THE PLACE
The combination "study/bedchamber" of the squalid little
tworoom apartment in Manhattan's lower Eastside where Bloom has lived since
leaving his ancestral Brooklyn home 70 years ago. The cryptlike claustrophobia
created by the thousands of notebooks filling this multipurpose room from
walltowall and floortoceiling is exaggerated by the number of people who
have crowded in to witness the monumental event about to unfold. Although
this scene is bound to resemble in some degree that hilarious one in "Duck
Soup" where the Marx brothers find themselves crammed with a dozen other
passengers into a broomclosetsize ship's compartment every effort should
be made to promote the sublime nature of the occasion.
THE TIME
We are at a date in the nottoodistant future some 5
or 6 months after Bloom's Great American Novel began "writing itself"—as
he predicted it would one day do. Given his flare for the dramatic, Bloom
would probably do everything possible to prolong the climactic moment of
his impending death and apotheosis until the stroke of midnight on New Year's
eve, 1999.
THE SCENE
Before the curtain opens the audience should be put
into an appropriately highminded mood by hearing a rendition of Mahler's
8th Symphony—performed by a live orchestra and chorus numbering
not less than the one thousand participants indicated by the score. When
the curtain does open the music will change to Berlioz's Symphonie
Funèbre et Triomphale as BLOOM is discovered lying on his death
bed surrounded by the PILGRIM'S CHORUS—which can be heard expressing
its collective guilt with such murmured outpourings of (genuinely) improvised
anguish as: "How can we ever atone for our sins!" "Forgive us dear God, we
truly knew not what we were doing!" "Why do we persist in crucifying those
who seek to save us?" "Oh Leopold, Leopold, we hardly knew ye!" etc. Periodically
DOCTOR checks BLOOM's vital signs against the clock-both of whose hands are
slowly converging on midnight.
The play begins when the clock indicate that only about 5 minutes remain before the onset of a new year (and millennium).
DOCTOR: Can you hear me, Bloom?
BLOOM: Just barely, doctor.
DOCTOR [Speaking louder.]: This is it, sir.
BLOOM: This is what?
DOCTOR: The death you have been waiting for all your life!
BLOOM: Ah.
DOCTOR: In my professional opinion you have exactly 5 minutes in which to put your worldly affairs in order!
BLOOM: To do that I will need—I will need—
DOCTOR[Prompting with loud "sotto voce."]: Your private secretary and practical nurse, Miss Muse.
BLOOM: My private secretary and practical nurse, Miss Muse. Is she available?
DOCTOR: Yes, sir! She is waiting in the wings for her cue!
BLOOM: Well, just don't stand there like a bump on a log, man! Give it to her!
DOCTOR [Overmelodramatically.]: Nurse Muse! Nurse Muse! Come quickly! We have a genuine medical emergency and cultural crisis on our hands! [ENTER MISS MUSE with large bound manuscript and fountain pen. She vamps her way across the stage slowly, giving male members of the audience and CAST ample time to fully appreciate what she is showing them through the allbut transparent fabric of her evening gowncumnegligee.]
MISS A. MUSE [Very southern & seductive accent.]: Have no fear, my little ole mastermind! You're little ole "private secretary" is on her little ole way! I'm coming, sweetheart! I'm COMING! [Meanwhile FEMALE CHORUS MEMBERS are expressing their excitement along the following spontaneous lines: "At long last the moment of truth is at hand!" "The suspense is killing me!" "Will he or won't he?" "It's a real life race between death and denouement!" "Have you ever seen an apotheosis?" etc.]
BLOOM: Did you bring my Great American Novel?
MISS A. MUSE: Why of course I brought your little ole Great American Novel, you silly little ole man! [As she places manuscript on BLOOM's lap has difficulty putting fountain pen in his hand.] Now you just relax, sweetiepie and let little ole me put this little ole fountain pen in your little ole hand.
BLOOM [Becoming agitated.]: Relax? How the hell can I relax at a time like this! My God! Now that I'm really about to kick the bucket my lifelong certitude about being deified on my death bed is suddenly evaporating into thin air!
MISS A. MUSE: But darling, surely you-of all people!-should understand that such last minute apprehensions only serve to intensify the dramatic suspense gathering itself around the question of whether this death bed scene of yours will or will not turn out to be an apotheosis.
BLOOM [Hysterically.]: Don't lecture me about "dramatic suspense," lady! I practically invented the concept, novelwise! And another thing! You wouldn't be the first bitch dressed in angel's clothing who tried-and failed!—to make a fool of Leopold Bloom!
DOCTOR [Preparing hypodermic needle.]: Out of the way, Nurse Muse. This patient is in desperate need of sedation.
MISS A. MUSE [Seizing his wrist.]: Not so fast, doctor! Nothing must be done to impair what little remains of Mr. Bloom's intellectual faculties! To do so might invalidate the act by which he consummates his magnum opus! Not to mention that intervening pharmacologically at this pregnant point will prevent him from knowing whether or not his dramatic demise can indeed trigger the chain of transfigurational events vindicating the faith he has always had that his lifetime of failure was only: "The long prologue to that most climactic of moments when a hitherto unknown novelist bursts upon the literary scene not as just another flashinthebestsellingpan-but with a blaze of genuine artistic glory."
DOCTOR [While armwrestling with MUSE.]: Yes, yes, Nurse Muse—we're all familiar with Bloom's "Big Bang" plans for ending both his life and his book with "an ejaculatory outburst of seminal creativity." But in his presently deranged state of mind and physical decrepitude the question for us becomes a practical one of whether our patient has what it takes for rising to such an orgasmic occasion. No, Miss Muse! As a churchgoing Christian, a registered democrat and a doctor who take his Hippocratic oath seriously, I'm obliged to do whatever I humanly can to put a geriatric basket case like Leopold Bloom out of his terminal misery!
Throughout the foregoing dialogue/struggle between DOCTOR and MUSE over the hypodermic needle BLOOM has in fact been exhibiting all the signs (foaming at the mouth, gesticulating wildly, ranting and raving incoherently, etc.) of a man who's been driven beyond the normal pale of his artistic paranoia by what he now perceives as a conspiracy to turn what was supposed to be the Greek tragedy of his "death bed apotheosis" into a French boudoir—or worse yet, German expressionist—farce. With a final exertion of supernatural strength, MUSE forces DOCTOR to drop hypodermic needle.
MISS A. MUSE: Alright, doctor; now that your Grand Gesture is on the record, stand back and watch a real expert demonstrate the bedside manner needed when some elderly apostle of cultural nirvana like Pablo Picasso, Hector Berlioz, Bob Fosse or Leopold Bloom suffers a sudden attack of stage fright when he finds himself actually standing at death's door! [She bends over BLOOM and kisses his forehead. While doing so one of her breasts "accidentally" falls into his "conveniently" cupped left hand.] That's it, Poldymouldy; while I soothe this ohsosavage brow of yours with my kisses please feel free to amuse yourself with that fondling whose furtiveness we both find so thrilling—[While continuing to lavish kisses on his forehead and tousle his hair, she speaks spasmodically and breathlessly as if in the final throes of an approaching orgasm.] Yes, my dirty old darling...you aren't the only one who's enjoyed...this BeautyandtheBeast...game we've been playing...all these years. And while...I may have seemed...hard to get at times it was...only because no woman likes...admitting to some decrepit lech...he knows more about the innermost secrets of her feminine mystique...than she does. But I never doubted for a single moment...you were right...the first time...you told me: "Whether she knows it or not...when a woman takes the measure of a man's virility...it's the size of his mind...that matters more to her than any of his other socalled... 'masculine' attributes." [Having calmed BLOOM her manner becomes more businesslike.] There, doctor; you see what a little ole TLC will do? [To BLOOM:] Now, Mr. Leopold Bloomsywoomsy, let's just take that little ole phallic symbol in your little ole hand and do what has to be done. [For some inscrutable reason BLOOM is reluctant to follow her orders.] What seems to be the problem now? [BLOOM is alert but his concentration is focused on the page he is being urged to complete.] Here; let me help you write those last six little ole letters: T-H-E- E-N-D. They might spell 2 of the simplest words in the English language but what others could better express all that remains for you to say on the final page of this last chapter of your book—and your life? At least the final terrestrial chapter of your life. Once those two words are written and this pen drops from your lifeless hand, our loveaffair will, of course, continue for all eternity in that Valhalla where all artistic supermen reside with the mistress—or mistresses—of their choosing. [BLOOM has become so preoccupied with his reading this brazenly promiscuous proposition leaves him uncharacteristically cold.] Damn it, Bloom, we don't have time to fool around! The hands of that clock can't be made to move more slowly with out coming to a complete stop! The orchestra is doing all it can to fudge on the tempo, but the heroic momentum of Berlioz's score is still gathering its way toward that most stirring of symphonic moments when the choir enters to announce the triumphal turning point in what began as a funeral march!
BLOOM: Please! Let go of my hand! I'm quite capable of doing what has to be done!
MISS A. MUSE: Certainly, darling. Whatever you say. I didn't mean to be so shrewish—but that little ole tempus does keep right on fugiting itself toward your Moment of Truth.
BLOOM: Maybe so. But fortunately, while rereading this last page, I noticed a few errors that must be corrected before my one and only novel becomes the timeless literary masterpiece I've been struggling all these years to write. [He proceeds to make several changes, but having done so he becomes even more absorbed in the rewriting process. The hands of the clock cease all movement and the playing of Berlioz's symphony grinds to a complete halt. CHORUS buzzes with consternation. DOCTOR shows MUSE hypodermic needle, points to Bloom and makes throatcutting gesture with it.]
THE DOCTOR [Aside to MUSE]: So much for your TLC. strategy, Miss Muse! If we don't do something P.D.Q. we're all going to be S.O.L.! As this rate the old coot will have us standing here all night biting our tongues while he rewrites that entire bloody manuscript of his! [As if on cue BLOOM turns page he has been editing and devotes his attention to one preceding it.]
MISS A. MUSE: That does it! You're not fooling anyone, darling—
BLOOM [Without looking up from his work.]: Oh?
MISS A. MUSE: I know exactly what kind of dirty trick you're up to.
BLOOM [Still distracted.]: Is that a fact.
MISS A. MUSE: Yes, it is.
BLOOM [Making a correction.]: I see. And now you're going to tell me all about this "dirty trick" of mine, aren't you?
MISS A. MUSE: Since you asked, why not?
BLOOM [Correcting his previous correction.]: Why not indeed!
MISS A. MUSE: This particularly obnoxious swindle is the one by which you try to stretch some poor woman's orgasmic expectations to a point far beyond any she ever previously thought herself capable of enduring.
BLOOM [Looking at MUSE.]: That sounds like quite a philanthropic proposition to me!
MISS A. MUSE: Maybe so; but the problem is-whatever that hypothetical breaking point might be we passed it a long time ago!
BLOOM: Are you telling me there is a finite limit to the lengths a novelist can go in prolonging that painful state of preorgasmic bliss the average housewife spends so much of her lovelorn life daydreaming about?
MISS A. MUSE: No! That is definitely not what I'm telling you!
BLOOM: Ah!
MISS A. MUSE: What I am saying is this: While from the neck up literature and lovemaking may have something in common, contrary to what some novelists would like to believe, a woman's innermost sexual needs can't be fully satisfied by curling up on a couch with a book!
BLOOM: If that's the case, Miss Muse, why are so many of the females in this audience still sitting on the edge of their seats?
THE DOCTOR: I can answer that!
BLOOM: Be my guest!
THE DOCTOR: They're preparing themselves to head for the exits if this fiascoed "apotheosis" of yours goes on for a moment longer!
BLOOM [To the audience.]: Is that true?
MEMBERS OF AUDIENCE: Yes!—Fish or cut bait for God's sake!—We've had it up to here with your delaying tactics! —Frankly, we no longer give a damn whether you die like a dog or go out in a blaze of "artistic glory!"—Unlike you eggheads some of us have to work for a living and would like to get home for a decent night's sleep!—You can bet your intellectual ass, Jewboy, this is the last time I let my wife drag me along on another of her "cultural assignations!" etc.
Similarly rude remarks are heard coming from CHORUS. In particular, members of Bloom's family hector him with remarks such as: "When are you going to stop disgracing us in public!"—"Just once in your miserable life do the decent thing and consider other people's feelings!"—"Drop dead you egomaniacal sonofabitch!"—"As your poor, dead mother I'm asking you to please, for God's sake Leo, let me rest in peace!" etc. The orchestra and chorus stamp their feet, rap on their music stands and make whatever contribution they can to the mutinous cocaphony.
BLOOM: Alright!! Enough!! Simmer down!! [After the clamor subsides.] Now that you've all had a chance to blow off some steam let the show go on! Strike up the band! Batten down the hatches! Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! Ladies and gentlemen: Hold on to those theatergoing hats of yours as we shift this dramaturgical dreamboat of mine into high, put the pedal to the metal, and smash our way through that treacherous gorge on whose rocky shore are strewn the shipwrecked remains of all those who tried to write the definitive Great American Novel!
As the Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale (which resumed on Bloom's "Strike up the band!" cue) now enters its climactic phase BLOOM melodramatically turns to last page of manuscript and, with a melodramatic flourish, writes "THE END" —whereupon he expires with yet another melodramatic gesture. As music escalates to what will be its triumphant conclusion, BLOOM's sheetdraped corpse begins rising toward the flies. DOCTOR and CHORUS react to this astonishing phenomenon with awestruck gasps-and by falling to their knees in a spontaneous outpouring of prayer. BLOOM is followed on his ascent by a smiling MUSE who waves farewell, blows kisses & dispenses pontiflike blessings to the cast and audience until both she & BLOOM disappear into the flies at the moment the music comes to its stirring conclusion.
END OF PLAY 61
As with all of Leo Bloom's other artistic plans his "Apotheosis Dream Play" was more notable for the scale of its pretensions than for any hope it ever had of turning into a theatrical reality.62 And while on that momentous Thursday morning Jayne knew nothing about the contents of the notebooks he would subsequently bequeath to her the sheer magnitude of Bloom's messianic delusions imbued him with a seminal mystique to which she was (reluctantly) attracted. There were even moments when, in the absolute depths of her despair, Jayne was forced to concede that of all the men she had ever known a group including many of the IvyLeague's best and brightest prospects who regarded her as being "quite a catch" when she was in her undergraduate prime63 Leo Bloom was the only one who even came close to arousing her curiosity about what went on inside that VDOM's mind of his. Jayne's natural female fascination with the secret workings of Bloom's randy psyche was, of course, cultivated in no small measure by her previous exposure (as an unsuspecting coed) to the perverted ruminations of his notorious namesake—the antihero of Joyce's epic account of a single day in the consciousness of an Irish Jew. Because of this confusion between fact and fiction the lecherous old mailboy, Leopold Bloom, will (as you are now about to discover when we resume our story64) loom much larger in Jayne's mind than he otherwise would were it not for her postpubescent memories of his Homeric precursor.
BUT DEAR READER, in the event you've forgotten (or become muddled by my meanderings) let me remind you that when we set off on this little "odyssey" of ours Jayne Playne had just answered Leopold Bloom's seminal question: "Aren't you curious?"—with that most pregnant one of her own: "Curious about what?" To which, as we now resume our story, Bloom pauselessly responded so as not to permit his victim's escape from the trap into which she had so foolishly fallen: "About how I came to know the title of that manuscript you seem to find so fascinating!"
"There's no mystery about that," Jayne
replied without the slightest hesitation-and with a contemptuous tone of
voice meant to let Bloom know she was wise to his predatory purpose. "It's
obvious," she went on scornfully, "you managed to read the label on its cover
while playing Peeping Tom to my Lady Godiva—as you do every morning
under the pretext of 'just doing your job.'"
"I only wish my eyesight was that good!" Bloom joked.
"Or I could still get a notsocheapatmyage thrill from accidentally catching
a glimpse of an attractive young creature like yourself in a state of nearnudity.
Unfortunately for both of us, my dear Miss Playne, those days are gone forever!
But if you would feel more at ease by slipping into something less
comfortable— and revealing—please do so. Otherwise I must tell
you in all candor: Talking to the back of your pretty head like this isn't
my idea of how two intelligent adults should carry on such an earthshaking
conversation."
"Since we're being 'candid,' Mr Bloom," Jayne snapped
at him, "as far as I'm concerned this socalled 'earthshaking conversation'
we're supposedly having is nothing more than another of your 'introductory
soliloquys' by which the stage is set for one of those notsoplatonic dialogues
a dirty old JewishIntellectual like you dreams of having with an innocent
young WASPette like me!"
"If that's your attitude, Miss Playne, I don't see how
we can possibly continue this discussion-"
After what seemed like an eternity of silence (during which Jayne wishfully thought Bloom might be taking advantage of the back she kept turned toward him to exit discreetly from the scene of what had become his foiled villainy) he suddenly shattered her hopes by saying: "Now that you mention it, Miss Playne; since the explanation of how our 2 fates have become entwined with that of Morons Awake! begins with my telling you a rather longish story, at this preliminary phase of the relationship into which fate has thrown us, its exact nature is of little consequence. Yes, my dear young woman, you're absolutely right!" he exclaimed with an ejaculatory outburst of triumph over having hoisted his female antagonist on her own dialectical petard. "We can better deal with that topic after you've heard the amazing tale I am now about to tell you!"
That did it. The prospect of becoming a captive audience for one of Bloom's "longish stories" put an abrupt end to Jayne's possumplaying plans. With a surprise move of her own she suddenly swiveled around to show Bloom the no nonsense message she had written on her face. And to spell it out for him in capital letters. "GOD DAMN IT!" she exploded in a volcanic eruption of female fury. "AFTER SPENDING LAST NIGHT AT THE MERCY OF AN AUTHOR WHO'S WRITTEN WHAT AMOUNTS TO A NOVELLENGTH MASH NOTE INVITING HIS FEMALE READERS TO ENGAGE IN THE MOST PRURIENT KIND OF 'LITERARY LOVE AFFAIR' I'M IN NO MOOD TO SIT HERE WHILE SOME SEXCRAZED SENIOR CITIZEN GET HIS GERIATRIC JEWISH JOLLIES OFF AT MY EXPENSE!"
Far from being offended by the rudeness of her remarks Bloom reacted with a paternalistic smile. Spreading his arms in a receptive gesture should Jayne feel the need for a grandfatherly shoulder on which to cry, he answered her hysterical diatribe by calmly saying: "Believe me, my child, no one appreciates more than I do what kind of emotional rollercoaster ride you've been taken on by the smuttyminded psychopath who wrote Morons Awake!. And," he continued, "now that we finally find ourselves looking at each other facetoface, I hope you can see in mine that my motives in pursuing this matter with you so persistently couldn't be more kosher."
For all Jayne knew Bloom could have been telling her the truth. His voice did seem to resonate with what a young woman might reasonably construe as an older man's genuine compassion for the torments she had been forced to endure by an aspiring novelist who treated his female readers as if they were simply so much fodder for his literary canon.G But visually confirming what her ears told her about Bloom's benign intentions was turning out to be surprisingly problematical. From the moment she launched her verbal blitzkrieg Jayne's confrontational strategy began to backfire. Whether she was feeling the effects of having swiveled around too swiftly, or was hallucinating because of her exhaustion, or had actually witnessed some sort of supernatural phenomenon, Jayne could not be sure. What she did know for a certainty was that: No sooner did those most unladylike words—"GOD DAMN IT!"—escape from her swanlike throat than the gloomy little basement cubicle was illuminated by a flash of light so brilliantly bright it left her (at least temporarily) blinded. When the blindingly bright brilliance had faded and Jayne slowly regained her vision the sight she saw was no less dazzling for what it revealed to her about the altered state of Bloom's appearance. His formerly fiendish face was now bathed in a mysterious glow Jayne could only describe to herself as "a celestial aura."
The perpetual look of unabashed lechery emanating from beneath the halfclosed lids of his "bedroom" eyes that informed every woman he "chatted up" she was also being mentally undressed by him, now seemed more like the soulsearching gaze of some Cosmic Father Figure! Even those grotesquely wayward wisps of white hair whose "Bohemian longness" Bloom claimed gave him "the Old World artistic appearance modern American women secretly find sexually stimulating" had taken on a Beethovenesque luxuriance whose intoxicating connotations of European masculinity did indeed cause Jayne to experience "a melting sensation in her loins!" The closer she studied what were once the alltoo familiar facial features of that "dirtiest of dirty old men" the more certain Jayne became they had somehow metamorphosed into those of the saintly—if not Godlike—patriarchs65 portrayed in Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes (or William Blake's semipornographic illustrations for his pseudoreligious prophecies about the Awakening of Humanity from its 6,000 yearlong slumber via the love/martyrdom of a Redemptive Prince Charming he called "Albion.")66 So it came about that Jayne found herself "sitting there in what amounted to an hypnotic trance" while Bloom told her the longish story67 I have taken the liberty of shortening as follows:
THE DAY BEFORE THAT MOST MOMENTOUS of Jayne Playne's mornings when her girlish hopes of discovering the Great American Novelist had all but faded; only to be rekindled by the reading of Morons Awake!—proved to be no less auspicious for Leopold Bloom just as his aspirations for writing the Great American Novel had, after 70plus years, run completely out of seminal steam. As he had done every day69 of those 7 decades, Bloom left his lower Eastside apartment at exactly 4:45 a.m. and began the 5andahalfmile walk to the midtown Manhattan headquarters of the international publishinghouse where he worked. Beside their exercise value Bloom used these constitutionals to "clear the cobwebs of decrepitude" from his mind and review the previous day's progress he had made toward that Moment of Truth when he would sit down with his Mount Blanc "Auteur" in hand and actually begin writing the book he had been born almost a century ago to write.
But so disconcerting were some of the problems raised by this most recent of his "ambulatory ruminations" there were several times when he was stopped dead in his tracks by them. Try as he might to find some flaw in his analysis, Bloom had to face the hard fact that: His prenovelwriting efforts of the day before had been an unmitigated disaster. Far from bringing him 24 hours closer to his Moment of Truth they actually reduced what little momentum he was able to sustain while struggling to escape from that "Sargasso Sealike stagnation in which every writer who dares to navigate the oceanic wasteland of contemporary American culture finds himself becalmed until a providential gust of inspiration rebillows his literary sails."70 Since he was being so brutally honest with himself, Bloom also admitted: "The results of the day before yesterday could just as well be described in terms that were no less counterproductive." And, having opened such a Pandora's Box of merciless if not masochistic selfscrutiny, he further conceded the same dismal diagnosis might apply to the entire week preceding the day before yesterday!
Moreover, to be absolutely blunt about
it: The whole month of January had been a total waste of what precious little
time remained for him to do what needed to be done if he were to fulfill
his manifest destiny! Even more appallingly, Bloom found himself confronted
by this starkest of a stymied writer's thoughts: Despite the Herculean scale
of his daily exertions, at the end of 1994 he hadn't been any nearer to that
preclimactic point beyond which his "literary masterpiece would begin writing
itself" than he had been at the end of 1993!
"No, no, no!" Bloom's inner voice protested vehemently.
He was being far too optimistic! The depressing truth about 1994 was that
of his 365 heroic attempts to escape from the creative doldrums in which
he had been drifting since 1993 Bloom couldn't recall a single case of having
come even close to doing so! Not that he remembered 1993 as being one of
his better years! So far, for that matter, the decade of the
'90s itself hadn't exactly gotten off to what he would call "a promising
start."
Which wasn't to say the '80s had ever really lived up
to the expectations engendered in him by those "gigantic strides toward the
Moment of Truth" he made during the '70s. Although, at the time, he
perceived his "no infrequent triumphs" of the '70s as being understandably
somewhat disappointing when compared to the string of truly stunning victories"
he had rather routinely won in the '60s. And, of course, there was
simply no way the '60s could have ever surpassed what were "the legendary
leaps" he made throughout the '50s toward his "rendezvous with novelistic
immortality."71 Having set out on this slipperyest of retrospective slopes
there was nothing he could do but continue sliding his way downward until
he landed, with a resounding crash, at its rocky bottom.
Whereupon72
the fundamental flaw in
his Failure Philosophy, to wit: That only after a lifetime spent in the most
abject obscurity can (or should!) an artist end his hitherto successless
career with a climactic blaze of epiphanal glory) was itself revealed
to him in a flash of divine incandescence. Suddenly it all seemed so
crystal clear! Those Articles Of Faith In The Virtues Of Failure Bloom had
spent so many of his early years formulating—and whose devout practice
sustained him throughout what would otherwise have been an unendurably long
and futile lifetime—were fraught with mistaken assumptions, defective
postulates and grossly erroneous conclusions! The most dubious of his
"Philosophical Propositions On The Pursuit Of Perfect Happiness" being that:
"Whether someone sacrifices his whole life for the sake of writing a single book that will forever alter the course of human history, or simply strives to shape each of her (sic) days into 'a minor artistic masterpiece' (not that these 2 modi vivendi need be mutually exclusive)—given the unrelenting willpower to do so, even an ordinary American can attain that state of absolute perfection needed for reaching such a blissful goal."
While on (or with) the one hand we might applaud Bloom's PrometheanG attitude toward the average American's capacity for revolutionizing his ignoranceisbliss mindset—or the apotheosisG of human nature in general—on the other we can only regret that his faith in the "transcendentalizationability"G of our73 everyday lifestyles is, sadly, misplaced. Even a superficial analysis of this "Cardinal Principle" of Bloomian Failurism74 reveals these obvious fallacies:
(1) By definition every "ordinary American" is precluded from rising (more than an inconsequential notch or 2) above the average I.Q. with which he or she has been born;(2) Bloom's alltoo casual statement that: "Given the unrelenting willpower to do so..." begs the crucial question concerning the very lack of moral fiber which condemns average humans to being what they are—craven mediocrities content to wallow their way through life in the sociocultural muck and intellectual mire of modern democratic egalitarianism. Although in certain limited situations (on the battle- and playingfield for instance) the common man has been known to behave heroically, in the normal course of events the last 5,000 years of human history clearly demonstrates that, for Mr. (& Mrs.) John Q. Public, acts of artistic valor (or the appreciation thereof) are the rarest of all sociocultural phenomena;
(3) In purely pragmatic terms we must ask ourselves whether a society comprised exclusively of aspiring or even veritable Shakespeares, Wagners, Tolstoys, Picassos (not to mention Leopold Blooms!) etc., would indeed constitute a sociocultural Nirvana? Or might we find such a "Paradise on Earth" plagued by the kind of alltoo mortal dogeatdogism that raged between the no longer starving (at least prestigewise) artists of Athens, Florence, London, Vienna, Berlin, Paris and even Hollywood during the heydays (and starspangled nights) of their goldenmost glory?75
(27) Ignoring points (4) throught (26), pursuant to the reasons stated at the end of the foregoing footnote, we come now to the most defective of all the "threads" in Bloom's Philosophic Tapestry and the one which caused the complete unraveling of its "Grandiose Design For Everyday Living" as Bloom walked to work. I refer, of course, to his highminded but, in the final analysis, ruinous notions concerning the nature of artistic perfection; and his lifelong pursuit thereof in seeking to write not just a bestselling book—or even the Great American Novel—but a single masterpiece that would establish his claim to universal and everlasting literary fame.
The obvious error in Bloom's "Perfection Postulate" being: That artistic triumphs like Guernica, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Hamlet and Moby Dick are hailed as such precisely because they were made by men who overcame their personal shortcomings —and those of their "less than perfect" paintings, operas and novels! When viewed under a magnifying glass what object d'art of even the most exalted reputation is not without its glaring faults? Or, for that matter, can any au natural object survive microscopic scrutiny without revealing itself to be fraught with blemishes? No. As Bloom eventually learned to his sorrow, the pursuit of perfection in life, as well as in art, is a losing proposition. A man who devotes all of his time waiting to write a wordperfect novel is as likely to do so as the average housewife is of being actually awakened from her Sleeping Beauty daydreams by the kiss of a flesh and blood Prince Charming. Just as: 'Tis better to have loved76 and lost than never to have loved at all; so too—the writing of even the world's worst77 novel is preferable to a "literary masterpiece" that remains nothing more than a grandiose gleam in the mind'seye of its wouldbe author.
NOT THAT BLOOM COULD claim to be ignorant of his folly in aspiring to write the perfect novel. Far from it! In developing his Perfection Philosophy he had undertaken a detailed study of the world's greatest literary, musical and artistic masterworks; and found them all to be, in one respect or another, anything but flawless.78 So he knew or certainly should have known that by aspiring to write a book whose every word resonated with Biblical profundity he was hoping to do what no other author (including those who wrote the Bible) in the history of Western (or any other) Civilization had ever done. Why then did this (selfproclaimed79) "JewishIntellectual" persist for so long in pursuing what was from its outset such a manifestly lost cause? Was it simply a question of his overly ambitious—he would no doubt call it "overly heroic"—choice of Johann Sebastian Bach as the baroque role model for his "fugalized" writing of a Modern American Masterpiece? Or, like Sancho Panza, was he swept along willynilly in the whirlwind of a Quixotic crusade about whose chivalrous purpose he had little real stomach; and even less understanding?
On the other hand, could the rhyme and reason of Bloom's cryptic lifestyle be found in Hamlet's ruminations on his own protracted delay in doing the deed he was destined (by Shakespeare) to do; namely:
Intro Part 5 Return to Index
Footnotes
61 Although his play appears to terminate at this point, as indicated by the characters (Pope, President of the United States, King of Sweden, etc.) who fail to make their scheduled appearance and from the evidence contained in several thousand newly discovered notebooks all labeled "IDEAS FOR MONUMENTAL EPILOGUE TO EPIPHANY DREAM PLAY"—it seems clear Bloom was contemplating some rather extravagant post Grand Finale plans at the time of his recent (and for the most part still unlamented) demise. According to these notebooks if Bloom had in fact finished writing his "Monumental Epilogue," after a brief intermission the curtains would reopen on a "Memorial Marathon during which an endless stream of statesmen, scholars, artists, critics and religious luminaries (both living and dead) eulogize him as the man who singlehandedly launched the longawaited Second (artistic/cultural) American Revolution." The only interruptions of this otherwise "Relentless Orgy of Adulation" were to be a series of bulletins, announcements, press releases and proclamations related to the following "newsworthy" items:
(a) Congressional funding for several Leopold Bloom Monuments-including the addition of his bust to Mt. Rushmore and the installation of a Disneydesigned "GLOOMLESS BLOOM TOMB" in the Capitol where, every halfhour, a holographic replica of Bloom's saintly cadaver could be seen slowly levitating its yoyolike way from a ßagdraped catafalque to the top of the Rotunda dome and back again;
(b) A set of U. S. postage stamps featuring Bloom's lifelong struggle against obscurity and commemorating such other "Famous American Failures" as Wrongway Corrigan, Benedict Arnold, Herbert Hoover, Casey (ofatthebatfame), Jayne Mansfield, Aaron Burr, Jefferson Davis, Charles Ives, etc.;
(c) Changing Monday to "Bloomsday" by constitutional amendment and making it not only the first 52timesayear holiday honoring a single personality but one every American over the age of five is required by law to spend "from dawn to dusk engaged in only those leisuretime activities deÞned by the federal government as fostering an appreciation for the finer things in life;"
(d) Plans by a consortium of the world's greatest writer/directors (Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Bunuel, Robert Altman and Dennis Potter) for a film version of Bloom's historymaking martyrdom tentatively entitled, "A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN EXCEEDINGLY DIRTY OLD DOG;"
(e) Similar plans by a consortium of commercial television network programmers for a Primetime Blockbusting Maxiseries on the same subject with a working title of "THE NEOFASCIST SEX FANTASIES OF A SELFSTYLED INTELLECTUAL SUPERSTUD."
62 Although why Broadway and Hollywood were so infatuated with happy endings was a mystery to Bloom when the public's appetite—if not lust—for tragedy was clearly reflected by the litany of disasters, calamities and misfortunes featured on the nightly news. If, as Bloom argued, "The only reason a crowd gathers to watch some daredevil crossing a wire stretched between two skyscrapers isn't to see him arrive safely but rather the prospect of watching him plunge to his death, why wouldn't hordes of people flock to a theater where they might witness an audacious playwright come to a similarly humiliating—and lethal!—fall from grace?" And, while Bloom's morbid curiosity in this regard might (at least marginally) exceed that of an average American, in the last analysis it's no doubt also true that: A really monumental ßop like Menotti's Goya, Cimino's Heaven's Gate, Miller's After the Fall, Ives' Second Symphony or any of Anaïs Nin's novels is far more entertaining than its Pulitzer, Obie—and (even) Nobelprizewinning competition. Despite the obviously selfserving aspects of Bloom's rationale for enjoying the failure of his fellow artists it is also undeniably the case that: By making our massmedia failsafe we have succeeded in removing the sublime excitement that can only come from that most newsworthy of all cultural events—an artistic triumph of genuinely earthshaking proportions.
63 Most of whom went on to distinguish themselves as lawyers, bankers, industrialists and politicians and marry women whose principal purpose in life is to remain wrinklefree while breeding yet another generation of those grayflanelized lemmings who—but only by the grace of God and the skin of their teeth—have so far prevented America from blindly stampeding its way over the cliff's edge of a sociocultural mindset steeped in the belief that "Mediocrity is a virtue.
64 Although I see now that I've forgotten to address what seemed so many pages ago to be the most important reason for taking you on this excursion, which was: "To explain why the top management of Jayne's firm tolerated the outrageous peccadilloes of its geriatric mailboy." But, dear reader, since you seem to have made it this far without the benefit of knowing what you no longer need to know, suffice it to say: "They had their reasons for doing so.
65 Not that any cosmetic miracle or plastic surgery could remove from his Semitic physiognomy every last vestige of "that racial lust for female Aryan flesh clearly stamped on the brow of every JewishIntellectual" which to this day makes The Protocols Of Zion an under the counter bestseller among the more nostalgic (and miscegenationallyminded) hausfrauen of Germany's kikefree 4th Reich.
66 See Milton Klonsky, William Blake: The Seer And His Visions, Harmony Books, N.Y., 1977, pp. 31, 51.
67 In order not to overly frustrate your eagerness to begin reading Morons Awake! before you've reached that acute state of intellectual expectancy needed for maximizing the eventual profits of embarking on such a risky enterprise.
68 Having died shortly after the events being described Bloom didn't have the opportunity to entitle the tale he told to Jayne. But, given the expertise I've subsequently acquired concerning his penchant for perfectionism in such "normally trivial matters"—along with all of his other literary eccentricities—I think it can be safely said he wouldn't altogether disapprove the results of my ex post facto plagiarism.
69 Until the day he died Bloom never missed a single day on the job. This despite the fact that for the first 3 decades of his employment his only regular day off was Sunday—and the number of legal holidays to which he (and most other Americans) were entitled could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And even when he did have a day off Bloom persisted in taking his daily predawn constitutional.
70 This was Bloom's favorite quotation. It was the one he used it to explain why it was taking him so long to "set the creative stage" for the writing of what would be his one and only masterpiece. While he attributed the "Sargasso Sea" statement to J. D. Salinger there is no evidence that most constipated of all procrastinating novelists ever uttered it. Not that this comes as a surprise to anyone who knew Bloom, since he was prone to embellishing his "erudite" conversations with spuriousd "pearls of wisdom"—which he ascribed to a long list of names famous for their expertise on whatever subject he happened to be talking about. Nevertheless there is a certain truthful ring to the words Bloom may have fraudulently put into Salinger's mouth. Certainly Salinger's astounding lack of literary output since his 1951 debut with Catcher in the Rye provides every blocked writer with a justification for his own "protracted problems in authoring the next Great American Novel." In Bloom's case, of course, while Salinger's 40plus years of publishing silence might have provided him with some moral support it couldn't come close to vindicating the seven decades he had spent fruitlessly seeking to immortalize himself on paper. And while Salinger could claim in his defense to have already written one literary masterpiece (no matter how prematurely) at the age of 90 Bloom had yet to finalize so much as the first sentence of his maiden novel!
71 It goes without saying that Bloom applied this same sort of overtheshoulder reasoning to the '40s, '30s and '20s.
72 As if the gods were adding their insult to his litany of injuries by punctuating it with a spectacularly malicious exclamation point.
73 We are speaking here, of course, about those of our compatriots whose illiteracy is so absolute it excludes them from reading even the trashiest of supermarket tabloids and/or bestselling fiction.
74 Leopold Bloom certainly wasn't the only failed novelist, playwright, painter or composer who constructed an elaborate ideology to explain his lifelong lack of artistic fulfillment—or, "the insurmountable difficulties of even contemplating a work of monumental literary stature in a cultural context so rife with the pettymindedness of runaway Philistinism."G As with all such rationales, Bloom's "Failure Philosophy" was designed to reconfigure the real world in such a way that it would suit his own selfdelusionary purposes. What does distinguish Bloom from most—if not all other—frustrated novelists is, of course, the sheer longevity of his perseverance in what was always a hopelessly lost cause. Unfortunately this strictly quantitative distinction doesn't even entitle him to be immortalized as an exception to the rule that: In one form or another, every rejected writer consoles himself with some homespun credo that makes a vice of success and a virtue of failure.
75 This extremely
controversial debate about whether the teeming masses of humanity are born
with the capacity to appreciate—and even occasionally create!—fine
art explains why the government of Moronia, among others, takes the Klutz
Affair so seriously. It is also, in my notsohumble opinion—and
notwithstanding Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,
Darwin's Origin of Species, Marx's Das Kapital, Einstein's
The Theory of Relativity, Freud's Pyschopathology of Everyday Life
and Spengler's The Decline of the West—what makes this
"nonfiction novel" I am preparing you to read the single most important
book to have been written since the Bible!
The fact that you, an average American housewife (or
the male equivalent thereof), have managed to come this far in what is by
no means a piece of "prefatory cake" lends at least some credence to the
marketing hype that: "The mere reading of Morons Awake! by millions
of ordinary women will itself constitute a quantum leap beyond what were
previously thought to be the 'absolute limits' of the average female mentality
to comprehend even the most simpleminded masculine ideas concerning the prurient
aspects of novelistic artistry." Indeed, Morons Awake! represents
such a radical departure from a woman's normal novelreading habits that while
most of those who do manage to read it from cover to cover won't fully comprehend
the deeper "metaphysical" dimensions of its author's "psychosexual message"
by their very attempt at doing so they will have demonstrated a stoicism
closely resembling the "unrelenting willpower" on which Leopold Bloom predicated
his "Brave New socioculturalschemeofthings."
However, since this introduction of mine isn't the first
course, but only an apéritif to whet what should
be your already voracious appetite for the banquet of ideas waiting
for you just a few pages away, the time has probably come to abandon these
tantalizing ruminations and expedite our return to the "story" of how the
crossed purposes of a very dirty old JewishIntellectual on the make and a
much too scantilyclad damsel in distress combined to produce that
BiggestOfAllPostBiblicalPublishingBangs—the civilizationsaving bestsellerdom
of Morons Awake!.
76 Not only did Bloom never marry, in spite of his reputation for being a Very Dirty Old Man he lived and died (as so many VDOMs do) in a state of celibacy that would have put the Pope to shame.
77 Or one whose worldsaving aspirations vastly exceed its author's meager talent. Curiously enough, nothing would do more for advancing the cause of art and literature appreciation—and thereby at least halt the decline of Western Civilization—than if every common man and woman tried (and failed) to write his or her own Great American (or French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Tibetan, Bolivian, British, Moronic, etc.) novel!
78 Bloom went to extravagant lengths finding fault with such cultural icons as Wagner's Ring Cycle, Picasso's Guernica and Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. Of all the masterminds whose work he scrutinized under hs perfectionist's microscope it was only the music of J. S. Bach (as performed by Glenn Gould) with which Bloom could find "not a single flaw, fault or blemish." And who can argue with Bloom on this issue—especially when Bach's Goldberg Variations or Brandenburg Concertos are being played by that paragon of pianistic perfection, Glenn Gould? The relevant question about the digital precision of Bach's counterpoint is, however, whether he is only the exception proving the (ironic) rule that all modern forms of art are quintessentially analog in nature. This would seem to be especially true when it comes to the writing of a novel. Leaving aside the matter of choosing each and every one of a novel's 100,000plus words such that no better choice could be found in the 20 volume Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language or Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition, there is the insurmountable problem of harmonizing (let alone cataloguing!) the torrent of motifs, themes, ideas and topics unleashed in the writing of a literary masterpiece— especially one seeking to rerevolutionize the cultural consciousness of an entire nation. Nevertheless this is what Bloom did—or tried to do. With the result that by selecting Bach as his role model for the writing of a literary bestseller rather than Tolstoy, Dickens, Melville—or even Hemingway—he suffered a fate so farcically tragic it might have been novelized by Cervantes, Kafka, Celine or Beckett!
79 Judging from the evidence of his notebooks alone Bloom's IQ was probably in the 110-15 range. And measured by the events which are about to unfold in this story, when the time came to test what he described as his "cranial cojones" he was, as you will soon see, not found wanting.
Glossary
canon noun [ME, fr. OE, fr. LL, fr. L, ruler, rule, model, standard, fr. Gk kan,n](bef. 12c)...3 [ME, fr. LL, fr. L, standard]... b : the authentic works of a writer c : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works...of great literature
Promethean noun\adj(1588) : of, relating to, or resembling Prometheus, his experiences, or his art; esp : daringly original or creative
apotheosis noun, [LL, fr. Gk apotheosis, fr. apotheoun to deify, fr. apo- + theos god](ca. 1580) 1 : elevation to divine status
transcendental noun\adj (1624) 1 a : TRANSCENDENT 1b b : SUPERNATURAL c : ABSTRUSE, ABSTRACT d : of or relating to transcendentalism ...3 in Kantian philosophy a : of or relating to experience as determined by the mind's makeup b : transcending experience but not human knowledge
Philistine noun ...2 often not cap a : a person who is guided by materialism and is usu. disdainful of intellectual or artistic values b : one uninformed in a special area of knowledge ¦ philistinism n, often cap