Joyce's great European novel and that queer fellow in Barcelona

I've been dipping in and out of Joyce's Ulysses for the last six months.

While the original text is sometimes a bit hard to follow,  with Joyce's "mischievous and obscurantist style", it is also incredibly rich and really grows on you.

Also, there are now a wealth of resources to mark it more accessible, from reading guides, an unabridged radio play version (free thanks to RTE) and university lecture courses (which you can now follow online)... 

Once you get into Ulysses it is a very rich world, and one of the commentators was discussing that every time they read (three times over 25 years?) it means something different to them. This got me thinking: what stands out to me?

A few months ago, I wrote a short piece about the connection to Amsterdam and in particular to Spinoza, whom Bloom, with his Irish-Jewish background is a fan of Spinoza. I can see this and feel this connection to Amsterdam and Spinoza, as I've been living in Amsterdam for the last 12 years, my grandparents on my mother's side were Hungarian Jews, who after World War II ended up as refugees in Amsterdam. I'm also a fan of Spinoza and his focus on the cultural element of religion and his campaigning for greater toleration of different cultural and religious practices.

Interesting it turns out that Molly Bloom also has a vague Irish-Jewish background, being born in Gibtrala to a Jewish mother, Lunita Laredo who is mentioned briefly by name in Molly's soliloquy  

$ cat -n Ulysses-Jame-Joyce-1922.txt | grep -B2 -A2 Lunita
 32041 wouldnt go mad about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my
 32042 mother whoever she was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows
 32043 after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along
 32044 Williss road to Europa point twisting in and out all round the other
 32045 side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like

this is very much towards the end of the book (line 32043 out of 32856), just before Molly's climactic ending and Bloom's homecoming,  and I believe emotional reconciliation with Molly ...

 32851 red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well
 32852 as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again
 32853 yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and
 32854 first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could
 32855 feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and
 32856 yes I said yes I will Yes.
 32857
 32858 Trieste-Zurich-Paris
 32859

One of the recurring themes in Ulysses which stands out to me in 2022 (my first reading) is that it is a very European novel

  1021 —After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your
  1022 own master, it seems to me.
  1023
  1024 —I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an
  1025 Italian.
  1026
  1027 —Italian? Haines said.
  1028
  1029 A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.
  1030
  1031 —And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.
  1032
  1033 —Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?
  1034
  1035 —The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and
  1036 the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

There aren't too many British-English characters, Haines is a racist fool:

  1065  —Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’s voice said, and I feel as one. I
  1066  don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.
  1067  That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.

While Deasy is Irish, apparently he can describe as a "West Briton"

The more hardcore Irish nationalists of the era saw West Brits like Mr. Deasy as traitors and heretics. https://www.bloomsandbarnacles.com/blog/2018/12/24/deasy-of-west-britain

and he is another racist fool, with probably the worst joke in the whole of Ulysses

  1845 —I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of
  1846 being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know
  1847 that? No. And do you know why?
  1848
  1849 He frowned sternly on the bright air.
  1850
  1851 —Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.
  1852
  1853 —Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.
  1854
  1855 A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a
  1856 rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing,

one of my favourite of Bloom's lines is "There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow"

  2155 irlandais, nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui!_ She thought you wanted a
  2157 Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer
  2158 fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well: _slainte!_ Around the
  2159 slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His
  2160 breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy’s fang

  2156 cheese _hollandais_. Your postprandial, do you know that word?

obviously, Joyce meant queer as in the eccentric and not in the full LGBTQ sense, but I still like the double-entendre here and it intrigues me what happened to this query man in Barcelona:
* just why and in what way(s) was he a bit (or very) queer?
* also as far as a I can tell, our queer friend in Barcelona doesn't pop up anywhere else in Ulysses?  

Still from the extracts above, it seems to me that Joyce was absolutely in favour of greater European integration and toleration (religious toleration and seeing religion as a cultural tradition are major themes in Bloom's intellectual idol Spinoza, a 17th century Amsterdam Jewish philosopher).

This from another key moment in Ulysses, Bloom's argument with the citizen

 16781  Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews
 16782  and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him
 16783  to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a
 16784  patch over his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew,
 16785  jew, jew_ and a slut shouts out of her:
 16786
 16787  —Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!
 16788
 16789  And says he:
 16790
 16791  —Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
 16792  the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.
 16793
 16794  —He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.
 16795
 16796  —Whose God? says the citizen.

The Citizen, is an Irish nationalist and another racist ...

The Citizen is a character encountered by Leopold Bloom in Barney Kiernan's pub in the Cyclops episode of Ulysses (episode 12). He is to be found in said pub with his everpresent dog, Garryowen, whom he speaks to in Irish. When Leopold Bloom enters the pub, he is berated by the Citizen, who is a fierce Fenian and anti-Semite. The episode ends with Bloom reminding the Citizen that his Saviour was a Jew. As Bloom leaves the pub, the Citizen, in anger, throws a biscuit tin at Bloom's head, but misses. The chapter is marked by extended tangents made outside the voice of the unnamed narrator: hyperboles of legal jargon, Biblical passages, Irish mythology, etc. It is thought that the character of the Citizen may be based on Michael Cusack [Mícheál Ó Cíosóg], the founder of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association).

https://www.goodreads.com/characters/47073-the-citizen

So there seem to be a lot of anti-Semites in Joyce's Dublin, probably the one thing which would unite the odious Deasy, Hanes and Citizen? 

But the last word goes, to his wife Molly, who knows and loves her husband so deeply, including all Bloom's foibles and fancies 

 32318  Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt
 32319  that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he
 32320  had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that
 32321  pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men do God knows
 32322  theres always something wrong with us 5 days every 3 or 4 weeks usual
 32323  monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came on me like
 32324  that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn gave him
 32325  to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he did about
 32326  insurance for him in Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I wouldnt
 32327  give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his
 32328  glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul
 32329  thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could
 32330  all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it
 32331  out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry
 32332  supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the gallery
 32333  hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and had a

Qui a tué mon père and an Amsterdam standing ovation for Édouard Louis

 

I meet Frédéric (a friend through the Amsterdam Queer Bookclub) today for Édouard Louis's new play "Qui a tué mon père" which was quite amazing.

I really admire Édouard Louis works and in my opinion, he is just getting better and better as a writer.

Édouard Louis first book "En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule", is a real shocker, it grabs that reader by the throat and never really takes its foot off the pedal, one hell of a ride and not for the faint hearted. 

This book seems to be a new genre that is very largely autobiographical, similar to the American poet Ocean Vuong, whose lyric style seems to accentuate the negative and shocking. Édouard Louis's childhood is portrayed in unrelenting misery, the principal villains being a nasty mixture of toxic masculinity and poverty. After reading "En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule", I did wonder how his family and especially his father took the publishing of this sensational childhood story?

Édouard Louis's second book "Histoire de la violence" is of a similar shocking style, he is a little older and the events are just as grim, very Hobbesian again i.e. the 17th British philosopher who maintained life is 'Nasty, brutish and short'. And yes, it would appear that there were some parallels between poor and working-class between 1650 and 470 years later, in 2020?  This regression in the quality of the life for the working poor, especially over the last 30 to 40 years, with neo-liberal and more purist free-market economics, which has hit the poorest in society hard, drives much of Édouard Louis' writing.

On a lighter note, if I remember correctly, I think there was a bit more humour in this second largely autobiographical novel? I need to re-read it to verify, but I remember it feeling very real but people took some absurd pleasure in the farcical nature of their lives

Édouard Louis now has a new play, focusing on the last few years of his father's life. While his father seems to be the victim of his own toxic masculinity, his wife eventually could not stand it anymore and he spend the last few years of his life in grinding poverty.  Louis details the repeated benefit cuts and how his father was forced to work to travel long distances and work as a street cleaner (barely covering his travel costs) until his health failed him. A very raw account of the harsh reality of the populist "back to work schemes" of the last few decades. On a more everyday level, he portrayed a more balanced relationship with his father, who was also very loving and proud of his son, even if he rarely showed it. His father seems to have had toxic masculinity in spades and he was sometimes his own worst enemy? 

Anyway, today was a very special performance for me, I had assumed that some actor would be performing today. I didn't realize Édouard Louis was actually performing his latest play until after the play had actually started and then I had this crazy dawning realization: that guy looks like quite Édouard Louis. I had seen a few photos of him, but I was more interested in books than his looks (although he is quite handsome), but then I thought this guy really sounds like Édouard Louis and I had heard him give radio interviews, plus I had listened (twice through), to the audiolib.fr french version of Qui a tué mon père, read by Édouard Louis ... so then I realized this guy actually is Édouard Louis ... OMG!

To see him perform live was simply incredible, a remarkable writer, performer and event. Édouard Louis received a standing ovation for his performance today.

Don't spit on Spinoza.

Amsterdam is a famously liberal and diverse city, not just in the 21st century but going back centuries and centuries. 

Amsterdam's rich cultural history and it's reputation for toleration has also built up over the centuries, for example, Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) was pushing the boundaries of the Amsterdam Jewish community in the mid 17th century with his then-radical ideas that God is everywhere and in everything:

 “Most religions teach that God exists somewhere outside the world, perhaps in heaven. Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) was unusual in thinking that God is the world. He wrote about ‘God or Nature’, to make this point–meaning that the two words refer to the same thing. God and nature are two ways of describing a single thing. God is nature and nature is God. This is a form of pantheism–the belief that God is everything.”
— A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories) by Nigel Warburton

I find this thinking beautiful and clearly resonates with many modern thinkers, but is possibly antithetical to religious extremists who believe this sort of thinking is dangerous?

There are boundaries to freedom and even Amsterdam struggles with some more extremists movement, who don't believe in equality for women or still see being in a same-sex relationship as a perversion. There appears to be a correlation between such religious zealots and a dislike of more liberal-thinker like Spinoza.

Before my Dutch wedding, we met outside the Amsterdam Gementee by the statue of Spinoza who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite philosophers. Not just an advocate of seeing God in Nature, but also geometry and mathematics: 

“Spinoza did not just admire geometry; he wrote philosophy as if it were geometry. The ‘proofs’ in his book Ethics look like geometrical proofs and include axioms and definitions. They are supposed to have the same relentless logic as geometry. But instead of dealing with topics like the angles of triangles and the circumferences of circles, they are about God, nature, freedom and emotion.”
— A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories) by Nigel Warburton

The Leopold Bloom, the hero of Joyce's Ulysses, an Irish man from Hungarian-Jewish family background, is also a fan of Spinoza who is mentioned a couple of times, including this famously comic scene, were Bloom gets attacked by a bigotted fool with a biscuit box:

“—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.—Whose God? says the citizen.—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuit box here.”
— Ulysses by James Joyce

and checking, I see this Ulysses-Spinoza on Wikipedia:

1922: Leopold Bloom is shown several times to be an admirer of Spinoza in James Joyce's Ulysses (1922). Thoughts from Spinoza, an anthology, is represented on Bloom's bookshelf towards the end of the novel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza   

So I'm in good company with Leopold Bloom and Joyce! Well we live in remarkably broad and diverse society, none of us is divine, we all have our strengths and weakness, and I always try to be open to new ways of thinking plus putting myself into the perspective of others. But there are limits to toleration and I really struggle with those who want to spit on Spinoza?

NB Spinoza lived where the Moses and Aaron Church is located now, and there is strong evidence that he may have been born there:

By Amsterdam Municipal Department for the Preservation and Restoration of Historic Buildings and Sites (bMA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#/media/File:Mozes_en_A%C3%A4ronkerk.jpg

Moments of Joy 003 - George Takei and the Amsterdam Queer Bookclub

We had a really good discussion of George Takei autobiography in graphic novel format. Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate on this LGBTQIA+ activism, but it was still a really good discussion plus we were introduced briefly to George Takei husband, which was a fun and light-hearted moment in the book.

We were not convinced that America is such a "role model of modern democracy", every country has its problems and challenges and American exceptionalism can be a bit grating at times? I had assumed that the book was written pre-Trump. George Takei has a very popular TED talk made in 2014, although this book does touch on Trump and the resurgence/re-usage of refugee camps on US soil. Quite heartbreaking for George Takei who grew up in a camp in an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas.

Personally, I don't believe either democracy is dead in either America or UK but the last few years have seen very worrying trends, especially the Cambridge Analytical scandals which eventually cost Facebook $6 billion dollars i.e. US government fine and another $0.005 billion dollars to the UK government  

In response, Facebook apologized for their role in the data harvesting and their CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress.[7] In July 2019, it was announced that Facebook was to be fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission due to its privacy violations.[8] In October 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a £500,000 fine to the UK Information Commissioner's Office for exposing the data of its users to a "serious risk of harm".[9] In May 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal 

On the topic of graphic novels we also discussed these books:

* Fun Home (by Alison Bechdel i.e. of the Bechdel film test fame*)

* Our Dreams At Dusk

* My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

* I Think Our Son Is Gay (I need more humour)

We also discussed reading some of Sarah Waters' Historical Fiction, especially her first three novels seen in Victorian London

* Tipping the Velvet (1998)

* Affinity (1999)

* Fingersmith (2002)

* The Night Watch (2006)

* The Little Stranger (2009)

* The Paying Guests (2014)

I am a huge Sarah Waters fan and would love to re-read them all! I see that last year I was musing on these books attending English Classis status in the future:

Sarah Waters - one of my favourite writers and IMO going to become a classic

https://davetravelogue.blogspot.com/2021/07/queer-literary-classics.html

NB I've also been watch Star Trek (mixed with Black Mirror) during lockdown, not especially for background for this book but rather as seminal SciFi Television works and programs often referenced at the SciFi bookclub. A nice moment of synchronicity.

NB2 The Bechdel test for a film: * At least two women * The women need to talk to each other * They need to talk to each other about something other than a man

Where to get good vegan food in Amsterdam?

I've start this simple blog post, listing a few good vegan places to eat in Amsterdam (IMO).

This is just going to be just based on my personal experience, but since reading The China Study, Whole and a few other well written modern books on good plant-based nutrition, I then started googling 'Amsterdam Vegan' and have been repeated frustrated there isn't more info about where to eat out.

1) Dophert

I am happy to recommend anywhere which does a good vegan meal and/or is making an effort to accommodate vegans. However my first recommendation is an exclusively vegan restaurant/cafe.

What do I like about the Dophert? Well here are a few highlights:
* Very reasonable: it isn't expensive and given the quality of the food, it is an absolute bargin
* Awesome smoothies: taste great and very healthy.. inspirational (ie I make better smoothies a home now)
* Black bean soup: one of the best soup you will ever taste. Although this is more like a mean dish to me than a soup.
* Peanut butter cookies: very rich and buttery (in a vegan way!)
* Decor and Atmosphere: stylish and modern decor, relax-friendly atmosphere

There are many more great dishes at the Dophert.

The only downside to the Dophert, is that it just out of the center town, slightly to the west (and I live out of the center town... slightly to the east)

http://www.dophertcatering.nl/

2) Soup En Zou

This isn't exclusively vegan or even vegetarian, but that isn't an issue for me. They typically do 6 to 8 soups on anyone day, of which roughly half are vegan, then there are a couple of vegetarian soups and a couple of soups with meat. Everything is clearly labelled vegan/vegetarian/meat so you don't have to piss about asking silly questions i.e. 'is this vegan?' then 'oh .. is that vegan?'.

What makes Soup En Zou so good, is the quality of the soups which are simply delicous. I have a soup machine at home, which isn't bad, but my soups are very bland in comparison.

Soup En Zou also publish their recipes so in theory I should be able to learn how to make their great soups. Thanks for sharing!

The main downside of Soup En Zou, is that it is a victim of it own success:
* sometimes have to queue for a while
* there isn't much seating: especially problematic in the winter and on one Amsterdam's wet and windy days

https://soupenzo.nl/


3) Betty's

If you want the 'fine dining experience' Betty's is the vegan place to go.

I reminds me of Paul Mcartney's favourite restaurant in Brighton: Terre a Terre? Only a smaller, more personal atmosphere and not quite as expensive.

Typically I'm not a 'fining dining' sort of guy, I like my food to simple, nutritious and to be served in a relaxed, friendly and informal atmosphere hence the Dophert and Soup En Zou being my number one and two favourite friendly places to eat in Amsterdam.

Still if you want to have a savory two hour dinner with elegant service and thoughtfully crafted dishes, served in small portions this is the place to go.

http://www.bettys.nl/

4) Dabka (Lebanese)

Again not vegan or vegetarian but they do have several great vegan dishes, so highly recommended!

It has the feel of a traditional family run hotel and the traditional middle eastern dishes: falafel, tahini and roast vegetables are great.

The location is great, very near central station and on a small canal behind the impressive St Nicholas church.

http://www.dabka.nl/

5) Bloem - Eten & Drinken

This cafe/restaurant is in a beautiful location on the east side of Amsterdam, in the charming Entrepotdok (18th / 19th converted warehouses, next to the Artis Zoo).

It is aim at the environmental friendly end of the market and you can taste the difference in their very fresh salads.

This isn't a vegetarian or vegan cafe, and the range of choice for vegans is pretty limited, but the food is very good and it is a very charming spot.


http://www.bloem36.nl/