2. ULYSSES.

Right at the beginning of Ulysses, James Joyce tells us who is in charge. He is: within, behind, beyond his handiwork, but always involved in it. Stately Plump Buck Mulligan is playing priest this morning, climbing up onto the open deck at the top of the Martello tower in Sandycove that he shares with Stephen Dedalus. His priestly bathrobe is fluttering behind him in the air, displaying his namedness, and he holds his shaving cup up as he intones, Introibe ad altare Dei--"I will go unto the altar of God."

But wait--he isn't going. "Halted," the narrator says, and Mulligan stops. Mulligan has no audience; Stephen is still below. Buck is always on stage, always seeking attention--like Lenehan, much too much like Lenehan for us not to notice it the first chance we get. Joyce dislikes Buck quite seriously; in many ways he--rather than Boylan--is Bloom's antagonist.

The main thing for us to notice here, however, is the quiet critical involvement of the narrator in the action. We will have to get used to that, to read Ulysses. The narrator--"like the God of creation" as Stephen said--is always within or behind or beyond his characters; though he may seem to be disengaged, he in intimately involved with them and their story.

More later, if you want.