Introibo Ad Altare Dei (3 of 783)
There's Latin on the first page. It was one of those times I wish I had had a classical education, and I could translate any Latin I encountered without even thinking about it and read on. Instead I came screeching to a halt. Fortunately, Google came to the rescue, Introibo Ad Altare Dei means "I go to the altar of God".
Dei I knew meant God, the rest was, well, Latin to me. The phrase is the opening to the Latin mass, which is either full of portent or just a means of quickly introducing the character, who uttered it, Buck Mulligan, as clearly a priest. He is described as stately and plump, recalling a "patron of arts in the middle ages". His actions seem a bit odd, though they seem to be those of one very comfortable in his world.
Buck is carrying his shaving implements and rousing various members of the household, while going through priestly machinations. He also greets the sleepy Stephen Dedalus, and makes fun of his name, calling it "your absurd name, an ancient Greek". Dedalus, of course, is probably best known for crafting the wings for his son Icarus, who then flew too close to the sun.
So, one page in, we have Latin, a reference to a mythical Greek, whistling and total lack of quotation marks, which makes it a bit hard to tell where dialog ends and narration begins. Joyce either had a broken typewriter, or is making a conscious effort to blur the lines between the two. The start of each utterance is indicated by a -- at least, and the end is usually clear with careful reading.
One page in and I am enjoying it. We have a potentially interesting character in Buck and the curiously named character, Dedalus. Despite the Latin and the punctutational peculiarlities, I am drawn in and can't wait for page two.
The astute and detail driven will note that the novel actually begins on page 2, with a full page drop capital S starting "Stately, plump". (For the insanely curious, Page 1 contains only the roman numeral I). Counting either of those as pages seemed like a a bit of a cheat, so I continued on.
Words Requiring More Context or Investigation
These are words that I did not understand, or could not comprehend what they referred to. I'll revisit them later.
Dei I knew meant God, the rest was, well, Latin to me. The phrase is the opening to the Latin mass, which is either full of portent or just a means of quickly introducing the character, who uttered it, Buck Mulligan, as clearly a priest. He is described as stately and plump, recalling a "patron of arts in the middle ages". His actions seem a bit odd, though they seem to be those of one very comfortable in his world.
Buck is carrying his shaving implements and rousing various members of the household, while going through priestly machinations. He also greets the sleepy Stephen Dedalus, and makes fun of his name, calling it "your absurd name, an ancient Greek". Dedalus, of course, is probably best known for crafting the wings for his son Icarus, who then flew too close to the sun.
So, one page in, we have Latin, a reference to a mythical Greek, whistling and total lack of quotation marks, which makes it a bit hard to tell where dialog ends and narration begins. Joyce either had a broken typewriter, or is making a conscious effort to blur the lines between the two. The start of each utterance is indicated by a -- at least, and the end is usually clear with careful reading.
One page in and I am enjoying it. We have a potentially interesting character in Buck and the curiously named character, Dedalus. Despite the Latin and the punctutational peculiarlities, I am drawn in and can't wait for page two.
The astute and detail driven will note that the novel actually begins on page 2, with a full page drop capital S starting "Stately, plump". (For the insanely curious, Page 1 contains only the roman numeral I). Counting either of those as pages seemed like a a bit of a cheat, so I continued on.
Words Requiring More Context or Investigation
These are words that I did not understand, or could not comprehend what they referred to. I'll revisit them later.
- "genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns."
- Chrysostomos. (It's a Saint's name, and might refer to a character -we'll find out.)
posted by DBugger32 | 9:07 PM
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