Come and taste my fatty meats...

In Calypso we leave the realm of Stephen’s thoughts for Bloom’s. The difficulty of seeing Stephen’s harsh self-criticism and loneliness is replaced by Bloom’s hunger. But the food Bloom eats is not just his nourishment, it is his passion. “Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of scented urine” (55). Bloom’s sense of taste is so keen that his favorite meal is a certain organ, of a certain animal, cooked a certain way. When this dish is prepared Bloom does not taste it, rather the kidney gives the flavor to his palate. This personification shows Bloom’s esteem for food, how its tastes are like heavenly gifts. But his pursuit of pleasure does not end at food; he also enjoys women and money. In fact when one of the three subjects are discussed, the other two are normally associated. While waiting for his meat at the butcher, Bloom reads through a pamphlet about a farm. He imagines a farmer “slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter,” and thinking, “there’s a prime one” (59). When a farmer sees a healthy looking animal he thinks, “it’ll sell well.” When looking a nice cut of meat a customer thinks, “it’ll taste good.” Here Bloom is doing both. He is thinking about the business of meat-packing and also its product. And right after he sees more ripemeated hindquarter, “the crooked skirt swinging whack by whack by whack” (59). This just shows how quick his mind will switch from one pleasurable thought to another.
One other thing that stands out about Bloom is his confidence. We often see him surprised with how clever he is. One instance is when he blueprints the story is going to get published (69). He thinks of all the things he can write about, even though most are real events. Further, we get no sense of Bloom’s writing. Therefore Bloom may think he have the content of great story, but may have no skill to write it. And anyway these thoughts are in vain because “he tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it” (70).
The last thing I noticed is Bloom’s preoccupation with his daughter. He read the letter over twice, and recalls the gift he gave her when she was four. This shows how he misses her physically and also her as a child. While I’m not sure if I’m reading this correctly, but I think Bloom is coping with his daughter growing into a sexual woman. When thinking about her he mentions “girl’s sweet light lips” and “full gluey woman’s lips” (67). Either way I’d like to learn more about Bloom and his daughter before following this trajectory further.

Connections:
In the middle of page 66 midwives are brought up, like on page 37.

Questions: What do you think of the marriage between Marian and Leopold? I get the impression Bloom does not think highly of his wife’s intelligence.