"Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing Imperthnthnthnthnthn.
Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.
Horrid! And gold flushed more.
A husky fifenote blew.
Blew. Blue bloom is in the
Gold pinnacled hair.
A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille.
Trilling, trilling. Idoleres.
Peep! Who’s in the … peepofgold?
Tink cried to bronze in pity.
And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.
Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! Notes chirruping answer. Castille. The morn is breaking.
Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.
Coin rang. Clock clacked.
Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La cloche! Thigh smack. Avowel. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!
Jingle. Bloo.
Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.
A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.
Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.
Horn. Hawhorn.
When first he saw. Alas!
Full tup. Full throb.
Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.
Martha! Come!
Clapclop. Clipclap. Clappyclap.
Goodgod henev erheard inall.
Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.
A moonlight nightcall: far:far.
I feel so sad. P.S. So lonely blooming.
Listen!"
(Ch. 8 - Sirens)
5 comments:
i have never been able to make it through this book. maybe its a testament to my intelligence (or lack thereof, rather) but even for all my enjoyment in word slaughter and the advancement of speech, i couldnt pick up what he was doing...
sad. cuz ive tried reading it three times... oh well.. i guess this book has its divisive qualities among readers..
don't feel bad tim, i bought ulysses on tour a couple years back, and still haven't made it half way through. unlike my favorite scottish drug novels, ulysses doesn't have a glossary to break down the lingo.
I, to be honest, haven't really properly read Ulysses. I read it first all the way through when I was about 16, and I was still too young to really appreciate/understand it; a lot of the time, especially towards the end, I was just coasting through on the sounds and 'word slaughter'... although arguably that is all that it's meant to be, anyway!
Recently I picked it up again (in the middle) - largely thanks to reading Kerouac - and I couldn't put it down. Save for having to go back to college and/or having to read some new books I bought, I'd still be working through it.
I'll explain more in my second post on this, but suffice to say, reading it straight through is not necessarily the best way to tackle it.
Oh, and sbj, there's an Irvine Welsh omnibus in my library that's probably a little thicker than Ulysses. I really must get it out on loan sometime. As for glossaries, the Behan book (from the same library, incidentally) also came with a glossary, mainly for the Irish language phrases. And as for Scottish drug novels, I'm heavily influenced by a Scottish anthology of underground literature called Rebel Yell, whence this extract came from. Obviously it's not specifically Scottish writers, although there is an extract from "Scottish existentialist beat writer (?!) Alex Trocchi's sensual masterpiece Helen and Desire" (not my exclamation marks - theirs!). Yet another book to post...
i was actually refering to welsh when i mentioned scottish drug novels. I just finished re-reading glue and porno, and need to get my hands on his last book, more than likely i will pick it up on this next tour (funny how now the only time i actually buy books anymore is on the road). nothing takes out dead time in the van like a good book.
reading is awesome!
heh, I read this anecdote where the Ramones went on toour with Talking Heads and were very surprised that Talking Heads actually read books!
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