The most famous Guitar Hero song is easily “Through the Fire and the Flames” by Dragonforce from Guitar Hero III. But the thing about TTFATF is that it isn’t part of the Guitar Hero III game per se, it is only unlocked by beating the final boss and is first played over the end credits of the game.
Similarly, the most famous chapter in Ulysses is easily Penelope, the famous 8 sentence, 45 page interior monologue of Molly Bloom. But, as with “Through the Fire and the Flames”, by the time we reach Penelope the “story” of Ulysses is over. Leopald Bloom and Stephen Dedalus have spent their day walking through Dublin, met in Nighttown, shared a cocoa in the kitchen of the Bloom home, and gone their way and now Leopald himself is asleep. Basically now what we’ve got is Molly laying down some magnificent stream of consciousness hammer-ons over the end credits to Joyce’s book.
And while TTFATF is one of Guitar Hero’s most difficult songs (I’ve heard it suggested that “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on expert is even harder) I consider Penelope one of the easier chapters in Ulysses. Yes, it is page and page and page of punctuationless mindwanderings, but you always know that it’s Molly who is speaking here and that she’s speaking about whatever she cares to think, and nailing down the speaker in any passage, I’ll always argue, is the key to understanding Ulysses.
I just picked that picture because whatever. And no Penelope quote because just because.
1 comment:
imo, devil went down to georgia is harder. i can make it most of the way through dragonforce, but devil kicks my butt every time.
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