JF Ptak Science Books Post 716
I just came across these image that I made on a trip to Dublin some years ago. Carrying the bags for my wife, Patti Digh, who was actually working there, I described my own work by going on a Ulysses tour. It was Sweny’s and Davy Byrnes (seems like two e’s are missing there, no?) that I liked the most–particularly so for the chemists, because it looked as though nothing major had happened in there in years, or at least that was the sense of the smallish creaking shop. I wanted some lemon soap.
Sweny’s is described by Brendan Kilty in his book on the great chemist’s shop, called simply Sweny: “It is the epiccentre of some extraordinary events in literature and history. If you stand at Sweny’s door and describe a circle with a radius of 100 yards give or take you will find your North point outside the birthplace of Oscar Wilde on Westland Row and your South point at his home at No. 1 Merrion Square. To the west, you will still find the faint paint of Finn’s Hotel on the gable of Lincoln Place. Nora Barnacle, James Joyce’s lover and ultimate wife, worked here as a chambermaid and it is from the front door of Finn’s Hotel that she spied on Joyce as he stood outside Wilde’s house when she deliberately stood him up on the evening of the 15th June 1904.”
Some of the uses of Swenys in Ulysses occurs as follows:
“Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.”
And also the following:
“THE SOAP: We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the
earth. I polish the sky.
_(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the
soapsun.)_
SWENY: “Three and a penny, please.”
BLOOM: “Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe.”
“At that point, the time I was there, you could still buy lemon soap–loose, or three to a small wooden box. I still have mine and it still has a fine scent…”
Then there’s the lovely Davey Byrnes pub, which makes a number of appearances throughout the book.
“He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now
and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.”
And then there is:
Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring’s blush. Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the parsnips.
“–And here’s himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give us a good one for the Gold cup?
“–I’m off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a horse.
“–You’re right there, Nosey Flynn said.”
“Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off.”
“Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like the way it curves there.”
“–I wouldn’t do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined many a man, the same horses.”
