The Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis

The context in which one reads The Rules of Attraction may color one’s view of it.  That was the case for me, at least.  The first time I read it was in September of 2003.  I was 20 and going to Paris for the semester.  I seem to recall reading the entire book on the plane flight from New York to Paris.  I seem to recall considering it a very good book for the reason of such speed—considered it to be on the same level of Less Than Zero.  Recently I have felt the opposite—that Less Than Zero is clearly the superior work, and that The Rules of Attraction is the “weaker sophomore effort.”  This is not the way I felt about The Beautiful and Damned (which oddly enough is the most popular review on Flying Houses—and by a long shot) and people tend to think of Bret Easton Ellis and F. Scott Fitzgerald in a similar vein.  For one, they both go by three names, which people generally do not take as a sign of pretension, but may be so (think of the “stature of the artist” view—or maybe just an attempt at accuracy for the names they were called).  They both write about young people and how their social lives affect their interior and exterior selves.  They both had success when they were very young (Ellis younger, however) and both were tagged as emblems of the generations they sought to capture in literature.  Popular films have been made out of their novels and short stories—and they continue to be made. 

They have also both been equated with the characters they portrayed.  And it would be too hard to ignore Ellis’s recent doings: the recent New York Times article about The Canyons is more than an instructive exercise.  In it, Ellis is painted as a screenwriter who has seemingly abandoned the novel writing for which he is known and generally admired.  It is worth noting that Ellis is not known for having written the screenplay for anything yet—so a good deal of whether this latest entre into film remains to be seen.  But I will make a small prediction that The Canyons is going to be about as memorable as The Informers.  Which is to say, nothing compared to Less Than Zero or American Psycho.  The Rules of Attraction and Glamorama get mentioned as secondary works (though I personally believe there is a strong argument that Glamorama is Ellis’s best work—but see also this present review, regarding re-assessment of Ellis as one ages) and most people only know about Imperial Bedrooms or Lunar Park if they are devoted readers of Ellis.  Maybe Ellis has achieved his goals in literature and is now seeking success in film—but it is irresistible to question whether this is just another fact by which to compare him to Fitzgerald—that late Hollywood period, when he had to write for the movies to make a living, and where he burnt out too young.  Fitzgerald died at 44 and Ellis is currently 49 but there have been advances in longevity.  Rumors have flown about Ellis (hardly ignored by the author in his two most recent efforts) and whether he shares certain characteristics with his literary creations.  I will just say that personally, I have my views on this matter (okay I went to NYU and more than a couple people I met claimed personal connections to him—then again one kid in Los Angeles claimed that B.E.E. read his self-published first creative non-fiction book and as time as passed I have increasingly felt that the kid was a liar) and no review of The Rules of Attraction should fail to mention its obsession with “gossip,” but I will decline to offer any personal tidbits that might paint an unfortunate view: we will respect the separation between artist and art object in this review.

                To return to context, then: I liked The Rules of Attraction much better when I was 20 than I liked it when I was 29.75 years old.  Maybe it’s because of something that’s captured in one scene: dismay over the reality that you have reached a certain age, which Sean experiences when he finds out that a centerfold in the pages of Playboy is 19 years old—two years younger than him—when he has always seen centerfold models as being “older”:

“This girl is younger than me, and that does it—instant depression.  This woman, this flesh was always older and that was part of the turn-on, but now, coming across this, something I’d never noticed before upsets me more than thinking about the conversation that Lauren and Judy must have had.” (210)

And perhaps it summarizes my view when I say I don’t consider it a spoiler to tell the reader that Sean has had sex with Judy while Sean was going out with Lauren.  This is because I seriously doubt any reader gets into the nitty-gritty details of this text—draws a massive chart detailing every relationship and how they are part of a larger intelligent design—but also seemingly rough outlines of variations on the same theme: spoiled brats at a small liberal arts college, drinking and doing lots of drugs and having lots of sex. 

It is hard not to mention the context in which I viewed this book at age 20, too.  Briefly, from September through December of 2002, I was the editor of the film review section of the NYU student newspaper.  That context matters for two reasons.  First, the film version of The Rules of Attraction came out while I had the editorial reigns, and I published a vaguely positive review of the film while not feeling an especially strong urge to go out and see it (this in contradistinction to American Psycho).  Second, New York University is a college filled with the same types of characters as those that populate The Rules of Attraction.  So the book is successful on the second front.  If you have been to college—and more specifically, this “type” of college—then you will be able to identify with this book in at least some small way.  Even though the characters are ensconced in the mid-1980s, one may indeed be shocked by how little youth culture has changed—apart from “screen time” which is vaguely anticipated in certain scenes, such as when Sean thinks Lauren will think he is cooler if he says he is majoring in Computers….but I cannot find the page that this detail emerges in.

And that is one important thing to note about this book: it is either one long chapter, or about 80 mini-chapters (maybe I’m off on that number—it’s just off the top of my head—I don’t want to spend the time to count up every single number of times that each character speaks in an attempt to make some sort of numerological quotation, nor do I believe that Ellis wants us to do this)—and if that parenthetical is any sign, it’s harder to view it as the latter.  This plot evolves over the course of one fall semester—roughly the months of October and November.  This includes Halloween and it is worth noting here that it bears a similarity to Daylight Savings Time, in ways that I did not even think about.  Really, I must have considered this book to be of such an inspiring nature that I adopted one of its narrative techniques: present tense first-person shifting narration (except that I kept it in third-person).  Indeed some of the scenes we both include probably share some of the same “one-liners at party” dialogue.  I wrote Daylight Savings Time when I was twenty-three and twenty-four, and Ellis published The Rules of Attraction when he was twenty-four, and while I would not suggest that I was on the same level of Ellis at that age, I would suggest that our “mental age” was probably not far off.

                This can be interesting material—but generally it is not.  It suffers from the same problem as Palo Alto (recently reviewed here) by James Franco: we don’t know which character to root for because we’re not sure of what they care about, or how smart they really are.  It appears that Sean is smarter than he appears, but we never really get any satisfaction out of seeing that side of him, except maybe in the scene at Vittorio’s (a 70-year-old poetry professor relocating to Italy that makes passes at Lauren)—that is, we do not know whether the things he tends to remember have significance or not.  At one point Sean mentions how his "hippie" ex-girlfriend knows to talk about Ginsberg, but then does not realize he wrote “Howl.”  I suppose Sean is supposed to appreciate that he can see through her “feigned coolness,” but the reader is never exactly sure how much of the behavior of the three major characters is “feigned coolness.” 

                This is most apparent in Paul’s interactions with Sean, and perhaps less apparent in Sean’s interactions with Lauren.  Which leads me to recognize that I have not provided a plot-line for this novel yet.  It concerns Sean Bateman (younger brother to Patrick Bateman, who makes an appearance and even gets his own “monologue-mini-chapter”), who rides a motorcycle and says “rock and roll” and “deal with it” in response to other people’s random statements, Paul Denton, who is bisexual but seems more gay than straight, who is from Chicago and generally seems the most “stuck-up” of the characters, and Lauren  Hynde, who pines for her boyfriend Victor who is “spending some time in Europe,” who keeps  changing her major, who slept with Paul before the action of the novel “starts” and who sleeps with Sean in the course of it, and who may be the social conscience of the book itself.  These characters attend the same school as Clay from Less Than Zero (who also has his own “mini-chapter monologue”): Camden College.  Maybe it says something when I recall that Clay’s “excerpt” is one of the best parts of this novel, and apparently shows that Ellis has not “lost his gift” but has just shifted it in a less interesting direction.  This is not to say that the subject matter of this book is boring: it takes on a topic which is rarely examined in literature and provides a somewhat fascinating resolution of that issue.  The issue is sort of referenced in Less Than Zero but attacked head-on in this book—but maybe it’s the case that a good deal of the allure of Less Than Zero is its almost mystical, mysterious quality.  This is not as strongly the case here, and though Ellis begins and ends the novel mid-sentence and includes a “blank” Lauren mini-chapter, he generally is content keep his authorial gaze fixed upon “society” as the “topic” of the book. 

                Maybe I am putting words in his mouth or providing my own interpretive gloss but I swore I once read an article where B.E.E. claimed to be inspired by Balzac’s La Comedie Humane and that his work was his take on that sort of vision.  If this is the case, the problem mentioned above (i.e. the same problem with Palo Alto) makes this attempt a failure.  But, like Palo Alto, it is a book that I read very quickly the first time around, and that will certainly remind liberal arts B.A. holders of scenes from their own life and maybe cause them to write books vaguely imitating its literary style that lack sufficient quality for publication.  However I doubt that any of them had as much sex as occurs in this book.  Aside from the hypersexual element, the book is generally true to life, and thus good.  However, I would consider it to be a notch below even Imperial Bedrooms, which, while no masterpiece, at least involved a more mature narrator.  For the uninitiated to Ellis, reading about a Dressed to Get Screwed Party and then holding your own Dressed to Get Screwed Party is reason enough to experience this book once—just don’t expect to be as blown away your second time around.    

The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

Oeuvre rule: I tried to read V. when I was 19.  I got about 150 pages into it, and I put it down.  Vineland was recommended to me when I was 18 by an English teacher at our high school.  I bought Gravity's Rainbow when I was 18 or 19 too, but never read it.  I heard Against the Day and Inherent Vice were great, but haven't read them--ditto for Mason & Dixon.

This was the only one I could handle.  Because I couldn't get into V., and because all of his other books were so thick and intimidating, promising a huge time commitment, with what I considered might be a highly questionable payoff.  So my friend lent me this book back--a while ago.  I think it was in December.  Though it is barely over 180 pages, I didn't finish it until last night.  (Soon, soon, all this crap will be over with, and I can get back to more prolific review-writing.)

The problem with spending over 5 months with this book is that you really retain very little and it is almost impossible to understand what is going on---until  you reach a distinct point--around page 115, 120, or 130.  This happened to me in a notable way:

For some reason, a few days ago, I decided to pick up Descartes's Discourse on Method.  This may have been because something in The Crying of Lot 49 set off an alarm in my brain, or it may be because both are spare, unintimidating volumes that could potentially be read alongside each other.  And I would argue that they should be read alongside each other.  But, getting to the point--while working at the library yesterday, I crossed page 100, and read somewhere up to 140 or so.  I later went home and read two or three parts from Discourse on Method, while getting increasingly intoxicated.  Then, I returned to Lot 49, and my bookmark, in a moment of serendipity, fell from the book, and I could not tell where I had stopped.  I read, and read, for maybe an hour or two, continually thinking, "This seems familiar...." but re-reading happily, since it made no sense to me the first time around.  These scenes--for those who read the novel (it would be easy to spoil this novel and I prefer to present it at face-value and let those enter who may) included her meeting with John Nefastis and their attempt to use "Maxwell's Demon," a scene in a "fag joint" called The Greek Way, a quick description of a society called Inamorati Anonymous and its founder (which should be excerpted below), observation of a strange hopscotch game's design in San Francisco's Chinatown, a meeting with a Mexican anarchist named Jesus Arrabal, more paranoid visions of a certain symbol, previously noted in the hopscotch squares, observations of freaks or outcasts or deviants, more symbols, an alternative to the U.S. Postal System mailboxes, called W.A.S.T.E. instead, an old sailor asking her to mail a letter to his wife, a return to John Nefastis's house 24 hours later, and finally her talk-down of her psychiatrist Dr. Hilarius, who has been prescribing LSD but supposedly not taking it, who has become extremely paranoid, shooting at people, and who eventually gives himself up, at which point she is rescued by her current boyfriend, who is on the news-beat, who then goes out with her to a bar, at which point she learns that his brain has been fried by LSD.  Then you're at Chapter 6--the last in the book.

"She" is Oedipa Maas, who was involved with Pierce Inverarity, who died, and was a real estate tycoon that has a complex will to execute.  She leaves San Francisco and goes to San Narciso, which is apparently around L.A.  She meets Metzger, an attorney that is supposed to help her co-execute the will, and he meets her in her hotel room, and they watch an old movie on TV where he was apparently a child actor, and later they go to see a play called The Courier's Tragedy.  At this point, I remember, I just thought this book was a joke, and that the only point was to get as messed up as possible before reading it and to laugh at how every line appeared to be a game in and of itself.  She also meets a band called The Paranoids that are constantly hanging out at her hotel.  The book was published in 1964 and the band is supposedly a reference to Beatle-mania.  Also, it seems as if Radiohead was referencing this book when they named their mailing list W.A.S.T.E.

The book turns into something of a mystery or "potboiler" - but only around that span from page 100-140.  Before that, you can tell that something is a bit off, or that the book is about to go somewhere deeper, but it is practically impossible to comprehend (at least this was the case for me).  I have not met many other people that profess a similar difficulty with Pynchon but something about his prose can be just, oh, annoying at times.

But when he turns it on he turns it on.  I didn't put the book down again last night--I went through to the end, and the ending is fantastic.  A little bit frustrating, but upon reflection, really the only way the novel could be ended appropriately.  It's a really beautiful ending and I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't been made into a movie, because it would make a great one--but that is probably symptomatic of Pynchon, whose idiosyncrasies go beyond the scope of this review.

The novel is ridiculous, and totally unrealistic, at least in the names of its characters.  But surprisingly, I think the story can strike a chord in everyone--and this is the reason I picked up Descartes, perhaps--like Breakfast of Champions would do later on to a much more attenuated degree, the book is about how deeply one can trust one's own senses.  But onto the excerpts.  The first, about the founder of IA, a former executive of the Yoyodyne Corporation, who finds himself "automated out of a job" at age 39, in the early 60s:

"Having been since age 7 rigidly instructed in an eschatology that pointed nowhere but to a presidency and death, trained to do absolutely nothing but sign his name to specialized memoranda he could not begin to understand and to take blame for the running-amok of specialized programs that failed for specialized reasons he had to have explained to him, the executive's first thoughts were naturally of suicide.  But previous training got the better of him: he could not make a decision without first hearing the ideas of a committee.  He placed an ad in the personal column of the L.A. Times, asking whether anyone who'd been in the same fix had ever found any good reasons for not committing suicide.  His shrewd assumption being that no suicides would reply, leaving him automatically with only valid inputs.  The assumption was false...He opened his door and found an aged bum with a knitted watch cap on his head and a hook for a hand, who presented him with a bundle of letters and loped away without a word.  Most of the letters were from suicides who had failed, either through clumsiness or last-minute cowardice.  None of them, however, could offer any compelling reasons for staying alive....He went to the garage, siphoned all the gasoline from his Buick's tank, put on his green Zachary All suit with the vest, stuffed all his letters from unsuccessful suicides into a coat pocket, went into the kitchen, sat on the flood, proceeded to douse himself good with gasoline.  He was about to make a farewell flick of the wheel on his faithful Zippo, which had seen him through the Normandy hedgerows, the Ardennes, Germany, and postwar America, when he heard a key in the front door, and voices.  It was his wife and some man, whom he soon recognized as the very efficiency expert at Yoyodyne who had caused him to be replaced by an IBM 7094.  Intrigued by the irony of it, he sat in the kitchen and listened, leaving his necktie dipped in the gasoline as a sort of wick.  From what he could gather, the efficiency expert wished to have sexual intercourse with the wife on the Moroccan rug in the living room. The wife was not unwilling.  The executive heard lewd laughter, zippers, the thump of shoes, heavy breathing, moans.  He took his tie out of the gasoline and started to snigger.  He closed the top on his Zippo.  'I hear laughing,' his wife said presently.  'I smell gasoline,' said the efficiency expert.  Hand in hand, naked, the two proceeded to the kitchen.  'I was about to do the Buddhist monk thing,' explained the executive.  'Nearly three weeks it takes him,' marvelled the efficiency expert, 'to decide.  You know how long it would have taken the IBM 7094?  Twelve microseconds.  No wonder you were replaced.'" (113-115)

The executive then declares, "My big mistake was love.  From this day I swear to stay off of love: hetero, homo, bi, dog or cat, car, every kind there is.  I will found a society of isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem." (116)

Pynchon has a way of being incredibly good with language but at the same time being obtuse, which I think is the best description I can give of why I have found his work frustrating up to now.  Here is an excerpt from the same page that illustrates that:

"Despair came over her, as it will when nobody around has any sexual relevance to you.  She gauged the spectrum of feeling out there as running from really violent hate (an Indian-looking kid hardly out of his teens with frosted shoulder-length hair tucked behind his ears and pointed cowboy boots) to dry speculation (a hornrimmed SS type who stared at her legs, trying to figure out if she was in drag), none of which could do her any good." (116)

I had to reread this sentence a few times to get what it meant, and still am not 100% certain.

Once you get to the point between 100-140, though, The Crying of Lot 49 becomes a page-turner.  And tied in seamlessly with the "story," is a provocative philosophical inquiry.  Along the way, Jesus Arrabal describes "miracles" as "intrusions into this world from another." (124) And there are departures that I could only describe in the margin as "Burroughs-esque," another example of Pynchon losing me for a moment:

"Cammed each night out of that safe furrow the bulk of this city's waking each sunrise again set virtuously to plowing, what rich soils had he turned, what concentric planets uncovered?  What voices overheard, flinders of luminescent gods glimpsed among the wallpaper's stained foliage, candlestubs lit to rotate in the air over him, prefiguring the cigarette he or a friend must fall asleep someday smoking, thus to end among the flaming, secret salts held all those years by the insatiable stuffing of a mattress that could keep vestiges of every nightmare sweat, helpless overflowing bladder, viciously, tearfully consummated wet dream, like the memory bank to a computer of the lost?" (126)

This has been a long review that is short on substance.  But I have tried not to spoil this novel.  And while I doubt that I have made it seem very "exciting," I think I have provided a fair reflection of its virtues.  It is a very long short story, or a "novella plus," that is intricately constructed, funnier more often than not, and ultimately a bit maddening - and totally worth it.  The point is that my fear of Pynchon has been allayed, at least for now:

"For there either was some Tristero beyond the appearance of the legacy America, or there was just America and if there was just America then it seemed the only way she could continue, and manage to be at all relevant to it, was as an alien, unfurrowed, assumed full circle into paranoia."  (182)

And it also had a weird effect on my reading of Descartes, as my mind became more fragmented, and I could not differentiate between texts, thinking of a line, and wondering whether Pynchon or Descartes had written it.  This sounds incredible and a huge compliment to Pynchon, but this is why I recommend reading this book in tandem with Discourse on Method.  Whether you are getting incredibly intoxicated while reading both or not, I think the similarities will jump out at you and cause the same confusion in your mind, which ultimately, leads to a clarity most pure:

"Write down what you can't deny.  Your hard intelligence.  But then write down what you've only speculated, assumed.  See what you've got."  (168)

Reflection on 2L Year

It is not easy to sum up a 9 month period in a single blog post.  However, this post will not be as long as last year's (http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2011/05/reflection-on-1l-year.html) because I will not be listing my favorite cases (or, if I do, I will not go off about them, while watching Wheel of Fortune and having a moment of divine coincidence while writing about White v. Samsung and hearing Pat Sajak say, "It's good you make mistakes.  It shows you're human.  Not that there was any doubt about that.").  Regardless, there is still a lot of angst to sort through, and I question the intelligence of writing about "romance" on my blog, but I feel that it has been the aspect of my 2L year that has made it both tolerable and endlessly intriguing.

But first, the classes.  As some of you may know, I started writing a column for BLS Advocate this year.  I wanted to write a column about Exams, and about how students should "Review" exams they have just taken, for the benefit of future students.  Well, THAT, I am going to do.  That may be very boring so I will keep that to the end.

If you have been following this blog for any amount of time, you should probably know that I was on the verge of dropping out last summer.  I was destroyed by the 1L process.  I was destroyed by grades.  I was destroyed by the lack of comfort, the constant sense of unease I felt in not fully understanding the material, going into the exam, and having an internal mental meltdown where everything I learned, all the hours I spent doing the reading assignments, then outlining, then reviewing, then taking practice exams, then sending questions to professors, then annoyingly accosting classmates about "the right answer" resulted in nothing more than a B, B-, or C+.

This year, in the Fall, I did not do worse than a B+.  People told me, "It gets better."  People told me, "It gets easier."  People told me, "They work you to death."  All three statements were true, at least for me.  However, as previously noted, I do not think that necessarily would have held true had I not begun taking medication.

Medication may be controversial, to a degree (psychotropics and amphetamines, at least), but I seriously believe that law students are on way more medication than most people realize.  But that's not what I want to talk about.

"Romance" and law school do not coalesce for several reasons:
1) Dates cost money, and law students generally don't have any income.
2) Dates cost time, and law students generally don't have much of it.
3) When "FWB" comes into play, someone's feelings tend to get hurt at the end of the day.

Annoying personality qualities are revealed.  "True colors" come out.  And the gossip, the gossip of it all at law school is insane.  One friend told me, incredibly, (and perhaps it was incredible that I agreed with her, but I still do) that undergraduate students at NYU are more mature than law students at BLS.  While at first this appears to be an incredible statement, the size of BLS (vs. the size of NYU) makes it a veritable "devil's playground" for gossip.  Most people know a majority of the 1400 students or so here -- at least those that are "lounge lizards" or "library sleepers" or "smokers" -- whether by reputation, appearance, hearsay, or legend.  Most people at NYU do not know a majority of the 18,000 students or so there.  Smaller groups of friends are formed, gossip is not so vituperative, and "incest" (GENERALLY) occurs less often.

Regardless, many people try to make law school and "romance" work together symbiotically, and indeed I have written about "spouse-searching" at law school previously (here http://blsadvocate.org/2012/04/negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress-not-in-love-legally/).  While I do not deny that I will continue to seek out a "worthy" or "willing" partner, I wish I didn't have to.  I wish I could stay single forever--but it gets boring--and worse, some people see it as "failure" or a reflection of a generally poor character, which I think is just so sad.  It's one of those judgments that makes life intolerable.

But being in a relationship also gets boring.  At least in my experience.

Moving on.

Here are the classes I took:
FALL
Debtors and Creditors' Rights (Hon. Glenn) - B+
Administrative Law (Prof. Araiza) - B+
Evidence (Prof. Pitler) - A-
Health Law Practicum Clinic (Prof. Porter/Medicare Rights Center) - HP
Interviewing & Counseling (Prof. Schultze) - A-
SPRING
Business Reorganizations (Prof. Gerber) - ?
Corporations (Prof. Baer) - ?
Consumer Counseling and Bankruptcy Clinic (Prof. Eyster) - ?
Employment Law (Prof. Minda) - ?
Trial Advocacy (Prof. Hynes) - ?

I did better in the Fall than I ever did in my 1L year.  My GPA was a 3.5.  It ruled.
However, I am nervous that the Spring will not offer as great rewards.  The exams were difficult, and somehow, I just felt less focused in a way, more rushed.

A brief review:
Debtor and Creditor was a great class, even though many felt that Glenn's lack of teaching experience may have hampered our ability to understand the bankruptcy system.  Whatever the case, I did not do very well on the exam.  I know this because I reviewed it with him.  I screwed almost everything up--though there were a few questions where I did get "parts" of it right.  Regardless, that exam was the hardest exam I have ever taken.  It was clear, when I made it to the final question (worth a relatively significant number of points) and I only had 10 minutes left to read the fact pattern and write an answer, that my timing had been seriously miscalculated.  Fortunately, that was the case for almost everyone, and I somehow managed a B+.  Getting to meet Judge Glenn and being there the day after MF Global filed for Chapter 11 and hearing his excitement that he would be assigned "the 8th largest bankruptcy case in American history" was cool.  He also invited us into a hearing on use of cash collateral, but unfortunately, I had other obligations.

Medicare Rights Center was that obligation, and I spent 168 hours working there.  It was a good experience, but I felt it was the one internship I have done since starting law school that was not a potential place to work after graduation.  They just didn't like me.  Or, maybe they did like me, to an extent, but we didn't work as well together as we might have.  I have no hard feelings though, and I have a deep amount of respect for that organization.  Moreover, it was the only time I had the opportunity to become "deeply involved" in a case, and the experience of winning was totally sweet.  (By the way, I am batting 1,000 when it comes to winning cases).

Administrative Law was a great class, though not always easy.  Prof. Araiza is the #2 professor at BLS in my opinion.  He is utterly fantastic.  I will take any class I can with him next year, whatever the subject matter, though I hope he teaches First Amendment (aka Con Law III, which, I think, Admin Law should be Con Law IV)...However, I did not do very well on the exam, again!  My answers were not very well organized (though I must admit, I was significantly more accurate about "the law" on my Admin exam than on my D&C exam) and Araiza chastised me when we reviewed it together.  He kept saying, "I don't want to be mean....but what were you thinking?"  It was so funny!  I could never be mad at him.  His standards are high, but it can be one of the most fulfilling experiences when you have a Professor with very high expectations and you meet them, and he is satisfied with your performance.  I was pleased to get a B+.

Evidence is one of those "core classes" that most 2L/3L students will take, though it is an elective.  It is a fun class, and Prof. Pitler made it fun, though many did not appreciate his style.  He has great style, in my opinion, and because I did the work all throughout the semester, because I did all of the "problems" that we were supposed to prepare for class (in lieu of casebook reading), because I always volunteered to answer, he told me at the end of the last class that he really appreciated how well prepared I was.  I did not do great on that exam, either!  I reviewed it with him, and he told me I scored a B+, but he bumped me up to an A- because of my in-class participation.  There was no sweeter bump, as that was a 4 credit class (though it is conceivable that I got the same kind of "bump" for Civil Procedure last year, though my participation was anything but comparable).

Interviewing & Counseling is a class taught by Prof. Schultze, who is a legend around this campus.  His Negotiation seminar is more well-known, but the Interviewing & Counseling course was good--only, it seemed to focus a lot on Family Law.  Later, I would take a clinic with Prof. Eyster, which focused almost exclusively on Interviewing & Counseling in Bankruptcy Law.  Now, that was a very difficult thing to do, let me tell you, but it's one of the best skills you can get.  You can interview someone all day about their legal problem involving a breach of contract or a tort, or who was the better parent, or you can take a criminal defense case and dance around your client and hope they don't admit their guilt--but with bankruptcy, you have a client that has to explain how their financial life went to hell.  Sometimes they don't want to talk about -- this is private stuff!  Having been there myself, I think it's the area I'm most suited for.

Business Reorganizations was probably the single best class I took at BLS and Prof. Gerber is the #1 professor (Araiza is only #2 because he intimidates me - I like him, but I'm afraid that whatever I say to him ends up sounding like the words of an idiot, because he is an intellectual powerhouse).  It was fun, he was nice, and what was really great about him was his review session: we reviewed the exam from last year, and he stayed 75 minutes later than he expected the review session to last - and he answered every single question.  I told him, "Thank you for staying so late," and he said, "I don't have a life anyways."  He is hilarious and great and it is rumored that he will be taking a sabbatical next year--so I urge all current 1Ls (becoming 2Ls at this very moment, as the Property exam is ending) to take a class with him in two years.  I will be happy with a B+ in this class, but I am praying I may score as high as an A-.

Corporations is another "core class" like Evidence, and also 4 credits.  Corporations was very hard, but not as hard as Debtor/Creditor.  However, it was 4 credits, and I did not like the way we got all of our most important cases as the very end of the year.  Omnicare, Time, QVC, Revlon, ITT--these cases are huge, both page-number wise and in how important they are in the course.  Prof. Baer has a very good reputation and I generally agree that she taught the class well, but I felt that there was a bit of a disconnect there.  In particular--we were expected to do an incredible amount of "review reading" and "supplemental reading" which was simply impossible (even with a relatively long reading period for me personally).  She warned me not to miss the forest for the trees, so to speak, and that this was a basic, "survey" course.  And yet!  And yet on the exam we are expected to be able to make fine distinctions based upon long, complex fact patterns with little or no explanation of the practical meaning of certain phrases.  This wouldn't be so difficult if the exam was open note, but it was not!  The exam, which I took yesterday, was the third hardest one I have taken (Contracts with Prof. Taylor takes the #2 position),.  I rushed like hell.  I screwed up stuff about Shareholder Rights Plans (which, even though I named my study group "the Poisoned Pills," I could still not really get what the practical effect of "redeeming the pill" meant).  There are really interesting stories behind some of these cases, and some of the opinions were great (my personal favorite #1 case of the year was In re Citigroup Shareholders Derivative Litigation (2009) which basically alleges that Citigroup "should have known better" than to invest in asset-backed mortgage securities--it is basically the greatest opinion of the past 5 years because it encapsulates everything that was rotten about the Great Recession--and yet, Citigroup cannot possibly be held responsible for the shit-storm we've all had to wade through (and indeed, is directly responsible for many of us being in law school now), though Schlensky v. Wrigley is fantastic if you are a Cubs fan).
While I enjoyed the class (indeed, if I were ever to become a Professor, I would want to teach it), I am very scared about what grade I might get.  I will be happy with a B+--and I hope the boost works in my favor in this class.  If I get a B, I will probably shoot myself, though it is certainly conceivable that, my exam answers earned no more than a B, or even a B-.  With a B, and a boost, a B+ will be O.K.  I really wanted to CALI this class, and I thought I could do it, until I looked at the fact pattern.  I was super confident going in, and then everything fell apart.  There is basically NO WAY I could get an A.  If I get an A-, I will be very, very happy.  (And keep in mind, while all this talk about grades might seem obnoxious, I only care so much because my scholarship is dependent on these things).

Employment Law with Prof. Minda was a long, strange trip.  I opted to write the paper, and I hope he likes it.  Personally, I think this paper is brilliant, but it is a big mess too.  It's 14,000 words.  120 footnotes.  I'd try to publish it, but I'd need to edit it significantly, and of course, in that process all the good stuff would get taken out.  Regardless, interesting class, I enjoyed it.  And while writing the paper was sometimes quite hard (my topic was on the staffing industry, which is shrouded in secrecy) it was extremely fulfilling.  I hope to get an A in this class.  It is doubtful that I will get an A+.  I will be happy with an A-, however, I will not be happy with a B+.

Trial Advocacy with Prof. Hynes was great, though I felt he was a "Taylorist" in the sense that he may have felt there was "one best way" to make an opening statement and conduct direct examinations and cross-examinations.  He seemed to give us more leeway on summations, but he did not give much feedback on ours.  He told me I had "great style" which was nice to hear from someone so eminent (he is the D.A. of) Kings County) and he agreed, tentatively, at the last minute to play himself in my upcoming film, Batman in Brooklyn.  I don't know what kind of grade I'll get, but I'd be very pleased with an A-.

The Consumer Counseling and Bankruptcy Seminar, finally, was great.  I loved the office I was placed into, and Prof. Eyster generally made the weekly seminars an interesting detour.  What was strange about this is that, it was 4 credits, and my health law practicum was 3 credits, and I had to work 168 hours at Medicare Rights Center, but only 140 at my bankruptcy firm.  There was a bit more classwork for this, but we had to keep journals just the same of every day.  I think the clinical program should be revised to make it more equal, since I'll be getting a grade for this class (hopefully A-, if not A) and only got a High Pass for the health law clinic.

This has been a very long post about nothing in particular, but it is for BLS students that may want to know a little bit more about the classes they can take and the professors that taught them.  I hope to write a final column soon about the Journal writing competition and Bluebooking.  I am now going to resume my bender. Thank you.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: Not in Love (Legally)

                 I have observed an interesting phenomenon in law schools generally: students that arrive single will often meet their spouse during the course of the three years they are here.

                This happened with several friends of mine which will remain unnamed—one of them met their spouse through membership on a journal, and another through placement in the same first year section.  It would seem as if these are the two most common “places” within law school where future spouses meet, but I would imagine a similar concept holds true for Moot Court, or certain classmates on the same career path that end up in more than a few of the same courses. 

                There are basic assumptions about what it means to be a law student and a lawyer.  One of those assumptions is that, one day (perhaps) we will have money, and since we will have money, we will be in the “right” position to start a family.   If you fail to take the right first steps, you may graduate alone, and you may then be afraid of dying alone.  To paraphrase one of our career counselors, compare walking down the street alone, to walking down the street with a girlfriend or boyfriend—more people check you out in the latter situation, no?  This is a metaphor for presenting an effective case for yourself as a job applicant – but the purported truth of such a hypothetical is troubling.   (Not to mention the inference that, those are who are in stable, happy relationships are more likely to get a job.)

Interviewing is only like dating to a degree—you interview in the hopes of a job that will last more than a year or two—but it is unlikely to expect lifetime employment.  Rapid-fire dating and one night stands may be fun up to a point – but once that point is reached, more “practical” dating becomes the rule.  A lifetime relationship is sought.

Law students are probably not the most physically attractive (or morally attractive) people out there.  However, law students are picky because they don’t have much time—they only want to spend time with someone they could actually see themselves marrying.  It follows that, when work and companionship are combined, the stress of dating subsides, a partner is found, and no time is lost.  If that is the only proof to my theory, so be it.  You may ignore what I say, and that is fine, but when you go out into that cold place known as reality and you lack the benefit of an immediate mutual interest, have fun trying to convince other bar patrons about the awesomeness of the automatic stay. 

On the other hand, claiming that one day you will win a $100 million toxic torts judgment may potentially be an effective hook.  We know we have plenty of interesting things to talk about, and some are more talented than others when it comes to engaging “outsiders” in that interest, but generally, “bar scoping” is limited to what you look like, what you do and how much you make.  Nobody cares about whether you are a proponent of judicial activism.  Other lawyers may scoff at such bar conversation – but if not, you may have a winner.

So maybe, when I graduate single, it will be different from the five years I spent in between college and law school, going out to bars, trying to meet someone, anyone, to place a succor on the loneliness of existence.  More likely is that I will continue to be cheap, claim that bars are exploitive, and write similar op-ed pieces until I die.  Only they will be published on my blog and not BLS advocate. 

The moral of the story is this: treasure what time you have left and don’t waste it by sitting alone in your room drinking and smoking.  It is unfortunate that I cannot practice what I preach.  I can’t change society and I can only change myself—but, with limited exceptions, I’m not open to changing myself to “fit in.”  There is a Black Flag song called “Society’s Tease” whose lyrics I will now appropriate to drive home my point:

    Always
                Wherever I go
                Playing some stupid role
                Sometimes I look at the world
                And I just want to say,
                “NOOOOOOOOOOO.”
               
                Somewhere
                Something went wrong
                Where love plays stupid tricks
                But I’ve got a plan
                The world will finally be saved.

                Christopher J. Knorps is a 2L at Brooklyn Law School.  He enjoys studying bankruptcy law.  You may find his other work at flyinghouses.blogspot.com.  He also invites you to the electrifying conclusion to this week (Sex & the Law Week)—the HLPA Open Mic!  Please sign up on posted fliers to perform “a” Vagina Monologue, or your own original performance. If you are too shy to read, please come to watch the action, as a voluntary $5 donation will get you complimentary dinner and drinks.  

Ugly Man - Dennis Cooper

Ah, finally Dennis Cooper came out with a new book. I never read The Sluts because the cover looked too gay to me. Maybe it is good, I don't know. But I've read everything else by him, and Ugly Man is average in comparison with the rest. It is certainly different. It's definitely far more comic than anything else he has ever put out.

The closest reference point for this book would be Wrong, his collection of short stories published in 1992. Since that year, his star has grown bright, and he is probably more popular than ever before, thanks in no small part to his blog. I first read Try in 2003, followed quickly by Guide, then later My Loose Thread, Frisk, and Closer. For a while I didn't read anything by him, convinced the rest was not necessarily worth it--but God Jr. came out relatively recently, and that was interesting to see a different side of the writer. Finally while in L.A., I capped things off with Period and Wrong, later re-reading Try, which is the only other book by him reviewed on this blog http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2008/05/try-dennis-cooper.html. Now I want to read Guide again because I look back upon the part of his oeuvre that I have read, and I feel compelled to rank it in this order:

1) Try
2) Frisk
3) My Loose Thread
4) Guide
5) Closer
6) God Jr.
7) Ugly Man
8) Wrong
9) Period

And if you were to include Userlands, his anthology of online literature (the impetus for this blog, and its 12th post, http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2008/04/userlands-new-fiction-writers-from.html), it would rank beneath Period, probably. I could discuss them all, but let's keep things on Ugly Man, because there is a lot to discuss. Basically, I think it is better than Wrong, while still being very similar, because of the strength of a few of its pieces that go beyond 70% of the rest of the material--in particular, "Jerk," "The Worst (1960-1971)," and the powerful, closing "The Ash Gray Proclamation." Mostly it consists of really short pieces, varying in length from one paragraph to three pages. Flash fiction, I guess.

Sometimes the really short pieces work ("The Boy on the Far Left," "Graduate Seminar," and "Brian aka 'Bear'") and other times they just bleed into each other and seem pretty pointless. "Knife/Tape/Rope" is pretty decent as far as the other pieces that avoid categorization--or rather, fit neatly into the preconceptions of what a short story should appear to be. "The Hostage Drama" is another example of something that works in the end.

But pretty much everything else winds up sounding like an echo of Wrong--and what went wrong with it, pardon the pun. Which is that, forced to work within the confines of a smaller piece, much of Cooper's work loses its emotional impact and instead more closely approaches "torture porn," as with the shorter pieces the torture and the porn are introduced rather quickly, and violently, abruptly cut off. The plot is practically the same for every single one of these pieces--sexually confused teenage boy wants to die, and he happens to find friends that get off by murdering and raping him at the same time, and then sometimes the story will shift to the perspective of his executors. That is what this entire work is "about," so to speak, the nature of sex and violence, taken to the extreme example.

While we are on the topic of obscenity, what with Ulysses being one of our most recent posts, let me just say that Ugly Man, like the rest of Cooper's work excluding God Jr., which is practically family-friendly, would rate a 10 on the obscenity scale, which makes it more obscene than Naked Lunch, primarily because it makes sense.

One piece deserves special note--"The Anal Retentive Line Editor," which is probably the most exasperating thing in the book. It is like the centerpiece of the collection, and probably one of its longest pieces. It is funny, it is clever, and some may enjoy it immensely, but for me it got old rather quickly--though some of Cooper's self-consciousness makes it one of the highlights of any of his work, period.

The most pleasant surprise about Ugly Man, however, is the "P.S." feature at the end of the book, which is sort of like a DVD extra, brought by Harper Perennial. It seems that Cooper has hit the big time with this kind of attention--I've only previously seen one of these in Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer." And this one was much cooler. It has an interview with Cooper, by one of his fans, of whom Cooper is also a fan, apparently (Robert Gluck), and most interestingly, lists of his top 50 poems, top 50 songs by Robert Pollard, top 50 songs in general (which includes songs by Robert Pollard also), top 50 novels, and top 50 films, I think, in no particular order. This was easily the best part of the book. The interview provides the most quotable material:

"Well I guess I did become the writer I imagined I'd be, didn't I? My work seems to mean a lot to a certain kind of young person, and I get a lot of really moving e-mails and letters from young writers who say my work inspires them to write. So I guess your theory makes sense. Of course I never imagined the whole publishing world nonsense and the difficulty of cracking the literary establishment and the lack of financial reward for being this kind of writer. But, yeah, when I'm discouraged by the insurmountable problems that my work creates for itself and for me, realizing that I've achieved what I dreamed of achieving keeps me on track." (4, P.S.)

As if that were not enough there are also five poems by Cooper. Basically, I don't recommend this if this is your first time reading him--but I think fans of his will find much to like about it. I do think it is better than Wrong, and certainly Period, which threatened to collapse under its overwhelming desire to experiment. Ugly Man is experimental, but in a way that adapts the present climate of fiction, which has moved increasingly towards this "flash" thing--something between a poem and a story. Cooper may not be the master of this genre yet, but he has certainly added his own personal stamp to it, and on that basis alone, much of what he has created can exist comfortably alongside more celebrated short, short fiction.

I really hope that he comes out with a new novel soon, though. That would be cool. If I could I would read his blog and ask him to read S/M, because I never would have written it if it weren't for reading his work.

Ulysses - James Joyce

Any discussion of Ulysses in 2009 must begin with the obvious: the Modern Library. Of course, this novel occupies the #1 slot of the "100 Best Novels" according to "The Board." According to "the Readers" it is #11. According to anyone that is not an English major, or a highly pretentious literary dilettante, it is unrecognized. It is obsolete. Or rather, it is highly regarded, but mysterious. Of all the books I have read there is only one other that can be put in the same class with it, and that would be Infinite Jest. Now, I gave up on Infinite Jest after about 300 or 400 pages (and I intend it try again in 2010), and I gave up on Ulysses after about 120 pages about 9 years ago. I still remember going to stay over in Hoboken, NJ, the night after going on a guided tour of what would become my alma mater, and remarking to my hostess for the evening that I tried reading the book, but that I didn't understand any of it, except for the phrase "ineluctable modality of the visible," and she said it was an impressive phrase nonetheless.

That phrase opens up Chapter 3 out of 18 (and just so you know, I had to go back and mark all 18 chapters tonight after finishing, so that I could be sure I properly understood the boundaries of this work), and it is one of the most commonly associated "things" with the book--I believe because it is about as far as most people get:


"Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see." (37)

Let us backtrack a moment. One of the most intelligible parts of my edition of Ulysses is the foreword by Morris L. Ernst and the decision by Judge John M. Woolsey, lifting the ban on Ulysses on December 6, 1933. Woolsey provides as fine a lens through which to view the novel as anyone:

"Joyce has attempted--it seems to me, with astonishing success--to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing." (xi)

He also mentions that it is "not an easy book to read or understand" and that understatement seems typical of the writing practiced by legal professionals. Now, okay, I have yet to read a single volume from D.H. Lawrence or Joseph Conrad or William Gaddis, but let me just say that Ulysses is the hardest book I have ever read, and only Infinite Jest can compare (in my own experience) but a comparison of the two will have to wait for another time.

This will be a different sort of review for Flying Houses because most of the passages that I intend to include are not especially for beauty, but rather as examples of the difficulty its audience will find in trying to attain a coherent interpretation of the text. To some this may seem pointless, or pessimistic, but I am trying to look out for the average reader here. Most people will be able to understand at least a few parts of this book (after about page 450 it becomes noticeably easier on the eyes), but few will see the point in struggling towards the end.


Who struggles towards the end?
English majors and highly pretentious literary dilettantes, once again. I really don't think anybody who says, "Oh Ulysses is my favorite novel" is telling the truth, but rather showing off. It does not offer much pleasure for the reader. That it was banned on the grounds of being obscene or pornographic--written for the purpose of igniting the sexual excitement of the reader--is laughable. Oh, parts are certainly pornographic, but there is plenty of obscure vocabulary, irrelevant detail, confusing changes of scenery, randomly introduced characters, and, well, what seems on the surface to be PURE NONSENSE, to keep 99% of the general public at bay. Those looking for a more transparent thrill will find it here http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2009/02/annotated-lolita-vladimir-nabokov-ed.html, it must be noted, #4 on the above-mentioned list. Of course that volume, along with Naked Lunch and our present topic, generally comprises the trifecta of the most notorious banned books. Ulysses has much in common with Naked Lunch, but its degree of obscenity---on a scale of 1-10, Naked Lunch is about a 9, and Ulysses is about a 5--but the percentage of the actual text that is obscene--that is where they differ. Ulysses has nearly as much politics in it as sex. Naked Lunch has nearly as much drugs in it as sex.

But that is not a bad starting point to understanding the type of book Ulysses is--that is, like Naked Lunch or Infinite Jest. It's not very straightforward. These writers (Joyce, Burroughs, Wallace) are capable of straightforward storytelling, but it appears they find it boring. They experiment with form (Ulysses chief virtue, in my mind, is its sheer creativity; Burroughs obviously did the "cut-up" thing; and Wallace has his footnotes, though Salinger, among others I am sure, also did those, but not to the same degree, I am sure), they end up alienating a ton of readers, but they don't care and they end up creating some of the most enduring masterpieces of the English language--or at least the most controversial or provocative.

Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904 and is billed as an extremely loose interpretation of The Odyssey. Here is the plot as far as I can remember. There are two main characters, well, three: Stephen Dedalus (formerly featured prominently in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Leopold Bloom, and Mrs. Marion Tweedy "Molly" Bloom. The third does not make her appearance until the final chapter but should be included as a main character because of the nature of that final chapter. The night before, Stephen stayed over at his medical student friend Buck Mulligan's boarding house, and the novel opens with them preparing to have breakfast. They drink together a lot and sometimes go to see whores. Stephen is about 22 and an English professor. The first three chapters, part I, detail his early morning. Chapter four and part II opens up with Leopold Bloom, wanting to buy a kidney from a butcher, preparing to to attend his friend Paddy Dignam's funeral. He goes later, and so does Stephen's father, Simon Dedalus, who apparently is very well respected about town. (But then later it appears they are actually poor? The first of many confusing interpretations I am bound to make.) After the funeral, he goes to a museum, but if this part is included in "present tense" in the novel, I missed it completely. He goes to a bookstore. Stephen's sister is there, I think. Later he goes to the beach, around sunset, and there is a girl named Gerty there.

It is at this point, the scene with Gerty on the beach, that the novel became tolerable to me. This section was the first part that I could truly call beautiful. Joyce switches perspectives from Gerty to Bloom as they regard one another from a distance. Bloom is the "strange man" that Gerty is attracted to, oddly trying to expose herself to him. It seems that Bloom is a big fan of looking up girls' skirts. Gerty is with a friend, and two toddler twins playing. There is a church service going on nearby (I think?). What is beautiful about this section is the way Joyce suddenly introduces the human element, with straightforward description. It reminded me of something I might read in Mann, albeit without the exhibitionism. At the end of the scene it is revealed that Gerty has a certain disability, and the manner in which this is discovered makes for arguably the most heartbreakingly beautiful moment of the novel. This is also apparently the masturbation scene, but I did not catch it. This is the 13th chapter in the novel, which ends roughly before page 400, and the moment at which the novel becomes palatable.

Though chapter 14 is pretty much impossible to read, chapter 15 is almost 200 pages long and takes the form of a play script, which makes it quicker to read. This is also a protracted scene in a whorehouse, which made me think, "Okay, so this is where it starts to get obscene." Yeah right! On the surface this seems like it would be one of the easier parts of the novel, but it is just as confusing as anything that came before. This is finally where part II ends. Chapter 16 and the beginning of part III involves Bloom taking Stephen away from the whores and into a cabman's shelter, drunk, and here, finally, the novel becomes understandable all the way until the end. Chapter 17 and 18 are definitely the two best parts of the entire book, in my opinion. 17 involves Bloom taking Stephen back to his house to recuperate--but the form of this chapter is what makes it so great, and allows Joyce to offer his most profound ruminations on the nature of existence.

But chapter 18 is the most fucked up part of the entire book-- and in case you didn't guess, the obscene part. Anybody that flips through Ulysses and sees that the final sixty or seventy pages appear to be one unbroken paragraph without punctuation might wince and feel that it is the final push of complexity before being freed of the chains that are this novel, but that is not the case. Actually, incredibly, this is the most transparent episode in the entire book. Bloom has gone to bed, and crawled beside his wife Molly--and Molly contemplates their life together as she tries to fall asleep. She also contemplates the many, many men she has cheated on her husband with, and this primarily comprises the "dirty" part of the book. And it does get quite dirty, but I don't think anybody that is able to read that far is going to be morally offended by it.

Finally, the last two pages of the book are incredibly beautiful. It is one of the most perfect endings I have ever read in my life. So it is worth it to get there.

But along the way, believe me, you will have to fight every urge to give up. The first twelve chapters of the book should make most people do that. Still, I have to point out that this book is extremely important for writers, and anybody who considers themselves a writer should force themselves to read all the way to the end, whether they understand it or not. The Wikipedia page is very helpful on this novel, but I didn't read it until I was finished.

Why is this book so important for writers specifically? Joyce's creativity. Chapter 7 of this novel takes the form of a series of newspaper headlines, and this form was mimicked by me when I was just 18 in the first essay I wrote for college, and many people found it quite good. The play format of Chapter 15 is not necessarily anything new, but the hallucinatory nature of this part is way ahead of its time (but so is this http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2008/12/faust-johann-wolfgang-von-goethe.html, our 1 year anniversary...sigh). The form of Chapter 17 has to be one of the most original devices ever employed in literature. Finally Chapter 18 should teach anyone that thought literary experimentation reached its apotheosis with the Beats a lesson. Also anyone that thought punk rock was an original idea in 1976.

Joyce also predates the MFA contingent with their lists of things:

"From his girdle hung a row of seastones which dangled at every move of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the Ardi Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Rose, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshall MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castille, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo, Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herotodus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare." (296-297)

Right there, if you ever need to think up a name for a character if you are writing a piece of fiction, go to this section of the book. This is one of at least three ridiculously long paragraphs containing tons of names. I don't understand anything about it.

Probably the most useful way to read Ulysses, in my opinion, is to go through it with a pencil or pen, and circle or underline every word that you do not know. You will find hundreds, I promise you. Perhaps a thousand. Some of them are made up, but you will be able to increase your vocabulary greatly if you make the effort to look up all of those words in a dictionary. The problem is that most of these words are obsolete anyways, and no one uses them anymore, and if you use them other people will just think you are being pedantic.

Another note about this text--it would help to have a grasp of Irish history. Do you know who Parnell is? I don't. Parnell is mentioned enough in this book to be considered a character. It is almost like people writing the name Bush in America one hundred years later. Except I think people will know who Bush was one hundred years from now. People will remember 9/11 for a while.

That is another thing about this book--its prophetic quality. Disaster in New York. Thousands killed. Read it and you'll understand. There are a few other instances of Joyce predicting future events. The Holocaust is not predicted per se, but the words "concentration camps" appear, and a lot of anti-semitism directed towards Bloom, who is part-Jewish.

But do not be discouraged, and push through to find beautiful parts such as this:

"For Gerty had her dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the coral-pink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasures trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J. Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and oft-times the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears that the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. But it must end she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But even if--what then? Would it make a very great difference? From everything in the least indelicate her finebread nature instinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen woman off the accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and coarse men, with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would follow her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free." (363-365)

There are not many other very good reasons to read this book beyond the desire to witness a genius at work--and there are those that will persist in stating that Joyce is no genius, but a nut. And okay, from everything I've read or seen about Finnegan's Wake, it may have turned true--but Ulysses is not the work of a mind that has lost touch with its genius. It may have lost touch with populist sentiment, or the desire to be understood, but it is a work of genius, and near the end, as near the end of this contemporaneous novel of nearly the same length (http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2009/01/magic-mountain-thomas-mann.html), the reader forgets their preconceptions and just starts believing whatever the author writes, as fantastic as it may be, the author becomes the final authority on God, the universe, and the nature of existence:

"He believed that human life was infinitely perfectible, eliminating these conditions?

There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and death: the monotonous menstruation of simian (and particularly) human females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital criminality, decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make terror the basis of human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres of which are located in densely populated regions: the fact of vital growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis from infancy through maturity to decay." (697)

And here, when Bloom and Stephen are regarding the stars, near the end of the narrative, perhaps a commentary on the discovery of the atom:

"Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast?

Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed in the cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatazoa: of the incalcuable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by the cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached." (699)

I don't care to type much more, but here is an excerpt from the final chapter. To my mind, the primary merit of the final chapter is the way in which a single character is fully evoked, without reservations. Of course, Molly is unfaithful, but so is Bloom, and the nature of their adultery is arguably the most bittersweet, painful revelation of this entire work. They are compatible, so they stay together. But Molly is so tired of Bloom, and Bloom can be a lech at times--their adultery is almost approved. Bloom is still the more sympathetic character in the final chapter, as Molly contemplates how she would like Stephen to come around more often afterwards, for obvious reasons:

"Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathing place from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock there so simply I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looked with his boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if some of it went down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed be so clean compared with those pigs of men I supose never dream of washing it from 1 years end to the other most of them" (775-776)

In this final chapter, Joyce gets to the point that I have always thought I knew something about--that is, burying the sordid detail underneath a mountain of text, so that the reader will have to do the work to get there, so that it is almost like a secret or dirty joke that cannot be uttered aloud. Ulysses is obscene, but only really after about 700 pages, so no one should be bothered by it. It is not an affront to public morality more than any other book has been in the past, because barely anyone that is part of "the public" will be exposed to it. And there can be much value in a frank discussion of sexual mores, particularly in the 1920's, and mixed in with that, there can be real instances of proto-feminism:

"I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they wouldn't in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to be a woman and a mother how could they where would they all of them be if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I never had thats why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from his books and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowy house I suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my fault we came together when I was watching two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps still its a lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the air of the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so snappy Im not like that" (778-779)

I have said all I can on Ulysses, I think. I recommend it, but primarily for writers. I do not know if I will ever read it again. I might, but only if I wanted to write a novel that was a very loose retelling of the story, the way this was a very loose retelling of that older, classic story, which can be read by almost anyone. If anything, it made me want to re-read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. Perhaps in 2010, those will appear on Flying Houses, and perhaps Infinite Jest will too. But don't hold me to that, please.