Revisiting Molly’s Lovers

One of the most intriguing new manuscripts that the National Library of Ireland acquired as part of its “Joyce Papers 2002” collection is an early proto-draft of “Ithaca” (NLI MS 36,639/13).¹ It is a fascinating snapshot of Joyce’s conception of the episode in mid-1921, about six months before Ulysses was published.² While the discovery of this very basic version of “Ithaca” will certainly prompt many other critical debates in the years to come, I want to focus on the seemingly straightforward question that suddenly appears without any logical or narrative connection to the text blocks around it: “He [Bloom] smiled?” This very basic question and answer lead to what Hugh Kenner has called “the most famous list in Ulysses” (U 17.2132–42).³ Prompted by the note “Boylan thinks he’s the first,”⁴ Joyce wrote this initial version of the answer: “It amused him that each man fancied himself the first to enter the breach whereas he was the last of a series. . . .” Based on the final tally of Molly’s twenty-five alleged lovers in Ulysses, Kenner writes that she was “long regarded as a hardened adulteress, a misconception which deprives Bloomsday of its special tang. Its conceptions were nearly forty years being challenged” (142). He then makes his own list of gallant men who have worked doggedly since at least 1959 to vindicate Molly’s reputation—Richard Ellmann, Robert M. Adams, and David Hayman⁵—and concludes: “No, this is a list of past occasions for twinges of Bloomian jealousy, and there is no ground for supposing that the hospitality of Molly’s bed has been extended to anyone but her husband and Boylan” (144 n1, 143).

As the answer continues, Joyce adumbrates an illuminating initial list of Molly’s purported lovers on the NLI proto-draft that supports Kenner’s observations and provides more ample ground for understanding the context of the “Bloomian jealousy” that some readers recognize when confronted by the indecorous catalog in Ulysses. It reads: “through Penrose, —— —— —— —— Bloom, Holohan, Bodkin, Mulvey —— —— —— ——.” This is little more than a conceptual note that Joyce must have elaborated on in one or more missing manuscripts before the question and answer next appear on the episode’s Rosenbach manuscript.⁶ It is telling that, already at this stage, Joyce names Penrose first in the series, especially since both Leopold and Molly make it clear that the weak-eyed young man did little more than catch a momentary glimpse of her as she emerged half-dressed from the bath (U 8.177–79, 18.572–75). From the start, the list’s trajectory suggests that it was never intended as an accurate enumeration of Molly’s lovers, few as they actually are. The list’s unreliability is confirmed by the fact that Penrose’s name is followed by four long dashes that are typical of Joyce’s writing practices at particularly early stages of composition. They are merely reminders to fill in more names in a subsequent manuscript. Conversely, it is surprising that Bloom’s name appears next, since he is excluded from the list in all the subsequent versions and most obviously in Ulysses. He is the one member of the series who does not need to be listed. Furthermore, while it seems clear why Lieutenant Stanley Gardner’s name does not appear on the list—the narrator knows that Bloom does not know about him—Blazes Boylan’s name is noticeably absent from the accounting at this stage; this is especially puzzling since a note about him was probably the impetus for the entire question-and-answer sequence.

Joyce continues the provisional collection of lovers with “Holohan” and “Bodkin,” neither of whom are included in the final version of the list, and these names take the list in a decidedly unexpected direction. Although they are simply placeholders at this stage (and not much different from the dashes, since they too make their unnoticed exits before the litany of men appears in Ulysses), they clarify Joyce’s ideas about the list in a way that is not evident in any...