For people who have read Joyce's Ulysses, do you think Leopold Bloom seems rather old for a 38-yr old man?

Question

Biologically, Bloom is not old, but he seems to be portrayed as such. Or, for whatever reason, readers of Ulysses come away with the impression that Bloom is a rather older middle-aged man. However, is this impression reliable? The only hard evidence in the book concerning Bloom's condition points toward a very fit, healthly man, with plenty of sexual vigour. Joyce wanted a 67-year old actor to play Bloom in a film-version which never came off. This seems to indicate that the author thought Bloom was older rather than younger, but, within the text itself, there seems to be nothing which would support the idea that the main character is actually really and truly getting old. A recent film of the book casted a 57-yr old in the part (Stephen Rea). What is going on? I know 38-yrs old means something different after the space of a century, but can we really say that Bloom is old?

Answer 1

Is he not just a product of the time? Remember all those illnesses they had back then. Things were very different for people back yonder.

Answer 2

I remember Bloom as a young "older" man. What I mean is that though he was young, in years, he behaved like an old man, most of the time. I don't want to go off into a whole dissertation on Joyce and/or Ulysses, but basically it comes down to the pathetic fallacy (trying to figure out what the AUTHOR meant). It is nearly impossible for anyone (including the author) to know exactly what the author meant. The idea of a young old man was new, then, even to Joyce. But, if you have seen the Nicolas Cage movie, "Leaving Las Vegas" you get an excellent portrayal of such a person though in a tragicomic rather than a low-comic mode. Cage was a young man at the time (I believe the movie is about 10 years old, now). The problem is that there are not many young actors with the talent to portray an older man. It is relatively easy (or easier, anyway) for an older man to portray a younger one. This is just my opinion, of course. I have always felt that the portrayal of a young man by an older actor always comes off looking MUCH more realistic than the other way around.

Answer 3

I think that life beat him down, people beat him down and even Molly beat him down which makes a man seem old before his time.

How old are you? How much life have you stuffed into your years so far? Especially in Dublin you'll find that the youngest boy often has the spirit and the eyes of a much older man...

It is yet another geographical example that Joyce saw through the eyes of a dubliner specifically, that can relate to the rest of the world as well... He was rather good at that and I beg to differ with the normal assumption that he wasn't aware of what he wrote... I think he knew and was rather intentional and delibrate in everything he ever took from head to paper... People find it hard to attribute such purpose and intent to his genius. I have no trouble with it at all...

Not to mention that Joyce himself basically wasted away... He overworked himself and basically succumb to his own erasure. He withered and died and looked much older than he actually was. He was ill and looked terrible when he passed and the process began years before Ulysses was ever actually put into print.

Absinthe perhaps? He did fit the whole expatriot starving artist work until you die kind of persona... Maybe Bloom was a bit part of him as well as Stephen? Maybe one came as a result of the other?

I also believe that he was intentionally meant to seem older as a kind of shadow to Stephen's (Joyces alter ego) state, age and condition of youth and often his naivety.

They were played against one another for a reason... But you are right, they are not supposed to be very much older than one another in actual years...

I actually have the movie (it does exist) and it is really awesome! A middle aged actor played the part of Leopold. His name was, Milo O'shea (or something like that?)

Answer 4

Bloom is James Joyce. So is Stephen. Joyce was in his thirties when he wrote Ulysses. Joyce was in many ways a weirdo like Bloom. Bloom is a terrible stereotype of a Jew. Stephen is a terrible stereotype of an intellectual. Stephen was very disturbed as was Joyce. Think about it. Why would you leave your home country? Why would you not pray with your mother on her deathbed? Bloom is a pervert. Joyce was probably a pervert as well.

Answer 5

For the reasons above, and also because Bloom is a Jew. 'Being a Greek is a young man's thing; one ages into being a Jew.'