STATELY AND PLUMP even when he entered the world on the 21st of May 1900, Leopold Bloom51 was born into a family of distinguished talmudicG scholars. From the moment he (finally) learned to read at the age of 10, Bloom knew he was destined to one day become a great writer. Young Bloom's selfprophetic conviction was, to his family's profound chagrin, never substantiated by the succession of dismal report cards he brought home from elementary, junior and high school. So poor were his writing skills in particular that more than one teacher took the time to pen a personal note to Mr. & Mrs. Bloom urging them to persuade their son to "seek a career in any field except the one for which he so mistakenly seems to think himself gifted." To all (and there were many) who expressed their serious doubts concerning his literary aspirations Bloom cited the examples of Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Smollett and Nicolai Gogol—none of whom, according to him, "exhibited the slightest writing talent until they were well into middleage."52 Not surprisingly he called these shining examples of delayed genius "late bloomers."
"Moreover," Bloom would add, "As no man is a messiah in his own time so too were artists like Joyce, Lawrence, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Wagner crucified by their contemporary critics." The inference being: That those who dared to criticize the unorthodox literary style of Leopold Bloom did so at the peril of their eternal embarrassment—if not damnation.
The flaw in Bloom's analysis of those who ridiculed him was this: Far from finding fault with his style they pointed to his complete lack of literary output. Which was indisputably the case. By the time he graduated from high school Bloom hadn't written a single page of anything that could be remotely described as creative. And while this stunning fact was taken by his family as a sure sign they had somehow sired53 a complete imbecile Bloom went blithely about his business of applying for admission as an English major to every college in the Ivy League. Some of which not only turned him down flatly but took the unprecedented step of sending him a letter asking if were playing some sort of practical joke on them. If so, they weren't amused. And if not, "Mr. Bloom should seriously consider committing himself to one of the state mental institutions listed on the enclosure we are providing him with out of our sense of civic duty."54 Describing himself slyly as being, "Just smart enough to read the handwriting on a brick wall" Bloom took the matter of his manifest destiny in his own two hands by foresaking all his academic plans ("real writers don't teach writing anyway; they write!"), moving from his ancestral home in Brooklyn to a rented tworoom "bachelor apartment" in a lower East Side flophouse and getting himself a job in the mailroom of a major Manhattan publishinghouse. There, reasoned Bloom, he could learn the literary ropes from the bottom up while gainfully supporting himself for the five or ten years it might take to write his magnum opusG What was the hurry? Having just received his highschool diploma (at the age of twentyone!) Leopold Bloom had plenty of time in which to immortalize himself!
As Bloom discovered, however, time has
a nasty habit of passing considerably quicker than one would like when one's
artistic immortality is on the line. When, by his 50th birthday, he had yet
to begin writing the first page of his masterpiece he shrugged off "the
squandering of those 30 years as having made him wiser but
older."55 His use of the word "squandering" was typical of the way
he shrewdly magnified his literary shortcomings in order to make them appear
smaller than they really were. In this case, however, there was an
element of genuine humility in his selfcriticism. The truth was: Leopold
Bloom had spent every single night of those 30 years busily filling several
thousand notebooks with ideas, thoughts, suggestions, sketches, drafts,
proposals, diagrams, plots, subplots, outlines, plans, blueprints, memoranda,
analyses and detailed critiques in preparation for the Big Day —when,
with
pen56
in hand, he would sit down and write the initial sentence of the book
establishing his claim to undying novelistic fame. So fanatically, in fact,
had Bloom applied himself to that task his "study" was crammed from floor
to ceiling and wall to wall with what looked like the claustrophobic clutter
of those musty government offices depicted by Gogol in his satires on the
"pedantic proclivities of Tzarist Russia's paperpushing bureaucrats."
By his 60th birthday Bloom's oneman archive of "research
materials" had spread itself from his study into his bedroom and kitchenette.
Only his broomclosetsize toilet remained (relatively) free of the
everproliferating plague of notebooks. And, as he entered his 70s, while
Bloom began to feel as if the halfcentury he had spent crawling his way toward
his Moment of Literary Truth was "rapidly nearing its end," there were still
a few "lastminute wrinkles which needed to be ironed out" before he actually
reached that Promised Land. On the eve of turning 80 his optimism in this
regard was given a considerable boost when, after a "doordie review" of the
40odd notebooks containing his ruminations on the matter, at long last Bloom
finally chose a "working title" for the book he would soon be sitting down
to write.
But before condemning Bloom for his procrastination in
making what might seem like a monumentally inconsequential decision there
are several mitigating factors which must be raised in his defense. As
with any artistic endeavor ,the choice of a novel's working title is by no
means a minor matter. Putting aside the Acoustic Axiom that: "The title of
a great book should have a commensurately grandiloquent ring ," (Of Mice
And Men, The Sun Also Rises, War And Peace, etc.) there are a host of
other factors with which an author must grapple in the course of finding
a title for his novel that perfectly conveys his purpose in writing it. Not
the least of these being that, for better or worse: A novel's title is a
nutshell into which, for his reader's benefit, an author must put the story
he is about to tell. In theoretical terms such titles as The Scarlet Letter,
Histoire de Juliette; ou, Les prosperites du Vice and The Story Of
O make reading the novels they describe so cogently somewhat anticlimactic
for a woman with even the most modestly prurient imagination. Moreover,
having finalized his working title, the wouldbe novelist soon discovers he
has painted himself into a creative corner when it comes to his storytelling
options. Thus a book entitled Death in Venice, for example, not only
places its author in a subjectmatter straightjacket from whose depressing
motif his escape is practically impossible—it is one the average housewife
can scarcely be expected to trade for that which she is already wearing in
the Bedlamized state of her marital affairs. Additionally, a novel's
title makes a statement about the scope of its author's literary aspirations.
No matter how popular books with trashy titles like Peyton Place, Naked
Came The Stranger and Gone With The Wind are in the short run,
from a timeless perspective their writers (unintentionally or otherwise)
doom themselves to the most fleeting kind of fame (and fortune). For Bloom
these titlechoosing perplexities were complicated by the constantly changing
nature of the book he originally planned to write. What began as: THE CLAYS
OF CONNECTICUT: A SWEEPING SAGA OF AMERICA'S SOCIOCULTURAL & GEOPOLITICAL
HISTORY CHRONICLED BY THE RISING & FALLING DYNASTIC FORTUNES OF A SINGLE
AMERICAN FAMILY had gradually evolved into: AFTER MANY SUMMERS: A CASE STUDY
IN THE PROCRASTINATIONAL PSYCHOSIS OF A CERTAIN SIEGFRIED SWAN & HIS
LIFELONG STRUGGLE TO WRITE A BOOK THAT WOULD FOREVER ALTER THE COURSE OF
HUMAN HISTORY
THE REASON SWAN/BLOOM METAMORPHOSED into the antihero of his own novel was simply this: After spending some sixty years trying to mythologize his "Clays of Connecticut as the prototypical Yankee success story" Bloom realized his failure to do so was itself the stuff from which a novelistic masterpiece about the delusionary nature of the American Dream could be written! And Bloom wasn't alone in thinking the monumental degree to which he had taken his delusions of literary grandeur qualified him as the (anti)hero of an equally monumental novel. Whenever his name came up in coffeebreak or cocktail party conversations among the more orthodox (but similarly frustrated) "closet writers" who worked at Bloom's firm someone was bound to express the idea that "Our Mr. Leopold Bloom was a real life character just waiting to be immortalized in a James Joyce style novel." The only problem with such an idea being, of course, "nowadays most Americans don't read novels written in the style of a James Joyce." Nevertheless, at one time or another, most, if not all, of those who entertained the notion of making Bloom the antiheroic object of "a furtive fling at writing the Great American Novel" did fill a few notebooks of their own speculating on the feasibility of such a project. On more than one occasion Jayne herself "played around" with the idea of writing a "Bloom book."
Needless to say, none of these abortive attempts came even close to approximating the colossal scale of Bloom's fiascoed efforts at novelizing his own long and anything but illustrious "career" as a "budding" author. How could they have? According to Bloom: "One had to actually live a life as totally unproductive as his had been before one could begin to appreciate the magnitude of its futility." And while his opinions about other matters were suspect, when it came to the subject of failure not many could question Bloom's expertise.57 The shelves of one entire wall in his study were lined with notebooks containing his ruminations on "The Nature of Failure," "Failure As a Way of Life," "The Pitfalls of Premature Fame," "Contradictory Factors Associated with the Headlong Pursuit of Success," etc. Whether, as Bloom claimed, he had "fathered" a new philosophy known as "Failurism" or was simply rationalizing some profound purpose into his manifestly meaningless existence probably doesn't matter. The result was, that like so many other "madmen" whose selfdeluding dreams of altering the course of human history eventually came true,58 Bloom had no difficulty believing he alone was fated to write the book that would awaken America from its cultural coma. After he had spent more than three decades perfecting it,59 his "daydream" of making historical waves took the following theatrical form: 60
Dramatis Personae
Mr. Leopold Bloom: An exceedingly old man who has spent his entire life trying (and failing miserably) to write "the" book that will alert America to the perils of a democratic egalitarianism which has turned itself into the downward spiraling "ethosG of mediocrity."
Miss A: (for Angela) Muse A voluptuous young creature who serves as Bloom's private secretary, source of "artistic" inspiration and practical nurse. What should be the obvious imaginary and symbolic nature of her role is made even moreso by the ethereal quality of the diaphanous snow white evening gowncumnegligee she wears—through which can be plainly glimpsed what every dirty old novelist dreams he will see while in the final throes of creative extremis. The "heavenly but erotogenic" effect she creates on the audience should be reminiscent of that evoked by Jessica Lange in "All That Jazz."
The Doctor: A suitably distinguishedlooking man whose principal purpose is to predict (with a credible medical certainty) the exact moment of Bloom's impending death.
The Pilgrim's Chorus: A group comprised of Bloom's family members, friends, former teachers, neighbors, coworkers & casual acquaintances—all of whom had, at some time and in one way or another, expressed the opinion that Leopold Bloom was a lunatic, dirty old man, congenital idiot, crashing boor, selfrighteous windbag, iconoclastic painintheass, notsocrypto fascist and/or monumental artistic failure. As Bloom now lays dying, those who defamed him so heartlessly have come to demonstrate their shame, guilt, grief and remorse with a display of collective reverence for the man they should always have known was destined (as he so frequently prophesied) "to forever alter the course of American (if not all human) history."
THE POPE, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA., THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, THE KING OF SWEDEN (Acting on behalf of the Nobel Prize Committee), MISCELLANEOUS NOTABLES, DIGNITARIES & VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE AS NEEDED.
Intro Part 4 Return to Index
Footnotes
51 Not to be confused (necessarily) with the filthyminded hero of a certain novel set in Dublin, Ireland.
52 With the possible exception of Churchill, Bloom was either mistaken or being deliberately deceitful.
53 Even on his death bed Bloom's father insisted he couldn't be held biologically responsible for having produced such a monumental gonif. Accordingly, Leopold's name was not among those listed as the beneficiaries of his Last Will & Testament—an insult Bloom himself had no trouble understanding or forgiving. He was only sorry his father hadn't lived long enough (he was 97 when he died!) to see his "idiot" son immortalize the Bloom family name "with a consummate act of artistic virtuosity the likes of which the world had never seen before."
54 Bloom carefully filed these letters away for "future reference" on that day of vindication when, at long last, he was recognized as "the greatest American author who had ever written a novel."
55 Putting the cart before the horse was another of what he called his "Bloomisms"—as if they were deliberate; when in fact, like most Morons, his lips were quicker than his wits.
56 In his midt20s Bloom had spent a week's pay to purchase a Mount Blanc "Auteur" fountain pen which he solemnly resolved to himself he would only unwrap on that most special of occasions when he began the actual writing of his Magnum Opus
57 Having spent 60
years analyzing the course of events that led from Plymouth Rock to Watergate
in order to chronicle the fictitious fortunes of the "Clay dynasty" Bloom
held himself out as an authority (for those who were willing to listen) on
the reasons why "the American Dream was rapidly turning into a living nightmare."
Among the dire conclusions he drew from his historical research was: "That
unless some radical step was taken soon America would vanish beneath the
stagnant surface of the sociocultural swamp through which it had been wandering
since (at least) 1776. After two centuries of wallowing in the blissfulness
of ignorance only a miracle could save us from the fate suffered by every
previous civilization in the process of its decline." That "miracle" would,
predicted Bloom, take the form of a Paul Reverelike alarm sounded by some
messianic playwright or novelist whose words of warning will awaken America
from its intellectual slumber. "If," he argued, "the pen really is mightier
than the sword, why shouldn't such a literary call to arms launch
a second American revolution in which the enemy isn't British but the evils
of a mindless egalitarianism that is producing the deluge of sociocultural
mediocrity in which we all find ourselves drowning?"
While what would ordinarily be construed as an unthinkably
antiAmerican question was accepted as being merely rhetorical by the members
of an enterprise ostensibly dedicated to pursuing just such a revolutionary
proposition, none of Bloom's fellow employees saw him as the man who could
possibly work the miracle he was describing. Notwithstanding the nonmessianic
aura of its messenger, however, the seeds of Bloom's evangelical message
did root themselves in a few fertile mentalities (like Jayne's) where their
flowering added a sharp note of ideological pungency to what was otherwise
the soporificd bouquet of a conventional mindset.
Although she never thought about it consciously, there
is little doubt that when Jayne began reading Morons Awake! Bloom's
"absurd idea about a single novel whose reading by only a million or two
women would solve most, if not all, of America's problems" played a major
role in her decision to give "Mordecai Goldberg" the benefit of any doubts
she might have about his being not only her long lost "needle in a haystack
and a Prince Charming for a nation full of somnambulisticd housewives, but
the literary messiah who might miraculously turn America into a socio cultural
paradise on earth.
But, as we shall learn shortly, Leopold Bloom's previously
unheralded role as an Old Testament prophet was about to become fullyfrontalized
in a blinding blaze of epiphanal glory that would bedazzle Jayne into a state
of revelatory rapture.
58 Adolf Hitler, Chaim Weizmann, John Brown, Jesus Christ, Ho Chi Minh, Franz Kafka, Christopher Columbus, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Marx, to name just a few.
59 There were many times when Bloom thought seriously about changing his literary horses in midstream by writing the Great American Stage (or Screen) Play rather than the Great American Novel. But in the final analysis he wisely decided that "The conversational intimacy needed to communicate his rather shocking ideological propositions to a woman could only be established within the clandestine confines found between the covers of a best selling novel"
60 As reconstructed from Notebooks Nos. 688690-688734 of the completely uncollected and unpublished "works" of Leopold Bloom.
Glossary
Talmud noun [LHeb talm(dh, lit., instruction](1532) : the authoritative body of Jewish tradition comprising the Mishnah and Gemara ¦ Talmudic adj
magnum opus noun [L](1791) : a great work; esp : the greatest achievement of an artist or writer
ethos noun [NL, fr. Gk -thos custom, character ¦ more at SIB](1851) : the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution