(image up top here is from the new chapter headers we’re developing)
-Rob; Some background on this lengthy project is probably needed here as we restart. The idea of adapting Joyce’s masterpiece into a web-based, educational comic was crazy. We all knew that. But four of us were willing to give a try from the start (way back in 2008).
Now the only professional Joycean and scholar among the group was Michael Barsanti, at that time Associate Director at the Rosenbach Museum and Library here in Philadelphia. Mike’s guidance to the project was invaluable from the start, and he really set the tone for developing the Readers’ Guide portion of this project into a friendly, comfortable environment for learning about Joyce. So here’s Mike…
-Mike; If you know anything about Ulysses, you might know that it bears a strong family resemblance to Homer’s Odyssey. Joyce transposes elements of the ancient story to one day in the life of Dublin, a warm June day in 1904. Telemachus is the son of Odysseus (that’s Ulysses to you, if you’re Roman), and when you meet him, he is desperate to do something about the horde of suitors that is waiting to marry his mother and despoiling his home. He doesn’t remember his father, who’s been gone for a very long time.
But if you just pick up Joyce’s novel, you have no idea that the first episode is called “Telemachus.” [Nor, for that matter, do you know that it’s June 16, 1904, 8:00 a.m., or a Thursday. It takes hundreds of pages to figure this out. But we bring it to you on a platter!]
The word “Telemachus” appears nowhere in the book. Joyce had Homeric titles for all of the 18 episodes, however, and he used them regularly when talking about the book with his friends. In 1920, he created a “schema” for his friend (and writer and critic) Carlo Linati, which would quickly become the first of many tools for reading the book.
Reader’s Guide for I: Telemachus
Dramatis Personae for I: Telemachus
____________________________________________________________
