Mulligans: In which Isaiah learns about James Joyce & makes an intertextual connection

Yesterday morning I was sitting on the couch eating breakfast & watching Back to the Future III w/ Isaiah. A few weeks ago he lost his mind for the Back to the Future trilogy. He loves to play that he is Marty & I am Biff & in some damsel in distress scenario he has to rescue Lorraine... he's also developed a hilarious crush on Lea Thompson. I can't imagine that he really understands the concept of time travel, but he can't get enough of these movies. Come to think of it, neither can I. As a side note, they were executively produced by Spielberg... yet more Spielbergers to delve deeply into the daddy issues: Marty & George in Parts I & II and Marty & Doc Brown in all 3 of them.

Anyway, as I'm sitting here, Isaiah grabbed the copy of Ulysses from the book shelf & demanded that I read it to him. Now, for those of you who haven't read it, you need to understand that it's not the easiest book to be reading out loud (or silently, or in rounds w/ friends on Bloomsday, or or through a megaphone from the top of a parking structure, or in any other way for that matter), I suggested that we do the 1st page & see how it's going from there. We got about 1/2 way down the rather long page before he seemed to lose interest (in his defense, that's about twice as far as many people get).

We got through the 1st sentence, "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." At that point, he stopped me. "Is Buck Mulligan a good guy or a bad guy?" What a fantastic question... & one I couldn't really answer. I explained that different characters view him differently, but that Stephen Dedalus's father doesn't really seem to dig him too much, yet Buck & Stephen are old friends & they live together in the Sandycove Mortello Tower. I haven't read Ulysses in years. I struggled through it in Grad School & then gave it another go in 2002ish. That time, I loved it. I suppose I should go again soon, but I need to get through a few other things first. Maybe next year i'll get back to it again.

Of course, after a few more sentences, the follow up question was "Is Simon Dedalus a good guy or a bad guy?" He then stopped & had a fantastic look on his face as he considered the possibility that Buck Mulligan might be related to Mike Mulligan. "Maybe Mike is his older brother." Awesome!