That’s a line from my favourite undergrad philosophy prof (who I know got it from somewhere, he used to say Lewis Carroll but I don’t think I can find the reference) and I want to dig into it a little bit to follow up on the issue of the density and complexity of the stream-of-consciousness references.

Calum and I were walking to the grocery store on Saturday. Somehow we got on the topic of visiting Uncle Liam on the land, and Calum was recalling his last visit there, when he fell into some “pins and needles.” I chuckled and told him he meant “nettles” but then chuckled some more and complimented him for showing off one of the marvelous tricks our minds use for words, “storing” them “beside” each other based not always on the meaning but because of how they sound. You know this is so; think of the “tip of the tongue” phenomenom which is closely related.

Reading the opening episodes last night, I was struck by how often Joyce uses the sounds of words to connect different thoughts in the stream of consciousness. This is NOT to say there also aren’t tons of symbolic/semantic references going on, but that sometimes it is also the sounds leading us along, and that it can be enough to simply listen along. This little realization (which I know is not a new one for me) was another thing that helped me not get hung up the meaning of every reference but instead go “through” them to, ironically, stay on the surface of the stream. Anyways, just an observation, on to Bloom!