II - Chapter 10

Overall chapter impression:

Looks like Joyce has gone to lunch and his editor came in to do a chapter.

Notes: (commentary and/or scribble I wrote to look at/up later)

Conmee has a silk hat.
Arecanut, so we have a stoned priest walking the streets?
Denis J. Maginni professor of dancing &c also has a silk hat.
What is that '(D.V.)' all about?
Virtuous ... but bad tempered: Because virtuosity is supposed to suggest pleasant temperance? Wouldn't it likely cause bad tempers? :-D
An act of perfect contrition: I'm not sure whether this is pragmatic or cynical, but I understand 'unfortunate' because of looking this up.
Dear God, thanks for peat. Nice job, sir!
Nope, you can't say niggerlips. Even in 1920.
Not a great attempt at redemption either, Conmee should know (his scriptures) better.
There's that D.V. again
Tyrannous incontinence: inability to keep it in your pants?
Nones: I will find time this week, Harrow, I swear. (Later - I managed to find time to read The Locked Tomb 0.5 Dr Sex.)
Ooh, a conspiracy with Corny and the police. I don't think that's how 'bated breath' is used.
Whether it's now or here or both, I'm glad we treat vets better than that.
'Unfurnished apartments'? Will look this up during second reading, I think.
Crikey! 😁
Hello Blazes Boylan, and what trouble are you causing? As well as perving on the young girls, of course?
Why did that conversation need to be in Italian?
Soubrette. Later, also Lacquey
Original Jews temple: but I thought they never came to Ireland?
Blue o'clock the morning after the night before. :-D Good times can be had at blue o'clock.
Tucking the rug and settling her boa: I don't know what he means, but I can guess. Would one really tell this story (if one is older than 17 or so)? It's icky. Is the point self-lionising or scoffing at Bloom?
I don't get how the pinprick joke works. As humour, it's weak on face value, unless I'm missing something.
Meanwhle, Bloom's looking for cuckold smut to give to his wife. So he's into it. Or he's enabling her fun which still means he's into it. But Martha doesn't fit into that equation. Cue soundtrack: Part-time lover by Stevie Wonder.
Sulphur dung of lions. Those words don't make sense.
You don't call your daughters an insolent pack of little bitches.
Dilly waiting for dad.
Kernan: who is he? Did we meet him in the newspaper office?
General Slocum. This was a big day in history.
I think the timing is off, however. Also, they should've been shot!
Pursily: 😄
And back to Dedalus. This chapter flip-flops. That fill-in editor must be trying to tie a lot of strings together!
What does prove a chain mean?
Dust: that's like the fog poem.
Good response to a learning munchkin, Stephen.
There's a lot going on here. Now we have the other Dedalus.
I guess Ben Dollard is in the church choir? 😁
Mulligan again. Haines thinks Dedalus has gone mental, too.
Dignam's monologue: lol, just spent most of a section thinking this had become a ghost story!
And we conclude with a roll call of everyone previously mentioned as the lieutenant general drives by.

Stuff I don't get:

Am I imagining the levels of smut, and the niches involved? Is it just plain adultery and I'm reading all the psychocucking into it? Am i the pervert?

And, in conclusion:

A bit puzzled about Stephen's brood of daughters. I thought a) he was a 20-something just back from his gap year (or three) b) he wouldn't know what to do with a woman, never mind three times.

As to the story, well we've got relationship dramas with the Blooms (and a host of other protagonists, apparently) and parenting dramas with multiple generations of Dedalus' fathers. Taking a step back there's the undercurrent of the troubles, though I can't tell of that is plot stuff, or just background info Joyce wants me to know. Stepping further back, it seems the world is going to hell in a handbasket (give it 10 years or so), and I had fears for the lieutenantgeneral of Ireland, half expecting an assassination attempt to end the chapter, not a bunch of saluting.