce's work, there's a denomination that points to the moment the language becomes Joycean. The modernity part technically cajoles the past, the present and future - and therefore can't be read as a standard book. It'll be incorrect to do so. In 1932 C. Jung's view had more than likely be entrenched into a way of having to understand the text; a must to come up with theorems to demonstrate validity - 'Joyce's 'Ulysses' counters that prose. Dispiritingly so. No artist / author has to abide by an unwritten ruling that categorizes the creator's art. The protagonist's quest to simulate past reasonings / conquests into a form of his present self carries huge weight in the ideology of Bakhtin discourse. There is a mutual engagement, perhaps the grotesque realism of entities / visions was the bridge. The spontaneous need for two to four lined verses, I can imagine Jung thinking... do real people do this; think in poetic licensed similes...  full of poetic might in it for the fright; "the hungry famished gull. Flaps o-er the waters dull."

 

With 'Jung eyes' I am more of a Joycean - knowing my own mind on Shakespeare and his lack of rhyme and his offering of blank verse. Y-es the style and forthrightness is solemn; unlike a river the language flows like a barge ambling through a lock. For me, the flow of language in 'Ulysses' is abating humanism. Why I suppose 'teachings' of it indeed can be off-putting to a psychologist who drew all that they know and are from the core of 'certainty.' The endearing style does something to the consciousness, the detail and prose unrivalled for its time; well since Will Self has emulated Joyce in his book 'Umbrella' written in 2012; I've noted he has cleverly included Bloom as a protagonist in 'How The Dead Live.' Proof that modernism is alive and well in our book shops today. Why it is a time for 'Jung eyes' to reshape the creative landscapes; fully aware that opinion changes, alas history remains the same. Reassuring for Historian prose for their certainty is outlandishly refreshing in the ocean of authoritarian excrement - snippets of actualities glint like diamonds in the corporate world of 'Sky.'  'Ulysses' was born out of political correctness; see it as a beacon of 'forced' social compromises; why I deem Carl Jung's letter as part of the pattern of frustration towards 'Ulysses' - how dare Joyce makes us all think; we were fine until he reconfigured the novel default system and paved the way to repugnant modernism.

 

Modernity Joyce

 

Heaven knows what will commence after this psyche-movement reconstruction - for Jung, he was post 'Ulysses' a balanced Psychologist, afterwards, he was a balanced Psychologist whom delved into 'Ulysses.' He did so, for conversational bigotry and social ideologies. Now, the spotlight has dimmed, the novel's enormity too has diminished; you'll do well to stay awake through the avalanche of piffle. 'Ulysses' is amply political due to it surpassing the political and ethical. Jung may've today felt more at ease with Joyce overall; for the consensus deem 'Ulysses' not dissimilar to an extravagant foible that has the longevity of several days at most. We're not confined to the book forever, we don't walk the streets holding a copy and preach the good book of Joyce... no one rejoices in his words. Funnily enough the rational remain rational, the irrational up in arms at such hedonistic pontificating  - 'Jung eyes' do take a note of this in the twenty-first century. I denote this is a linguistic joy to behold. Why the last forty two pages of 'Ulysses' is one sentence.. sparked off by 'Sinbad the Sailor' - 'Pinbad the Nailer' rhymes... words that can be lyrical, jovial, or conversational. For the conventional literature archetypes Joyce stretched their cerebral tendons until you could play a Sergei Rachmaninoff concerto on them - nine minutes and twenty three seconds later the cerebral din stops the synapses to function normally. Head grabbing chaos erupts and Psychologist Jung goes into a spasm... he famously states; "This thoroughly hopeless emptiness is the dominant note of the whole book. It not only begins and ends in nothingness, but it consists of nothing but nothingness. It is all infernally nugatory."  Heaven knows what will commence after this psyche-movement reconstruction.

 

In 'Ulysses' I applaud, the language deviations is a symptom of our lives... terminology comes and goes...  as does our cultural traits... for it to continue you need freedom at the core of your omnipresence; otherwise the stagnant ills of deistic values has the ability to zombie thought processes. No more future 'Ulysses' no more James Joyces' or contemporary thinkers. What hope is there for 'Jung eyes' generations onwards? Too many nomads identify the novel as an unending, implausible, innate view of our existence. Worth noting that the forty two page sentence without grammar is a symbolism of impossibilities, it grates against our intellect, our comprehension, our every day punctuated living. But in truth time creeps on regardless. Days and nights roll out thoughts even in our dreams. 'God's fat hand the palm infinitely moist' nervous his omnipotence has a shelf life. Well it is always nice to be remembered; regardless of hierarchy, size, intellect and what you leave in a form of creativity to mere mortals who procreate... still.

 

In 'Ulysses' (Wrathful) it is a testament of endurance and open-mindedness we're all bouncing on life's busty pillow. Thankfully the majority view the sexual and scatological explicitness as a realm of literature veracity; I feel fortunate that our freedom of speech remains in the creative sense - 'Ulysses' cleverly depicts humanism has the strength to view scenarios from all perspectives... it is piety and politics that holds back our great potential. Joyce knew this; 'Jung eyes' do now.