If there can be such a thing as a spoiler alert for a book that is as famous and infamous as a book can be, this is it.

And, according to Ellmann, Joyce privately admitted that Wells was right. Wells complained that Joyce was “singularly indulgent of smells.” And though he appreciated Joyce’s genius, his literary compass pointed elsewhere, as we may surmise by looking back at his story “ The Flowering of the Strange Orchid.” Wells also compared Joyce to his fellow Irishman, Jonathan Swift, for having a “cloacal obsession,” meaning that Joyce focused his attention on a single metaphorical orifice through which all bodily fluids pass. From the bit of seedcake that she passes to Bloom like a mama bird, to her “perfume breasts” into which she pulls him, her nocturnal emissions/stream of consciousness leaves us in a warm place, devoid of light, redolent for the nether senses, a feminine outpouring of the dark waters of the world, streams of life, death, and bodily fluids.Īccording to Joyce’s biographer Richard Ellmann, H.G. This time I was struck by Molly Bloom’s final words–the last words of the book–that are full of food and flowers, taste and smells–so many of our favorite things at Aromatica Poetica. As I mentioned in Corpse Flower Revisited, I’ve recently reread James Joyce’s Ulysses, and it is the nature of such an encyclopedic book, that each time one reads it, one finds new threads to pull, new aspects to admire.

Molly bloom james joyce