Spring 1983: Cruising Dublin with James Joyce

After The Waste Land and the horrifying Sound and the Fury, the work of Great Literature that my South Asian friend Viju and I loved to hate the most during the spring of 1983 was James Joyce's Ulysses. I was assigned it at Augustana, and found it impenetrable, 1000 pages long, full of Medieval Latin, obscure references to Irish politics, and nonsensical slang. The action moves at a glacial pace.  And there are no gay characters -- Joyce didn't like gay people.

But when we tweaked things and took other things out of context, Viju and I found tons of homoerotic jibs and jabs.  Queer theorists would be scandalized -- but queer theory hadn't been invented yet.  And it was lots of fun.

Take the first chapter: Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus (the latter played by Hugh O'Conor, center, in 2003) are just getting up in the morning.  They seem to live in an Irish castle.  Buck offers to take Stephen to Athens, if he can get his dragon-lady aunt to fork over the dough.  So maybe they're Indolent Young Men of the Bertie-and-Wooster school, and we all know what gay men did in Athens.

Stephen doesn't like the guy Buck brought home last night: he was talking in his sleep.  Buck doesn't remember his name, but he searches his pockets for the information.

Obviously he had been cruising the night before, and brought home a pick-up.  Don't you hate it when you can't remember the guy's name the next morning?

They start horseplaying.  Stephen yells "I don't want to be debagged!  Don't you play the giddy ox with me!"

"Debag" means "to remove the pants." Viju and I thought it meant something else.

Buck's pick-up, Haines (Mark Huberman),  finally wakes up, and they all go down to breakfast together.  Haines is angry that Buck invited Stephen along, especially after Buck calls him "My love." Jealous much?

Stephen responds: "Agenbite of inwit.  I want puce gloves and green boots."

Is that like a green carnation signifying that you're gay?



Assured that Stephen is gay, Haines softens, and invites him to go swimming with them.  They get their beach towels.

Now Buck is upset.  How many times have you brought a guy home from the bar, and he ends up flirting with your roommate?  So he takes off his clothes -- but Haines, having already seen him naked, is not impressed. Buck tries wit instead, singing his best drag show number:

I'm the queerest young fellow that you ever heard.  My mother's a Jew, my father's a bird.

He does seem rather queer.

The three go down to the beach. Stephen suddenly decides that he can't compete with Buck in the nudity department, and refuses to go in the water.


Disappointed, Haines suggests, "We'll see you again." Stephen makes a date with them at The Ship at 12:30.  Haines grins as he watches Stephen leave, thinking "Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon."

Could we hear some more about that horn?

But Stephen decides that he's not going back tonight, not as long as Haines "the usurper" is around.  Jealous much?

And it goes on like that Stephen spends the day teaching a class, researching Shakespeare, and wandering around aimlessly.  Buck shows up at the British Museum to warn him that a man ogling the naked statues is a "sodomite," and  interested in him (Back off, Buck, you already have a boyfriend).

The man turns out to be Leopold Bloom (played by Stephen Rea in the 2003 movie), who is having a long, boring day of his own.




Stephen encounters Bloom later at a brothel, and they hang out together, including a lengthy scene involving male-bonding urination in the back yard.  Bloom invites Stephen to spend the night, but he refuses and goes home.  A lot of guys seem to be interested in spending the night with Stephen!

Frustrated, Bloom settles for having sex with his wife, who says "Yes!" a lot.

Critics continue to insist that there's nothing gay in Ulysses.  But there's something gay in everything, even if you have to bring it yourself.