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A biography of Leopold Paula Bloom

Compare Stephen Rea, the 57yo actor playing Bloom in 2001: [more]

[pic source]
"...the image of the photo she had of Martin Harvey, the matinee idol..." [Nausikaa] "height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion" [Ithaca]

Joyce's pick to play Bloom ca 1930 was 62yo George Arliss. In the early 1960s, Peter Sellers almost starred in a movie version. [info] Milo O'Shea ended up with the role. [pic] Zero Mostel played Bloom in a 1974 Broadway adaptation. [pic]

NEW: map of houses

One of the most astonishing books about Ulysses is by John Henry Raleigh-- The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom (1977) [Bibliofind]. Although it makes many errors, it makes a valiant effort to reconstruct the life story of Bloom and Molly by collating all the tiny hints scattered thruout the text.

(Belated discovery: Richard M Kain had offered a neat ten-page condensed version of this reconstruction in 1970, in Staley & Benstock's Approaches to Ulysses.)

Joyce undertook a similar process of literary detection as he composed the Scylla and Charybdis chapter of Ulysses, looking at the slim set of clues regarding the life of Shakespeare. (Cf: [notebook]) So it's not improbable that he wants us to do this with Bloom, and has hidden many useful discoveries among these clues.

Looking at Raleigh's chronology (summarized below), it becomes clear that the Blooms' social life dropped to almost none after 1894... why??? I think Joyce provided the clues to solve questions like this, but so subtly that one can only sort them out by endless patient pondering and empathy...

A possible clue from the notesheets [qv]: Circe 11 has "LB boasts of successes (1 Waterloo)". What was this Waterloo? Maybe the lottery debacle??? If it stands so dramatic in his history... why?

If a solution is possible, it will also have to account for the Homeric parallels [more]. Odysseus's ten-year exile with Calypso was triggered by his killing of Poseidon's son Polyphemus. This may be echoed in the death of (deformed) Rudy, or Cuffe's cattlemarket may map onto Polyphemus's herds.

Parallax implies triangulating a more exact measurement by correlating several less-exact ones. Several key events in Bloom's history offer themselves for this method: Milly's weaning, Mary Driscoll, the Hungarian lottery fiasco, Holles street and the birth of Rudy, the Glencree dinner, and the period at Cuffe's and the City Arms hotel.

While the Ithaca chapter pretends to give objective dates for many events in Bloom's life, they just don't work for laying out a precise chronology, and the odds are they're mostly red herrings. [more]

So we have to take this as a puzzle where many pieces are disguised.

Molly offers what appears to be a sequence: "God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street... and then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly... every time were just getting on right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons" [Penelope]

But Ontario terrace seems to have been 1897, long after the other named locations, so we have to conclude Joyce was showing Molly's chaotic mind here. (cf Circe notesheet: "Wom. autobiog. 22.14.7.18")

Bloom's catalog of Molly's love-interests may also provide sequence-clues: "Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to nolast term." [Ithaca-A281]

Mulvey: unambiguously Gibraltar c1886

Penrose: after Milly was born, probably Lombard street

Bartell d'Arcy: Bloom dates to Lombard street (8.180)

professor Goodwin: Bloom dates to Lombard street (8.166, 8.185)

Julius Mastiansky: maybe Pleasants street

John Henry Menton:

Father Bernard Corrigan: maybe while Bloom was dating Molly c1888?

a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show

Maggot O'Reilly: maybe Leopardstown races

Matthew Dillon

Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin): Glencree dinner

Christopher Callinan: after Glencree dinner?

Lenehan: after Glencree dinner

an Italian organgrinder

an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre

Benjamin Dollard

Simon Dedalus

Andrew (Pisser) Burke: City Arms?

Joseph Cuffe: City Arms

Wisdom Hely

Alderman John Hooper

Dr Francis Brady

Father Sebastian of Mount Argus

a bootblack at the General Post Office

Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan

Notoriously, both Bloom [Eumeus] and Myles Crawford [Eolus] misdate the Phoenix Park murders to 6 May 1881 (before JAJ's birth) instead of 6 May 1882 (after). And Zoe Higgins gives Bella Cohen's address, actually #82, as: No, eightyone

These may be hints that Rudy's death is similarly misdated by a year (attributable to his being born 29 Dec of the previous year).

More possible examples: "thirteen Fitzgibbon" (17.139, actually 14); "twelve North Richmond (17.143,actually 13?); "2 weeks and 3 days" (17.1448, actually three and four); "2 February" (17.1654, actually 1 Feb); "1866" (17.1681, actually 1865); "1st and 2nd" (17.1877, actually 2nd and 1st); "5 months and 18 days" (17.2282, actually 6 months and 19 days) [more]

Many of Bloom's memories are located in space (eg a street name) but not in time. Some of these may very well be clues that can only be spotted if you recognise the relation of that place to other, dated events in nearby neighborhoods.

U-Oxen 7:84 "Places remember events. Druggist"
U-Ithaca 1:67 "forget street where smthg unpleasant occurred"

Hungary:

Pre-1750? (Lipoti's father-in-law or further) blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, Austrian army
cf? LB's Nighttown hallucination: progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dank prison

pre-1780: LB's grandfather Lipoti (Leopold) Virag having seen Maria Theresa, Circe hallucination: My name is Virag Lipoti

1807-1816: father Rudolf (or Rudolph) Virag born septuagenarian suicide (1886 - 79 = 1807; 1886 - 70 = 1816)

1852: still in Hungary daguerreotype of Rudolph Virag and his father Leopold Virag

photographer? Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me of to take photographs on account of his grandfather

Wandering Jew (1850s-1865):

Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and Dublin
cf semi-reversed version: Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely
RV sees 'Leah': Ristori in Vienna
London 1865: RV sees 'Hamlet': Year before I was born

RV Protestant: converted from the Israelitic faith (possible implication of poverty, and possibly to make marriage possible?)

RV marries: Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Bloom's hallucination implies she was Catholic: Sacred Heart of Mary

RV becomes RB: to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom at Clanbrassil street:

[pic source]

Bloom's birth (1866): the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom Joyce only hints at Bloom's birth date, implying he'd just turned fifteen on 6 May. But by a process of elimination, we can wonder whether the strangely unexplained pink ribbon from Easter 1899 was saved because that was also Bloom's birthday-- 2 April.

LB not circumcised Well the foreskin is not back

LB baptised: in the protestant church

1872: first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom

1874 riddle: Where was Moses when the candle went out?

schooldays: Mrs Ellis's juvenile school, anagrams, often sat observing, first piece of original verse

Erasmus Smith High School [website]

parallel bars

'Gerald' (schoolmate?) awakens his androgyny: female impersonator in the High School play cf Virag: Who's dear Gerald?

To be a shoefitter in Mansfield's was my love's young dream

his book satchel on him bandolierwise

nickname: Mackerel

1880s: Irish history timeline

1880: tempted by Bridie Kelly near high school entwined in nethermost darkness, Hatch street

came to Poulaphouca with the high school excursion

tempted by Lotty Clarke Rialto Bridge

1881: LB goes to work for RB, then Kellet's mail order? worked the mail order line for Kellet's

1881-83: WB Yeats at High School [cite]

fullfledged traveller for the family firm

dreams of glory: You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1882 to square the circle and win that million.

future careers (clergy, law, acting)

1881: William O'Brien starts United Ireland (Parnellite weekly newspaper)

1882: "LB memory of only spree" (Circe notesheet): They challenged me to a sprint I was sixteen

1884-86: nocturnal perambulations with chums

1886: salesman doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class railway carriages of suburban lines

still? quadrature of the circle

RB shared his bed with Athos

27 June 1886: RB suicide after EB death overdose of monkshood (aconite) poison himself after her

Molly in Dublin already? his eyes were red when his father died

undated: bicycling lost my way (in Stepaside, suggestion published)

Clanbrassil neighborhood: Leonard's corner (hearse runs over shoe); Harold's cross bridge (scolded tramdriver, cold, last tram)

Josie Powell they were spooning a bit

1870: Marion Tweedy born Sept 8 in Gibraltar [map] to Lunita Laredo my mother whoever she was (mystery: he hadnt an idea about my mother till we were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did. maybe jewish? jewess looking after my mother) and Brian Cooper Tweedy (?) [Ithaca]

1877: Plevna [history] now Pleven, Bulgaria [map]

?1880: in my skin hopping around

1884: Molly's friend Hester marries and moves to Paris

we used to compare our hair

Irish accent: my accent

1886: Molly and Mulvey; Tweedy's move to Dublin

Mulveys was the first

Circe hallucination: Tweedy moustached like Turko the terrible

1887: LB door-to-door salesman, meets M at Mat Dillon's, charades at Doyles

"God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly... every time were just getting on right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons" [Penelope]

Dolphin's Barn: [map] Cow Parlour off Cork street (renamed Boulevard Bloom)

the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn

MB to Dr Collins: white thing coming from me

May 1887: SD refuses to shake LB's hand lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house I saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too The first night at Mat Dillon's! I thought he was a poet like lord Byron he was very handsome at that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked

first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace

he sent me the 8 big poppies

Josie: there are many ambiguous clues about whether LB was ever seriously interested in Josie, but the evidence seems to be she was homely and he was just being gallant

6 Jan 1888? LB life of party: Old Christmas night Georgina Simpson's housewarming the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming

valentine

1st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton square running into my bedroom

he was on the pop of asking me

proposes: rhododendrons on Howth head

14 Feb 1888 Valentine to Molly: "You are mine"

that letter with all those words in it mad crazy letters

1888: Chats with Molly and her father: on the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house all the things he told father he was going to do

? death of Tweedy all father left me in spite of his stamps

1888?: LB joins Freemasons blue masonic badge [info] [pic] FAQ [JAJ cites]

maybe still a freemason c1900? till the jesuits found out he was a freemason

October 1888: LB baptised Catholic the church of the Three Patrons

marries MB Oct 8, works for Hely

I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me

1889: Milly born June 15 crying to cause and lessen congestion

1890: Trip to Leopardstown races [pic] with Josie Powell just after Milly... was weaned, great breast of milk with Milly... Penrose; She put on nine pounds after weaning

1890s: Irish history timeline

fall of Parnell, Bloom and hat Dec 11 1890

Jan 1892: 10yo SD invites LB to dinner coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel

Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon

Professor Goodwin: in a bowknotted periwig

Darcy kissing me on the choir stairs Winds that blow from the south

c1893 Milly counted his three free moneypenny buttons

1896: first autos in Ireland

stopped at the hour of 4.46 a.m. on the 21 March 1896

Mary Driscoll

Sugarloaf choir party? off the south circular

in Ontario terrace

six pounds a year

1897? Milly's nightmare (8yo) uttered in sleep an exclamation of terror

summer 1898??? marked a florin (Charlemont mall)

sneaky places:

Bloom's 'Lombard street' revery (below) mentions a route home from the Mansion House that should have gone by Camden row, not the high school or Harcourt road, so 'home' then may well have been Ontario instead:

"Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supper room or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew out of my hand against the high school railings." [Lestrygonians]

Bloom's happy revery associates Hely's, Glencree dinner, Sugarloaf picnic, Molly plumping out, Milly's shapeliness in bath (from suds?), Penrose peeping, d'Arcy flirting, lottery tickets, lodge meeting, Goodwin concert, "That was the night..."

Molly also places Goodwin concert at Lombard the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert and the day old frostyface Goodwin called about the concert

Jewish neighborhood Darkshawled figures of the circumcised

1892-93??? Mastiansky chats at house in Lombard street, west the way Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her

wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer

the day old frostyface Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew

lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street west

Worst sin (Pleasants street?): I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant, Girl in the monkeyhouse, The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter

1893: MB uses men's urinal; Goodwin calls; Sugarloaf picnic [pic]; Hung. Lottery; LB works for cattleman; works Mrs Riordan; LB&MB last fuck Nov 27

after the Comerfords party

his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations

outside sir Thornley Stoker's

Molly's first orgasm? I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it went into the wrong place always (Sept 1870 + 22 = Sept 1892)

1895?: LB fired by Hely, hard times, MB rag trade; Dollard's concert

Tranquilia convent

Lombard street and Holles street... and then the City Arms hotel

jews temple: [pic]

south city markets: [pix]

he said I could pose for a picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee palace

Dollard's suit: fellow with the bad breeches the night he borrowed the swallowtail

hard up I tried her things on

I wouldnt let him lick me

1893?: Rudi born Dec 29, dies Jan 9 neither one thing nor the other fairy boy of eleven buried him in that little woolly jacket [more]

MB sees SD? saw him driving down to the Kingsbridge station

1893 moustache cup presented to him by his only daughter 27th anniversary of his birth to make his mouth bigger Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her.

1895? Milly's nightmare (6yo) uttered in sleep an exclamation of terror

neighborhood: awful cramp in Lad lane bucket of porter spinach (Beaver street?)

cf Nora's Miramar dinner

[pic source] tour

Lenehan

Bloom

Molly: Dignam yes he was at the Glencree dinner, Lenehan making free with me after the Glencree dinner

John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office

MB sings with SiD I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers private opera

1893-94??? Dante Riordan constant informant of Bloom

Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of

sending me to try and patch it up

at Bray telling the boatman he knew how to row

Noman

Bloom

Molly: "God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the freemasons" [Penelope]

1894: Glencree banquet (winter); LB at Thom's???, fired by Cuffe, rehired by Hely; Josie weds Breen

he sprained his foot at the choir party (Ontario terrace? off the south circular)

Sexlife: anonymous letter; SINS OF THE PAST; What did you do in the cattlecreep

Milly mumps dance attendance on her the way I did

1897?: LB works at Drimmie's, flirts w/servant Mary Driscoll, brings home dog

Gaiety: [homepage]

Jan 1893? or 1897?? commissioned by Michael Gunn

Drimmies? a box that Michael Gunn gave him

1898: Victoria visits (Sept)

does exercises [Sandow]

Easter 1899: pink ribbon

1899: Boer War (Gardner and Molly) Gardner said no man could look at my mouth touched his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner clumsy Claddagh ring for luck that I gave Gardner the evening we kissed goodbye

1900: LB gives Griffith idea for Sinn Fein???
1900: Arthur Griffith founds Cumann na nGaedheal (30 September)

1900: MB affair w/Gardner?; Childs murder case

1900: Victoria visits (April); dies (January)

Milly her adolescence

Bath of the Nymph: Out of her oak frame

little statue you carried home in the rain

1903: B's to 7 Eccles?, LB works for Freeman;

musical academy he was going to make on the first floor... or Blooms private hotel

last concert: St Teresas hall Clarendon St

26 June misses funeral interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus

July: Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visit Ireland

meet Boylan Sept 7 in the D B C with Poldy

14 Oct 1903 Suicide of Mrs Sinico (Painful Case) killed at Sydney Parade railway station

Mrs Sinico Oct 17; Milly difficult age

Pius X says no women singers [etext]

O'Rourke: old mangy parcel he sent

1904:

2 Jan: first instalment of Arthur Griffith's The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland appears in United Irishman

12 May: eleven stone and four pounds (158 lbs)

23 May : LB beesting Bee or bluebottle too other day Whit Monday is a cursed day

May 29 Boylan's first pass bazaar dance lace the wrong eyelet

fish supper on account of winning over the boxing match

June: Milly to Mullingar; LB's ad for typist, LB buys garters for MB (1st), drowning (7th), Dignam dies (13), Purefoy labor begins (14)

Undated: goes to circus alone? clown in quest of paternity

1942: Bloom in later life [source]

Martin Harvey: [another pic] [many more pix] [buy one]

Peter Costello also wrote a bio of Bloom, reviewed here

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