Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

To Certain Male Joyceans

2022; University of Tulsa; Volume: 60; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/jjq.2022.a906684

1938-6036

Molly Bloom,

American and British Literature Analysis

To Certain Male Joyceans Molly Bloom (bio) Yes because you never did a thing like that before as use your standing in the field to lure younger scholars to pleasure you sexually sometimes even to take their work and publish it as your own let us have a bit of fun but power is not fun or sexy then is it at least not for the person on bottom you are my friends but you are salting the field we loved where we grew knowledge and understanding and laughter together already the number of women at the last conference was lower than ever before and the ones who did come were watchful and wary and resentful of your standing while their panels placed opposite yours were empty of listeners yes theyre pretty with their lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too and theyre bright did you even read the book about my life the one you write about a mans imagination expands not by imposing his will on a woman but by being impressed by her maybe like Shakespeare beardless cuckold yes what do women want its an old question they want to be heard and respected and kissed 100 times a day but only when theyve deliberately awakened the desire yes what should we do the world is coming apart unimaginable things are happening there are no jobs women are working for love not money everyone is sick Russia has invaded and is killing people every day yes and our little bloomin world is sickening too in its own way they dont know what it is to be a woman how could they they can go and get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me you cant say I pretend things can you Im too honest how do these young women feel I want to know with their fresh bold ideas and their hope for a voice and a future now foreclosed some of them looked up to us [End Page 159] until what five or so years ago and now what now Poldy came today somewhere love its not or hed be off his feed he would never make her feel small like a horse or an ass he has poetry in him Poldy at least understands or feels what a woman is and lets me get round him and always remembers Milly I have a voice no damn fear of that and an appetite for life I remember so many things the night we missed the boat in Trieste the beer drinking in Zurich pissing in the Liffey in Dublin the Turkish baths in Budapest the rhododendrons on Howth the cemetery at Glasnevin they sent us a letter what did we do made a statement but still no consequences young women deserve our help and our understanding and instead we are hurting them and making them smaller no I said no please don't No. [End Page 160] Molly Bloom MOLLY BLOOM—not to be confused with the American entrepreneur who authored Molly's Game (2014)—was born in Gibraltar but now (and forever) remains in Dublin. She is a singer of some renown, a wife, a mother, and an outspoken woman trying her best to live as fully and honestly as she can despite the hazards of love and loss. The limits of her education and her position as the daughter of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother have allowed her greater than usual freedom from indoctrination. (Oscar Wilde in De Profundis suggests that Jesus would have loved her: "Like all poetical natures he loved ignorant people. … But he could not stand stupid people, especially those who are made stupid by education.") Like Stephen Dedalus, and like Homer's Penelope, she would not be master of others or their slave. Resisting servitude is a special challenge for women (as for colonized peoples), given their historical conflation with property, but Molly has managed it...