# he reads to us from something called 'Ulysses'. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891 "2014-10-09T20:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/61 "2014-10-11T02:37:09Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > If you were asked its title after hearing “Good Riddance” for the first time, what would you have answered? “For What It’s Worth.” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/62 "2014-10-11T02:56:36Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Probably none, since the protagonist is usually identified as Odysseus in English translations of the poem–including the abridged one I myself had as a schoolboy. Ignorance fought on this score…thank you. (Would it be possible, though, that other popular translations, maybe even slanted more toward younger readers, might have used the Ulysses name instead? Just asking.) However, I don’t find this knowledge compelling enough to overcome: • The question of _why_ the coach would read from Joyce’s work to head off the possibility of his charges being or becoming “sissies” — an issue not yet addressed by you or anyone else in this thread. • The general creepiness of the entire notion of the coach reading this work to pre-adolescents, which would surely cause a far greater scandal than the one that already existed. • The fact that without “Ulysses,” Sherman has no clever rhyme for “sissies.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/63 "2014-10-11T06:26:48Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > However, I don’t find this knowledge compelling enough to overcome: > > • The question of _why_ the coach would read from Joyce’s work to head off the possibility of his charges being or becoming “sissies” — an issue not yet addressed by you or anyone else in this thread. I don’t know which camps you’ve been to, but at the ones I’ve been to if the coach wants to keep the kids from being sissies in the physical sense he’d have them do pushups or sit ups or run track or whatever. The one thing the coach would never do is to read to them from English poetry. La-di-dah. Reading a dirty book to them might be a way of not making them emotional sissies - get the old sex drive working, you know. > [@](#): > > • The general creepiness of the entire notion of the coach reading this work to pre-adolescents, which would surely cause a far greater scandal than the one that already existed. True if it had ever happened. A lake full of alligators would be quite a scandal also, wouldn’t it? > [@](#): > > • The fact that without “Ulysses,” Sherman has no clever rhyme for “sissies.” 🙂 That one I give you. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/64 "2014-10-11T07:21:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t know which camps you’ve been to, but at the ones I’ve been to if the coach wants to keep the kids from being sissies in the physical sense he’d have them do pushups or sit ups or run track or whatever. The one thing the coach would never do is to read to them from English poetry. La-di-dah. I’ve agreed that the Tennyson _Ulysses_ is unlikely here (I assume this is what you’re referring to). But Homer’s version, perhaps prepared for children in such a way that the action scenes are emphasized over the poetry, might do well for the intended purpose…at least in the coach’s mind. > [@](#): > > Reading a dirty book to them might be a way of not making them emotional sissies - get the old sex drive working, you know. I suspect you’re not serious about this, but just in case: I don’t know what camps you’ve been to, but in my experience most kids made their FIRST visit to summer camp (and Camp Granada is obviously Alan’s first visit) around the age of 8 or 9. Even if the first visit comes at the relatively advanced age of 11 or 12, in 1963 your scenario seems far less likely than…well, a lake full of alligators. > [@](#): > > True if it had ever happened. A lake full of alligators would be quite a scandal also, wouldn’t it? A lake full of alligators or a forest full of bears would be the kind of fanciful rumors an experienced camper might float for the benefit a newbie — and the newbie, having no other frame of reference, might believe. (At an admittedly older age [13], my band camp mates and I were treated to the old “they put saltpeter in the food so you won’t get horny” rumor.) There’s quite a difference between all of this and a coach reading Joyce’s _Ulysses_ to pre-adolescents. My point has been that this supposed incident is on a completely different level from anything else described in Sherman’s song. So are you then back to the notion that young Alan made the entire coach/_Ulysses_ incident up? That he tells a monstrous lie he knows will be found out because he thinks this is a ticket back home? _None_ of these contortions is in any way necessary if the Ulysses in question is Homer’s. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/65 "2014-10-11T22:26:29Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > No. If Joyce is part of this scenario, then it’s patently ridiculous. No adult in 1963 would risk his job by reading to children of any age a book that, as everyone agrees, was considered scandalous even for adult reading Didn’t you ever have a bachelor uncle? The one who thought it was the funniest thing on earth if he caught you stealing a beer or a cigarette? The one who had a stack of _Playboy_ magazines in his house, technically out of sight, but not at all well-hidden? People generally want to protect their own children from the dangers of growing up too fast. With other people’s children, however, they are often much less cautious, and much more permissive. See [Auntie Mame](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051383/). Regardless of what the coach was, or was not, reading to the kids, the song narrator’s parents would have found that quite believable. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/66 "2014-10-11T22:43:32Z")
Indeed. And anyone who thinks that “no adult” who is in charge of children would ever behave inappropriately towards them, whether today, 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, must be living under a rock. The _Odyssey_ scenario simply makes no sense. The kid is trying to horrify his parents, to convince them that Camp Granada is bad for him. “They’re reading to us out of one of the most notorious banned books of the 20th century” fits. “They’re reading to us out of one of the most celebrated classics of world literature, _which is taught in school anyway_, and which also happens to be an awesome adventure story”–not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/67 "2014-10-12T03:19:53Z")
This is hilariously ridiculous. The song is comedy… it only makes sense as comedy if it’s Joyce’s book. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/68 "2014-10-12T03:57:17Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Didn’t you ever have a bachelor uncle? The one who thought it was the funniest thing on earth if he caught you stealing a beer or a cigarette? The one who had a stack of _Playboy_ magazines in his house, technically out of sight, but not at all well-hidden? > > People generally want to protect their own children from the dangers of growing up too fast. With other people’s children, however, they are often much less cautious, and much more permissive. See [Auntie Mame](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051383/). > > Regardless of what the coach was, or was not, reading to the kids, the song narrator’s parents would have found that quite believable. Just a year before the song was written, when we were living in Africa, a a friend of my father’s got my third-grade brother drunk on beer because there was no soda and in the Congo if you drank the water you might as well go check yourself into the hospital and ask for a bedpan. It was stupid but it was the kind of end of the world offense it would probably be today. Translations of the Odyssey (and the even bloodier Iliad) did not play up action. Hell, there were even Classics Illustrated versions. Of Joyce’s Ulysses, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/69 "2014-10-12T04:28:33Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > _None_ of these contortions is in any way necessary if the Ulysses in question is Homer’s. Except for the one where you pretend there is such a thing as Homer’s Ulysses. Because there isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![ozaline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc29f/32.png) [@ozaline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ozaline)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/70 "2014-10-12T05:16:10Z")
I come firmly down on the James Joyce side of this argument but I should point one thing out, about translations of the Odyssey. While most modern translations call the hero Odysseus, it was actually quite common in the past to favor the Roman names over the Greek, and there are many translations still in circulation from that time. I know the version of the Odyssey on my shelf (and I at the moment don’t have access to it or I would tell you who translated it), uses Ulysses. I am not quite sure when the shift back to the Greek became more common, but I know at least in the early Twentieth-Century you’d still find Roman names more often than not. Now as for the: “Something called,” part of the line, I’m sure this was partly to make it fit the meter of the song, but also I feel the boy is being a bit coy. He’s probably heard his parents talking about this “sordid book,” before and knows it’ll get them riled up… but doesn’t want to admit knowing it. He may also wish to create a sense of urgency, if the coach has only started what is to be a series of readings he might not have heard anything too juicy yet, (after all this is only the first day), and he wants his parents to think they better get him before he hears anything damaging to his young mind. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/71 "2014-10-12T05:55:50Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Didn’t you ever have a bachelor uncle? The one who thought it was the funniest thing on earth if he caught you stealing a beer or a cigarette? The one who had a stack of _Playboy_ magazines in his house, technically out of sight, but not at all well-hidden? > > People generally want to protect their own children from the dangers of growing up too fast. With other people’s children, however, they are often much less cautious, and much more permissive. See [Auntie Mame](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051383/). > > Regardless of what the coach was, or was not, reading to the kids, the song narrator’s parents would have found that quite believable. But the bachelor uncle: • would have a one-to-one relationship within a family, and would presumable know what he could get away with within that family. He would not be an adult who had charge of a whole group of unrelated kids…each of whom would have parents he would have to answer to, and each of whom would indeed be protective of their own children • would not be an employee who would be at risk of losing his job for doing something inappropriate, and who would also face possible criminal or civil charges for his act. Again, I’ll emphasize that I understand that it’s a comedy song. But I’m rather amazed that everyone is being so cavalier about the portrayal of an act that would have very serious repercussions if it were to happen in real life. I’m extremely liberal in my thinking, but as I said earlier, reading a book whose content caused serious palpitations among adults to kids who average 8-10 years of age easily crosses over the line between funny and creepy for me. Further, not a single poster in this thread has explained how the coach’s reading of Joyce’s _Ulysses_ to these children will achieve his goal of having “no sissies.” How, exactly, was that supposed to work? ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/72 "2014-10-12T06:03:29Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Indeed. And anyone who thinks that “no adult” who is in charge of children would ever behave inappropriately towards them, whether today, 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, must be living under a rock. So Sherman decides to make one of the major characters of his comedy song an individual who would be arrested and charged for what he’s doing to children? Yeah, that’s hilarious. > [@](#): > > The _Odyssey_ scenario simply makes no sense. The kid is trying to horrify his parents, to convince them that Camp Granada is bad for him. “They’re reading to us out of one of the most notorious banned books of the 20th century” fits. Only if you believe the average 8- to 10-year-old was aware of this book and its reputation in 1963. I contend he was not. Can you make the argument for how the average 8- to 10-year-old would have been aware of it? Do you think it was a topic of discussion around the dinner table? Do you imagine that the average 8- to 10-year-old would have read about it in the newspaper, or perhaps taken it in during his daily viewings of The Huntley-Brinkley 15-minute newscast? > [@](#): > > “They’re reading to us out of one of the most celebrated classics of world literature, _which is taught in school anyway_, and which also happens to be an awesome adventure story”–not so much. Really? _The Odyssey_ was “taught in school” to 8- to 10-year-olds? Can we take a poll of this thread’s participants to see how many of them recall this? I’ll cast the first vote for “No, _The Odyssey_ was not part of my elementary school education.” ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/73 "2014-10-12T06:08:59Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Except for the one where you pretend there is such a thing as Homer’s Ulysses. Because there isn’t. I understand this. Homer’s work featured a character who (as ozaline points out) was called Ulysses in many translations. Take a poll of 1000 people of various ages. Then let me which name is found to be more recognizable to the greater number of respondents…Ulysses or Odysseus. Then get back to me. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/74 "2014-10-12T06:29:39Z")
I’m surprised no one has suggested that part of the humor might stem from the ambiguity. It’s far more likely that a coach would read from Tennyson than Joyce, but the vagueness of the boy’s description and the notoriety of the book would cause the parents to gulp nervously and the audience of the song to snicker. It’s a get-stuff-past-the-censors joke (even though it wouldn’t actually be censored) because it _suggests_ an adult reading to children from a “dirty” novel while offering a more plausible and less ribald explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/75 "2014-10-12T06:35:02Z")
I wish I had your energy. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/76 "2014-10-12T06:35:17Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > The _Odyssey_ scenario simply makes no sense. OK, here is your eminently **more sensible** scenario [quotes from Wikipedia] : The head coach, who has a stated goal of having “no sissies” among his charges, reads to them from a book whose prose is largely incomprehensible to most adults (let alone 8- to 10-year-olds). A book that features “stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—full of puns, parodies, and allusions…” This will achieve the coach’s goal…how? The coach reads to these 8- to 10-year-old children from a book that has "attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual ‘Joyce Wars’‘’ and banning in several countries. A book that, as so many in this thread have noted, was still attracting controversy for its sexual content in 1963 (see [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17805692&postcount=50) for an example). And he does this with no possible thought that it might land him in some rather serious trouble? Yes…this makes tons of sense. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/77 "2014-10-12T06:37:54Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > I’m surprised no one has suggested that part of the humor might stem from the ambiguity. It’s far more likely that a coach would read from Tennyson than Joyce, but the vagueness of the boy’s description and the notoriety of the book would cause the parents to gulp nervously and the audience of the song to snicker. It’s a get-stuff-past-the-censors joke (even though it wouldn’t actually be censored) because it _suggests_ an adult reading to children from a “dirty” novel while offering a more plausible and less ribald explanation. Entirely possible, and something like this occurred to me long ago. It’s at least a reasonable fall-back position from “The coach is reading from Joyce — no ifs, ands or buts about it.” ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/78 "2014-10-12T06:53:41Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Really? _The Odyssey_ was “taught in school” to 8- to 10-year-olds? > > Can we take a poll of this thread’s participants to see how many of them recall this? > > I’ll cast the first vote for “No, _The Odyssey_ was not part of my elementary school education.” What a sad indictment of the American education system. 😛 At age 9 or 10 I was in a class that studied _The Odyssey_ (not “Ulysses” :rolleyes:[noparse])[/noparse] via a series of BBC radio broadcasts and accompanying leaflets; and it was by no means the first I’d heard of it. c 1969 - 1970 ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/79 "2014-10-12T07:30:54Z")
As a parent, which of these scenarios do you think you would group with your child getting food poisoning, disappearing in the woods, and potentially getting eaten by a bear or alligator? ‘My child is being given an education in literature!’ Or ‘My child is being read porn!’ (No, Ulysses isn’t porn. But it was _banned for obscenity_, which translates into getting a _reputation_ for being pornographic.) If you’re not insane, you now know what the joke Sherman intended was. ---
**Author:** ![ozaline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc29f/32.png) [@ozaline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ozaline)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891/80 "2014-10-12T07:55:36Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Further, not a single poster in this thread has explained how the coach’s reading of Joyce’s _Ulysses_ to these children will achieve his goal of having “no sissies.” > > How, exactly, was that supposed to work? Read 'em some straight erotica to make sure they don’t turn out gay. I know earlier in the thread the topic of sissy meaning weakling versus meaning gay was brought up, but they were often seen as being the same thing. Gay men were thought to be feminine and therefore weak. Don’t believe a coach would think that? There have been equally silly lines of thought involved with young boys activities, lest we forget the original idea behind boy scouts was to tire boys out so they wouldn’t have the energy to masturbate 🙂 > [@DChord568](#): > > So Sherman decides to make one of the major characters of his comedy song an individual who would be arrested and charged for what he’s doing to children? > > Yeah, that’s hilarious. One: the idea is that everything in the letter is being made up by the boy. No one has been eaten by an alligator, and they’re not really being read Joyce. So yes it is funny, that this kid is flinging a wild accusation at one of his caretakers just to get out of camp. Especially in that day, and age when investigations into misconduct were not done as thoroughly. Two: How is it funny that they’re being read a classic? > [@](#): > > Really? _The Odyssey_ was “taught in school” to 8- to 10-year-olds? > > Can we take a poll of this thread’s participants to see how many of them recall this? > > I’ll cast the first vote for “No, _The Odyssey_ was not part of my elementary school education.” Oh sure, we did a unit on Greek mythology in Elementry and covered a very abridged version of the Odyssey… So yeah I knew what it was. Although I am wayyyyy younger than this song. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-reads-to-us-from-something-called-ulysses/700891.md?page=5)