Marginalia: Odysseys & Oddities - Public Staring and Mythic Flirting

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This started as a Buddy Read of Ulysses with friends, and devolved into mania. Here are the notes and ramblings...

Episode 13: Nausicaa
🫣 

I came for the literary ... no, I don't really know what I came for. I do know I expected difficult syntax, symbolic layers, and internal monologues. What I did not expect… was Bloom… behind a rock… at the beach… while fireworks exploded… 👀 and a woman named Gerty showing him her ankle like it was some sacred rite of flirtation.

This episode is... well... it’s funny. It’s icky. It’s bold. It’s disorienting. It’s... Joyce?

🔥 And then, buried in the voyeuristic mess, this fantastic line:
"Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."

I feel like I'm in a fever dream. I really felt like I related to the last lines...
"...and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo"

This chapter was harder to read than I expected, which is saying a lot. But it’s also weirder, funnier, and more grotesquely human than anything I’ve read in a while.

🧼 Soap. I’m never looking at it the same again.


The Odyssey: Book 6 – Nausicaa

So, another jump back to line up with Ulysses... and, oh no... I can tell this is a "calm before the storm" moment, isn't it.. isn't it?

Athena, ever the meddler, gives him a glow-up so he doesn’t look like a swamp monster. Nausicaa gives him clothes, a bath, and directions.

That’s it. No soap. No fireworks. No ankle rituals. Just an awkward, sweet meeting with a princess and a freshly scrubbed hero.

…Joyce said, let’s ruin that! 😳

🏛️ Phaeacian palace ahead....

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