Report from the October Meeting

Book I.IV, pp. 97-98 (moving right along)

         


We picked up on page 97 where four judges seem to be recounting and mapping HCE’s history. There is a list of towns in County Meath (Humfries Chase, Mullinahob, Peacockstown, Raystown, Horlockstown, Tankardstown, Cheeverstown, Loughlinstown, and Nutstown) as well as references to hunting and Christmas, which calls to mind the assassination of Thomas a Becket. This seems to suggest that HCE is the quarry. Joyce references “Fitz Urse’s basset beaters,” connecting the hunting imagery of a basset hound flushing game with Reginald FitzUrse, one of the knights sent to confront Thomas a Becket before his assassination. Joyce also refers to “pointing” and “bayers,” furthering the hunting scene. The towns in County Meath are traced in a “loup,” which calls to mind a fox, which is presumably the quarry/HCE.
            Josh adds that he did some investigating into the root of "veneral," which we were thinking of in terms of both venerate and venereal; he found that it could also have roots in "venare," or "hunting," as well as "venus," connoting sexual gratification.  Given what's going on with all the fox hunting business, veneral could have something to do with hunting, veneration, VD, venus, sex, pursuit, all the rest of it.

            The idea of a fox hunt is very British, and so this tradition is being turned against HCE. He is made into folklore in this passage as an elusive fox. This idea is furthered later on page 97 where Joyce writes, “Vainly violence, virulence and vituperation sought wellnigh utterly to attax and abridge, to derail and deponitfy, to enrate and inroad, to ongoad and unhume the great shipping mogul and underlinen overlord.” The alliterative verse could be viewed as a nod to “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” which also features a hunting scene. It was also observed at the meeting that Sir Gawain was given a garter and founded the order of the Knights of the Garter, thus making him an “underlinen overlord.”

            The alliterative verse closes the paragraph and alludes to undoing logic and beheading, which fits with HCE as a fox being ripped apart by the hunting dogs.

            It is also worth noting a reference earlier on the page to four chambers of a cow’s stomach: rumer, reticule, onasum and abomasum, which can be taken to stand for rumor, ridicule, onanism, and abomination, all references to HCE’s crime.

            The following paragraph brings a misspelling: “hesitency” for “hesitancy,” which is a reference to HCE as well as to the forged letters intended to implicate Parnell. Followed by “tatterytail,” it would appear that a tattletale/informant is leading the chase of HCE, with a reference to Humpty Dumpty (“humponadimply”) pointing to HCE.

            At this point, the hunting metaphor ends and Scotland Yard takes over with detective work. Joyce writes that, “He had lain violent hands on himself…lain down, all in, fagged out, with equally melancholy death,” alluding to masturbation or suicide, or perhaps autoerotic asphyxiation. A nod to Oscar Wilde (“wildewide was quiet”) recalls HCE’s scandal, and the fox is now either shot or HCE has been indicted as Joyce writes, “Big when the bang…a report: silence,” with report either referring to a report from the detectives or the report of a hunting rifle.

            HCE flees again with Shem and Shaun either aiding him or somehow in pursuit. “This country of exile, sloughed off, sidleshomed …” leading us to believe that HCE has shaken off his ties to Ireland and returned home to Sidlesham. However, it soon becomes apparent that HCE is hiding in an Asian country with Muslim influences, where he both pays and irritates the belly dancers.

            Meanwhile, “wires hummed,” giving the impression that HCE’s whereabouts are known, probably to Scotland Yard. There are more Wilde references as well as discussion of forms of communication: “Chirpings crossed. An infamous private ailment… Jams jarred…Mush spread” alludes to the various methods of communication used to exchange information about a scandal and is a reminder of ALP’s earlier letter as a means of communication. Names are being exchanged in pubs and throughout Dublin, likely leading authorities to HCE or spreading rumors as to his whereabouts. 

Report from the September 2011 Meeting

Book 1.IV pp. 93-97

We began with the paragraph “And so it all ended” (93.22) …and still we decided to stay at St. Stephen’s anyway.

Micro & Macro in Finnegans Wake’s September Meeting

We believe this “end” is possibly the end of the trial of Festy King. Discussion now begins about “The Letter! The Litter!” [ALPs letter exonerating HCE, litter, as in trash, rot, garbage, but also “litter” as in the offspring of domesticated animals] (93.24), which is further distinguished with “And the soother the bitther!” [the sooner the better – a note writ by Irish children to the post / and also the role of ALP & the letter – to sooth the court, to sooth the husband, yet allowing ALP to remain bitter].

The letter may be an analogy of the style of the Wake itself and/or an extension to Joyce (who appears throughout p.93) - “Borrowing a word and begging the question and stealing tinder [fire or thunder] and slipping like soap” (93.25-7), in an extension to the charges from the previous paragraph “having murdered all the English [language] he knew” (93.2). Joyce appears in the form of “showing off the blink patch to his britgits” (93.4-5), “I am the Sullivan” [súil – Irish for eye, possibly one eyed man “súil un” Yes, “Sullivan” means “one-eyed” or “dark-eyed.” (JP)] (93.30).  Indeed, there are also numerous allusions to Joyce’s entire catalogue throughout page 93-94. “Gash from a burner!” (93.11) “thatjolly old molly [Molly Bloom?] bit or that bored saunter [Leopold Bloom’s sausage girl inspired saunter in Lotus-Eaters]” (93.34-5) “Timm Finn again’s” [Finnegans Wake] (93.35), Tom Mallon [Thomas Malone Chandler from “A Little Cloud” in Dubliners] (94.2) “evelyns” [“Eveline” ] (94.28).

The bottom of page 93 also features song titles and lines that seem to introduce nicely the twin concepts being explored in the aftermath of the trial – issues of the state and issues of the home – achieved through the “dark Rasa Lane a sigh and a weep” [an allusion to the James Clarence Magnam poem – Dark Rosaleen, “do not sigh / do not weep”] where Dark Rosaleen is a personification of Ireland ala Cathleen niHoulihan awaiting aid from the Pope and Spanish “…wine from the royal Pope, … And Spanish ale shall give you hope”. The second song, Thomas More’s “Lesbia hath a Beaming Eye” (93.27-8) a love song to the beloved, Nora. [from “Lesbia” Oh, my Nora Creina, dear, My gentle, bashful Nora Creina, Beauty lies In many eyes, But Love in yours, my Nora Creina]. Indeed, “The solid man [being] saved by his sillied woman” (94.3) here seems to read into the micro story of a family [HCE+ALP or Joyce+Nora] as well as the larger history of all things everywhere.

We return to the letter itself. “Wind broke it. Wave bore it. Reed wrote of it. Syce ran with it. Hand tore it and wild went war. Hen trieved it and plight pledged peace.” (94.4-6) The tone which seems very Waste Land-ish, Campbell notes is form of an “A B C’s conundrum for children” (A was an apple pie, B bought it, C caught it… [which ends with the same question that ends the paragraph] What was it?” (Skeleton Key 87, FW 94.20)].

[Waste Land?, ABC’s?, same thing]

What is “it” is indeed a complex question when attributed to the questions the letter begs “It was life but was it fair? It was free but was it art?” (94.9-10). Whatever its’ answer are, when “read” it is capable of making “ma [ALP] make merry [or make ma marry, possibly elope as with the reference to Gretna Green, Scotland] and sissy [Issy] so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem and put some shame into Shaun.” (94.10-12).  [Question that wasn’t asked, but I am posing in re-reading? Who is talking here? It seems as though the narrator is kin with HCE/ALP and their children. Referring to “Ma” and “sissy” as though they are our mother and sister. Are we as reader (or the narrator here), the inheritors/children of this All-family’s? (We noted that these lines recall Gerty McDowell and the language of girls’ magazines and books. Possibly it’s someone in the family, or someone in the family assuming the language of a young girl, or stuff written for young girls. JP)].

“Una [famine] and Ita [thirst] spill famine with drought” (94.12, this along with the reference to the Danaides [from the Aeneid, the 50 daughters punished with thirst for the murder of their grooms]  and the commandement to “furchte fruchte” [fear fruit] (94.14) reverberate back to the finding of the letter. “Hen [re]trieved it” (94.7) and “finfin funfun” (94.19) bring us back to Kate (Tiptip!) (79.27), who retrieves the “loveletter lostfully hers” (80.14-5). Indeed, the fear of fruit here creates becomes the “rotten witchawubbles, festering rubbages” (79.30-1) where Kate finds the letter.  It appears the letter will tell how not only about HCE and ALP but also the beginnings and ends of  civilization begins “framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose” (94.18)  –  (but also with lots of fruit, acidity arose – acid reflux?]. But will Joyce “tell me, tell me, tell me” what is in the letter? (94.19)? Not yet. But he will foreshadow Book I.8, mirroring the shape and opening of the section.  Alpha to Omega here (94.21-2) and Omega to Alpha on I.8 (196.1-4).

Four judges appear here, but they are somewhat in the background over viewing the others, “s[i]tting [up in] their judges chambers” (94.24-5), possibly in the Four Courts building along the Liffey “Kay Wall” [quayside] (95.14). The Four here appear to be North, South, East, and West [North Mister (95.5), southside (95.9), Solan[u]s - the east wind (94.27), and the west (95.20) as well as the four provinces of Ireland [used her , mused her, licksed her and cuddled (96.16-7): Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht].

It appears they are discussing a case over drinks, the law room becomes the bar room, both being public houses in one form or another.  They sit “around their old traditional tables” [both law –  tablets of Moses, and a table at a bar] “druly dry” [drearily dry – as in sober, both in mind and drink] and discuss the case of Festy King and/or Hyacinth O’Donnell “Festives and highajinks” “Accor[d]ing to the king’s [evidence]” (94.28-9). It sounds like “Singabob” remembers the events he describes—as if he were there—but it also sounds like a bard remembering the tale—which he would know not from direct experience but from tradition and inspiration. Much was made of this being like the Cyclops chapter of Ulysses and the relationship between law, word, and history, with reference to order and civilization being the organization of words/tales/rules. JP)

Discussions between the, now drinking foursome, “The four of them and thank court now there were no more of them” (94.31-2) [from the song “One More Drink for the Four of Us! “Glory be to God that there are no more of us / For one of us could drink it all alone”] + “ginabawdy meadabawdy” (95.7 italics for emphasis) “mountain dew” [illegal whiskey] (95.25) and “Belcher’s brew” [cheap beer] (95.26).  The discussion breaks down, seemingly, after references to the War of Roses. “Do I mind? I mind the gush off the mon like Ballybock manure works on a tradewinds day” (95.2-3). It stinks! Gases and smells proliferate the paragraph. Smells and noses. The first “I” narration in a while begins. This “I” sounds much like the narrator in the “Cyclops” episode of Ulysses (or any stage Irish character), with his cries of “Gob,” (95.13; 18) his “sez I”s (95.18) and thick textual accent. This “I” tells a “putting out” (95.24) story featuring a “redheaded girl” (95.20) their “Fine feelplay” (95.21).  Micro meets macro again here in two forms: The atomization of HCE into [two parts hydrogen, three parts Cerium – H₂ C E₃] is also the spread of HCE across the universe [rearranging it to 3eH²c is the speed of light in a vacuum].  Secondly, in the form of the conquest: sexual and colonial, as the next paragraph begins.

This initial story of this sexual encounter, however, falls to rumoury [memory + rumor] (96.7) in the setting of the “fourbottle men”. The story of sexual conquest, through the “analists” “anschluss” (95.27-28) becomes one of colonial annexation, a debate over “whosebefore and his whereafters and how she was lost away away in the fern and how he was founded deap on deep in anear…” (95.29-30). The four begin “contradrinking [contradicting] (96.3) themselves” through excessive drinking over the conquest of woman/land, this time, in Milton’s Park (96.10) Paradise/Eden/Patriarchy in general? The four fight, calling each other liars, not excusing the other (96.18-19) but eventually, shankahand (96.23) and have another drink “schenkusmore” (96.24) [schenk uns mehr, German for “pour another drink” and also a reference to An Seanchas Mor,  The Great Register, corpus of early Irish law].

           

Vico came up in reference to the OOOOOOOO (96.22). We discussed how Vico’s philosophy suggests that while each cycle is the same, different civilizations reach different points of the cycle at different times. This brings an interesting point introduced by the next narrator.

            We ended with discussion on estate laws, playing possum, some slight blasphemy, and the promise of a chase in the next meeting. See you then! View! (97.2). 

Report from the August-ish Meeting

So we tried to squeeze a meeting into August and kinda didn't make it. Still counts as the last meeting of the summer as long as it's pre-Labor Day, though, right?


Pages Covered: 90-93 (PQ got kind of excited because we're only 10 pages away from the end of the chapter. The more clear-eyed folks in the group pointed out this would probably take six meetings to cover.)


Page 90 was rough going. Lots of pieces and work to try to figure out how they all fit together. We are still in the midst of the trial of the Festy King, and have just finished the testimony by the W. P. We decided that perhaps the paragraph ending with the whore thunderword ("Bladyughfoulmoecklenburgwhurawhorascorastrumpapornanennykocksapastippatappatupperstrippuckputtanach, eh?") should be a bit chaotic, because the thunderword restarts the Viconian cycle and begins again an age of gods. This long paragraph has many instances of falls, and then the following has many instances of dawning, so we ran with that.


The top of the page has a number of references to China, specifically the move from kingship or empire to republic. While previous conversations have pointed out anti-imperial or anti-British moments in the Wake, here a case could be made that the transition to republic, to democracy, actually signals the chaos at the end of the age of man: the thunderword is leading us into a new age of gods, but we have the chaos of the fall right before that. This is all in the context of the final questioning of the W. P., and as we saw last time his certainty is open to question: "Let there be fight? And there was. Foght." This is a genesis moment, but it's struggle not light. And it's not a statement, it's a question. And it ends with an expression of disgust? resignation? vulgarity?: "Fuck."


Fall: "from the king's head to the republican's arms...evinxed from flagfall"; "In the middle of the garth, then? That they mushn't toucht it" -- the first phrase points to the man/chaos/god ricorso moment, but we also have a number of references to Adam and Eve and the Christian fall -- which might account for the whore thunderword, too: "That he was when he was not eluding from the whole of the woman." Here women are a figure of corruption -- although this changes in a page or two (maybe) when the monthly girls show up with Issy.


HCE and his sons, and the theme of betrayal as part of the fall of the father, are all here too: "during the effrays round fatherthyme's beckside" (Buckley and the Russian General), as well as Camellus and Gemellus in the middle of the paragraph.


But the king tries to reclaim his position, and the man goes through another resurrection, in the next paragraph (pages 90-92). Beginning with "Meirdreach an Oincuish" -- shite and onions, but also more words for whores and harlots -- a "new complexion was put upon the matter when...the senior king of all, Pegger Festy...declared in a loudburst of poesy...he did not fire a stone either before or after he was born down and up to that time." Festy declares his innocence, using poetry rather than law and rejecting the testimony of the "eyebold earbig noseknaving gutthroat." This is the re-emergence of the king and a return to an earlier age: poetry precedes law, and we talked a bit about the relationships among law, language, and history. What does it mean for a culture to finally write down its laws? For law and language to be linked? Is law then fixed? Or does it remain infinitely interpretable? This was sparked by the abcedarianism of the passage: "ach bad clap," "Oo! Ah!," "Augs and ohrs," "amreeta beaker coddling doom."


We return to the land of youth: "Tyre-nan-Og," but also Tierney, sounding like tyranny. Tyranny of the King? Or tyranny of those who judge him? Potential for tyranny in the face of chaos, righting the excesses of too much democracy? Festy confronts his judges, "the four of Masterers." As he mounts his defense, he works himself up into his phoenix moment -- not the shame of Phoenix Park but the rising again: he is a "jackabox" at the "dorming of the mawn" -- the dawn of man, the dawning of the morn, a new age. And this is HCE as well: "his exchequered career he up," and it's Finnegan with his whisky: "the inexousthausthible wassailhorn tot of iskybaush the hailth uyp the wailth of the endknown abgod of fire" -- wassailing, drinking to health and wealth, the inexhaustible house (could be Mr. Porter and his pub?), but also the god of fire, at the beginning, from the beginning (ab), unknown but also not really knowing where it will end.


Finally the audience breaks out into laughter and yelling: "the whole audience perseguired and pursuited him...outbroke much yellachters in the heall...the testifighter reluctingly, but with ever so ladylike indecorum, joined. (Ha! Ha!)." This "hilariohoot" sparks a a reflection about the intersecting "duadestinies" of Festy and W. P. This prompts the entrance of Issy and the monthly girls as well as Shem and Shaun -- HCE's children have arrived at the trial of the king. The beginning of the paragraph talks about the reconciliation of polarities: "equals of opposites" -- which turns into talking about men and women, perhaps Joyce's best example of the reconciliation of polarities: "hunundher," "Heruponhim". The end of the paragraph performs in a bodily/erotic way the joining of opposites: "the wild wishwish of her sheeshea melted most musically mid the dark deepdeep of his shayshaun." We laughed at the dirtiness of the passage, but looking back at it now you realize the language is quite lovely.


Chris adds:
All that sexy language we discussed on the bottom of p. 92 -
(youthsy, beautsy, hee's her chap and shey'll tell memmas when she gays whom) till the wild wishwish of her sheeshea melted most musically mid the dark deepdeep of his shayshaun - i had that in my notes as "games" but did not remember what I referenced games too - so i doublechecked my notes, and the language comes from one of Joyce's notebooks under "London Street Games" - from "finwake.com" p. 92

London Street Games 54: (a skipping chant) 'Little Mary Anne who lives up stairs, With high legged boots and a feather in her hat -- That's the way she meets her chap --'.

London Street Games 29: (a chant) 'I'll tell Ma when I get home That the boys won't leave me alone. They pull my hair and break my comb, I'll tell Ma when I get home'.

So, I think this adds more to the notion of childhood innocence (Issy's or any of the young girls) under the threat of sexual desire (sheyshaun - Shem and Shaun competing for their affection?). 


He's right, of course.  Here's PQ again:


So all this romancing, "innamorate...in shining aminglement," has totally distracted the "four justicers": Untius, Muncius, Punchus, and Pylax. We struggled a bit with the last part we worked on, page 93, ll. 1-21, but we came around to thinking it was not only about Shem the Penman but also Joyce himself (Shem of course being an avatar for JJ). He has "murdered all the English he knew" (a reference to the Phoenix Park murders but also to the Wake), "geshing it like gush gash from a burner" (guessing, and also Gas from a Burner), "How dare he!," "You and your gift of your gaft of your garbage abaht our Farvver!". The monthly girls are here, as are the brothers -- "twofromthirty advocatesses," Esau. Shem's special brand of writing -- using shit -- is here too, which plays into the JJ allusions too: "he shat in (zoo)," "like the muddy goalbind who he was (dun)." Of course there is shame in all of this: the trial, the writing, the family -- and so the paragraph ends with seven words for shame.


We left with the letter on the dungheap, and look forward to the entrance of ALP.

Report from the July 2011 Meeting

Pages Covered: 87-89

We did not get very far, but this was a raucous and productive meeting.

As Chris noted last month, Shem and Shaun are here in the shape of the Festy King and the W. P., respectively, with the latter as the accuser. Picking up with the trial of the Festy King, we talked about how the event devolves into spectacle: "The litigants...local congsmen and donalds, kings of the arans and the dalkeys, kings of mud and tory...were egged on by their supporters" (87.24-27). We have traditional authority figures of the Irish past, as well as areas of Ireland represented, but we also have groundlings yelling "Exhibit his relics!" (87.32).

The past of Irish kings is also joined with Roman and Christian history, and the reference to relics and the possible scapegoat/transgressive figure of the Festy King might allude to Christ, too: "crossexanimation of the casehardened testis that when and where that knife of knifes the treepartied ambush was laid" (87.34-36). This is another figure associated with resurrection -- "animation" -- and there a number of reference to the trinity here. And also phalluses. Phallii?

On pages 88-89 we noted a lot of references to Middle Europe, especially to Hungary, and we spent rather a lot of time trying to figure that one out. Hungary, as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was obviously important in the years leading up to World War One, and Finnegans Wake bears many traces of that conflagration in its concern with the cycles of European history and its violence. We've talked before about this from a Viconian perspective, but we also connected it to the movements over East and West that Joyce makes throughout the book: Hungary is a crossroads. Hungary is also important for Bloom in Ulysses: it is the birthplace of Rudolph Virag (here's a great article from the Irish Times on that one).

As Chris noted last month, W. P. is an "eye, ear, nose, and throat witness." This shows up again in how for him "the audible-visible-gnosible-edible world existed," and he is "cognitively conatively cogitabundantly sure...because living, loving, breathing and sleeping morphomelosophopancreates" (88.6-9). The W. P. is certain, in all the ways one can be certain, through dreams and knowledge and forms and creation and four of the five senses -- but interestingly touch is missing. He has secret knowledge, yes, but the sense experience of touch seems to be absent. Can this witness be trusted? How much of what he claims is his creation, his imagination?

Over the course of the trial we come to doubt W. P.: "Whether he was practically sure...? Pediculously so. Certified? As cad could be. Be lying!...But, of course, he could call himself Tem, too, if he had time to? You butt he could anytom" (88). "Any Tom" -- any Tom, Dick, or Harry -- could call himself creator (Tem being the creator in the Book of the Dead), and Tom would also be Thomas the doubting apostle, who established certainty for himself by touching...something the W. P. cannot do.

A number of characters appear at the trial: Shem and Shaun, "the two childspies," "two dreamyums in one dromium," "a duel of lentils? Peacisely" are here, also in the form of Jacob and Esau the warring brothers. The Four Old Men are here to judge too: "Lindendelly, coke, or skillies spell me gart" (Londonderry/Ulster, Cork/Munster, Skerries/Leinster, Gort/Connacht). We have "Rooskayman kamerade? Sooner Gallwegian" -- the Russian General and the Norwegian Captain. Even Vico shows up: "It was corso in cursu on coarser again." All of these point to HCE and those judging him. We ask "Quare hircum?" -- "Why the goat?" -- again pointing to HCE/Festy King as scapegoat...and there is no answer. We ended on another question at the bottom of page 89: "Which was meant in a shirt of two shifts macoghamade or up Finn, threehatted ladder? That a head in thighs under a bush at the sunface would bait a serpent to a millrace through the heather." McHugh notes that these are Ogham ciphers listed in The Secret Languages of Ireland -- a text of the past, but also reminding us that the Wake is a cipher. We have the two shifts -- Shem and Shaun -- Finn MacCool/Tim Finnegan up the ladder, which is also a trinity, as is the "head in thighs under a bush" -- another phallus, rising, and tempting in a lapsarian fashion.

For homework: here's some stuff about Ogham.

June 2011 Meeting: Festy King!

Notes for the June 2011 Meeting
Pages covered 85-87.

Meeting was short today. Little did we know that the Irish Times features Wednesday Night Quizzo (Bar Trivia) 8pm-11pm (our meeting was 7pm-9pm). In related news, Team Qui Sta Troia (86) was right in the mix until the final round – 80s television series – which did us in!

Starting with the paragraph “But to return to the atlantic and Phenitia Proper” (85.20).

We are introduced in this opening line to the confusion that will ensue in Festy King’s trial. Are we to turn to the Atlantic, to move west, to emigrate to the New World, or are to return to Phoenicia Proper, east, to past civilization, the ancient world? We are warned that “little headway, if any, [will be] made in solving the wasnottobe crime conundrum” (85.21-2). It is here that we are introduced to the Festy King, “a child of Maam,” (85.22-3), who allegedly operates under the “elois [alias] Crowbar…Meleky” as well as anagrams to these names “Tykingfest and Rabworc” (86.7-8; 13). If it is at all possible, we are told that Festy King comes from a family “honourably associated with the tar and feather industries” (85.23-4). Honor from ridicule? It seems Joyce is setting up a dynamic of extremes that contradict, confuse, or distort meaning in this courtroom. Or in another sense, we will be presiding over two very different ideas of events that have happened between accuser and accused, two “equinoxious points of view” [equinox + noxious], (85.29) where “one fellow’s fetch being the other follow’s person” [one fellow’s fish being another fellow’s poison] (29-30).

Festy King is on trial, it seems, for reasons: “flying cushats out of his ouveralls [stealing coal] and making fesses immodst his forces on the field” [making faces/feces (like the Russian General) amidst his forces on the field] (29-31). He is on trial soaked in alcohol “methylated” (31-2). And he appears in court already “Karikature[d]” (33): as “ambrosiaurealised” [Ambrosius Aurelianus – a general who led the Roman-Britians against Saxon invaders in the 5th century]. But his garb, we discussed, also harkens to that of false saviors, like those in Kersse’s Korduroy Karikature [KKK]. Leaders of a blind and ignorant form of justice, we speculated whether or not Joyce had seen the 1915 D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation and/or its follow-up film Intolerance. [Prankquean says: probably! But John McCourt would know.]

On 86, we hear more allegations coming from the Crown (86.7) about the the history of the Festy King. He is alleged to also have “impersonat[ed] a climbing boy [chimney sweep]” by “rubb[ing] some pixes of any luvial peatsmoor o’er his face” [possibly a subtle reverberation of Shem writing on his body in later episode or going in blackface as the actors in Birth of a Nation] in order to “disguis[e] himself” (86.10-11) and sell an unlicenced “pedigree pig” at the “middlewhite fair in Mudford on a Thoorsday” [robbing “Peeler” to pay “Polee”?] (86.10-15). We discussed why a pig would be involved. Possibly, we discussed, it was a Joyce allusion to the pig [the old sow] that eats her farrow from Portrait of the Artist (206) as here, the pig is seen eating “some of the door[way]” and “a whole side of his (the animal’s) sty…in order to pay off…six doubloons fifteen arrerars of his, the villian’s…rent (FW 86.26-31).

What ensues is referred to as “Remarkable evidence” (86.32), though this does not seem to make much sense in context of what was alleged against Festy King, by “a plain clothes priest W.P.” (34). *In Joyce’s Scribbledehobble notebook, the term “Remarkable evidence” falls under the section title “Eumeus.” What becomes interesting with this note, is that the episode Eumeus in Ulysses is an episode Enda Duffy refers to in The Subaltern Ulysses as a “garrulous narrative” of “hidden identities, doubts, and failures of language” (176) and also a “police interrogation” (181). Within this section of Finnegans Wake, this reading of Eumeus from the notebook seems appropriate. It does appear that the brothers Shem and Shaun are present in these characters, that is Festy King and W.P., one acting as accuser, the other as accused.

Within the group, we discussed scholarly interpretations on the Festy King – who is he – what is happening within the new trial. Campbell’s Skeleton Key suggests that the Festy King is a stand-in for Shaun, Swartzlander suggests Festy King is a Shem figure (after reading the article Artie submitted to the members of the bar room, I agree that Swartzlander’s argument in “Multiple Meaning and Misunderstanding: The Mistrail of Festy King” to be much stronger, a more compelling and logical argument).
We are confronted with the failure of this trial when we are introduced to W.P. He is an “eye, ear, nose, and throat witness” (86.32-33) [possible allusion to Gogarty + Medical Square + reverberation from Meleky (Malachi “Buck” Mulligan)]. What this witness lacks, however, sensually is touch [whether that is “feeling” in an empathic context or in a courtroom sense, tangible evidence. He appears impolite in court, having to be “cautioned against yawning while being grilled [questioned]” (86.36-87.1) before smiling (87.1). Allusions to war, insurrection and treason follow. W.P. remembers the “filth [Fifth] of November” (87.4) or Guy Fawkes Night, the gunpowder plot that attempted to destroy the British House of Lords and an allusion to Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade “theirs not to reason why” (87.10). W.P. also gives testimony against Hyacinth O’Donnell “described in the calendar as a mixer and wordpainter” [HCE?] (87.12-3) suggesting O’Donnell “sought…to sack, sock, stab and slaughter singlehanded another two of the old kings” (87.15-6). Regardless, it seems W.P.’s testimony is counter to the charges levied against Festy King and are more in line with the fighting between the brothers, Shem and Shuan “because they could not say meace, (mute and daft) meathe. (87.23-4). We tried to remember the story of the fox and grapes and the ant and grasshopper [“creepfoxed andt grousuppers” (86.22-3)] but could not remember entirely the significance if any to this section.

This is when Quizzo started at the Irish Times, and we concluded our meeting.

Could Joyce, in the coming section, be commenting on the future with the polarbeeber hair (87.22) [Justin Bieber’s haircut originating in the Arctic-Polar North that is Canada] or the P.C. Robort (86.7) [Microsoft PC Robots] that will consume modern culture? We will find out more in just a few days when the fun at Finnegans Wake continues!

Bloomsday News and Report from the May 2011 Meeting

Happy Bloomsday! If you're in Philly (and if you belong to the Philly Finnegans Wake Reading Group, you probably are), there are a number of fantastic events coming up the week of June 16th. Visit the Rosenbach Museum & Library for the Exiles and Expats exhibit, which explores Joyce's years in Paris -- expertly curated by Melanie Micir! The Rosenbach will be hosting its annual outdoor reading all day on June 16th. If you'd like a different take on Joyce, head over to 17th and Delancey to Plays and Players, which will be running Patrick Fitzgerald's dramatic adaptation of Ulysses, Gibraltar, a moving retelling of the Blooms' love story.

Finally, I'm sure you've been following the work of Rob Berry and Josh Levitas on Ulysses Seen, a comic book adaptation of Joyce's novel. They've been releasing new pages for Calypso every week since May, with the entirety of the episode due to be up by Bloomsday -- just in time for the release of their iPad app! Rob will be speaking with Patrick Fitzgerald and Mike Barsanti on June 15th at Plays and Players on the joys and challenges of adapting Ulysses.

And now...the really big news for this month: the Philly Finnegans Wake Reading Group is up to page 85!

Pages covered: 81-85

We began trying to figure out who "the pair" consisted of. "The pair" hearkens back to a number of possible formulations: HCE and the cad, Buckley and the Russian General, Napoleon and Wellington, Shem and Shaun -- all figures of conflict and attempts to overthrow the guy in power ("struggled apairently"). The Shem/Shaun conflict -- brother on brother and son on father -- will recur over the course of the pages we read. This is also placed within the larger context of war, imperialism, slavery. References to World War I appear ("tipperuhry"), as does the abolition of the slave trade in England ("six victolios fifteen pigeon"). Of course the same story is told again and again (as we'll see next month when we work on the Festy King), and as the two men struggle over who will give money for drink, the conflict echoes HCE's fight in the park and his fall, and the spirits echo his resurrection: "after the solstitial pause for refleshment, the same man (or a different and younger him of the same ham)" -- note the Ham reference again, too -- Noah's son who shamed his father's drunkenness.

Conflict and struggle is also caught up with language here; the two are inextricably linked in "collidabanter." One of the pair becomes HCE on the bottom of page 82, as we can tell from the stutter ("Woowoo would," "mohomoment") and the use of "hesitency." Interestingly, the explicit reference to HCE and his trouble also brings about more explicit references to language, law, and religion, and the connections among them: "Which at the very first wind of gay gay and whiskwigs wick's ears pricked up, the starving gunman, strike him pink, became strangely calm and forthright sware by all his lards porsenal that the thorntree of sheol might ramify up his Sheofon to the lux apointlex...(in the Nichtian glossary which purveys aprioric roots for aposteriorious tongues this is nat language in any sinse of the world...)." Violence and force and language and religion all come together here: language and sin are joined. The scene shifts to the pub (or several pubs), where "gamy queen Tailte" says she'd know our hero anywhere "in or out of the lexinction of life."

The next scene is an elaborate boxing match: "his face all covered with digonally redcrossed nonfatal mammalian blood as proofpositive of the seriousness of his character and that he was bleeding in self defience." Then we leave these arenas of masculine conflict both in word and deed (men created language AND war) and see ALP: "leaving clashing ash, brawn, and muscle and brassmade to oust earthernborn and rockcrystal to wreck isinglass but wurming along gradually for our savings backtowards motherwaters so many miles from bank and Dublin stone." All of the fighting, and the arrival on the scene of the woman who might end it, prepares us for the Festy King section next: "His ALPenstuck in his redhand, a Highly Commendable Exercise, or, number two of our Acta Legitima Plebeia, on the brink...of taking a place upon a public seat."

Notes from the April 2011 Meeting and Happy Summer!

Again, a million thanks to Chris Murphy for creating this month's post!

Join us for our May meeting (just squeaking in!) on Tuesday, 5/31 at 7 p.m. We'll be moving our gatherings to weekday evenings to accommodate folks' summer weekends out of town.

Pp. 79-81
Opening with the paragraph reading, “Ladies did not disdain those pagan ironed times…”

We opened this week with the narrative voice that presents a reading of history as a “Fact” (79). Why did ladies “not disdain those pagan ironed times…(79)? It is suggested that sexual freedom was less regulated for woman in these pre-Christian pagan or iron[age] times (the Irish Iron Age and pre-history end at roughly the same time Christianity was introduced into the country, 400-500 AD). In these times, “the whole wives’ world [whole wide world was] frockful of fickles” and “…any human inyou” [being – yet also inghen – Gaelic for young woman/daughter] could be had “any erenoon or [a]fter” (79). Woman were Venuses, “gigglibly temptatrix” [giggling temptrasses] to their “guffawably eruptious” Vulcan male counterpart [loud, boisterous, erupting laugh – also god awful, but nevertheless, the world was full of laughter]. Sexual union is likened to religion here, Venus and Vulcan being Roman deities [married in some myths]. The bodkins of this section, we read as those of knitting tools – such that when the woman in this section “take [their] bare godkin out, or an even pair of hem” [hem = them, but also hem as in sowing/stitching], they are letting their hair down (bodkins that hold up woman’s hair). That the bodkins are referred to as a “godkin” returns to the concept of sexual union and religion in the reading of “prettily pray with him (or with em even)” (79). God’s children [god/kin], here, “prettily pray” [pray, as in prayer, but also “play” or “lay” as in sexual union with, sometimes, multiple partners “with him (or with [th]em even) everyhe to her taste. Regardless, it is her taste that decides who “she’d woo and wills she’s win but how the deer knowed where she’d marry!” (79). But we have transitioned away from the pre-history. We are now in times of recorded history: ABCD or 123 [“Arbour, bucketroom, caravan, ditch? + “Tip!” “Tiptip!” “Tiptiptip!”].

It is in the next paragraph that we encounter “Kate Strong, a widow” (79). She has a recorded image of “old dumplan [Dublin] as she nosed [knows or smelt] it.” It is in the form of a “lane picture” [Sir Hugh Lane?] or a dreariodreama [dreary diorama+dream]. The picture shows “a homelike cottage of elevenstone” [HCE] that has fallen into decline: “droppings of biddies, [animal excrement] stinkend pusshies, [stinking pussies-cats?] moggies’ [slang for cat, cow and prostitute] duggies, [doggies, which seems odd that duggies are possessed here by the moggies’] rotten witchawubbles, [rotten vegetables, witches?]…” (79) etc. Disease is spreading in the form of “salmonfarious germs” [salmonella, somniferous meaning to cause sleep/death, or omniferous meaning multiple forms of] in gleefully through the smithereen panes [window panes broken into small fragments most likely by the “beggars’ bullets” – rocks]. Kate is a collector of trash. She “did most all the scavenging from good King Hamlaugh’s [Hamlet’s] gulden dayne” [Good while using her “lean besom” [broom, but also un-plump/shriveled breast] to clean “sparingly” (79).

The narration in the next page competes between at least two voices: a narrator that seemingly wants to construct a history of events and the voice of an Irish peasant woman, presumably Kate. This narrator tells of the changes in the name of the area with the introduction of Christianity – “Finewell’s Keepsacre [Fine and well, keep sacred / keepsake] to “tautaubapptossed Pat’s Purge” [baptized and St. Patrick’s legends]. The “Serpentine in Phornix Park” [snake shaped path, Phoenix Park + fornicate] lacks pavement – “macadamised Sidetracks” (80), but a natural path like the “Bryant’s Causeway” [Giant’s Causeway] bordered with various flowers and plants.. The historian tells of the area surrounding Kate’s “filthdump” (80) in context to the incident in the park - “where the plaintiff was struck” (80), a place where various forms of “elbowdents” [evidence] were “explored to trace a “most envolving description” (80). It is in this place, possibly, that ALPs lost letter rests “a loveletter lostfully hers, that would be lust on Ma, than then when ructions ended” (80). The ending of this paragraph returns us to the previous: lust and religion return, yet with a twist. Religion here, it seems is utilized pragmatically to control and regulate the sexual freedoms of the previous age – “by four hands and forethought the first babe of reconcilement” [Christ child?] becomes an extension to “hume sweet hume” [Empiricism & David Hume] (80). Kate, interjects that this time is gone and there is no good recounting it. “Give over it! And no more of it!” (80). The aforementioned “ironed times” (79) have passed. There may be longing for the past, but it depends on interpretation of the final line of the paragraph. “O[h] men!” (80) as though it is a criticism of the Christian era that ended those ironed times that woman did not disdain (79) – yet is can also be read as an “O[men]!” of things to come – or also an affirmation of acceptance the age is passed: “Amen!” (80). It is probably all three if not more.

The historian voice returns in the second paragraph of p.80, explaining this consortium of religions [Allhighest a common title of Zeus, krischnians = Christians + the Hindu god Krishna] to control sexuality: “…propaganda fidies and his nuptial eagles…” [propagate + propaganda faiths and marriage ceremonies]. The line “every morphyl man of us, pome by pome, falls back into this terrine” (80) reflects on this, but requires much unpacking first. Pomme de terre is French for potato, meaning apple of the earth, which corresponds to Murphy [morphyl], Hiberno-English slang for potato. The apple’s [pomme] fall resonates with Newtonian laws that govern motion on Earth. Man’s fall from Eden and the apple’s fall seemingly both give rise to laws and regulations. Mortal men are reminded of this fall “pome by pome” – poem by poem – hymn by hymn until all memory of the past ways is washed into “obluvial” [oblivion] by the “noarchic” waters (80). Kate interjects again to close this paragraph. She is seemingly yelling at people she caught acting inappropriately. The language is highlighted with sexual innuendo around a tramstop [“pennyfares” + Chapelizod/Issy-la-Chappelle + Lucan]: “What are you doing your dirty minx and his big treeblock way up your path… And gish! how they gushed away” (80). It seems as though those that “scampered” off were rather young, school children, “little pirlypettes!” (80) and may have included Issy. Interestingly enough, the tram stop that personifies Issy “Chapelizod/Issy-la-Chappelle” preceeds ALP, the next stop “Any lucans¸please?” (80).

We paused for a moment at the top of 81 while examining the presence of HCE and ALP “his corns either. Look at all the plotsch!” (81). Look at all the plots! Really? “Yes,” (81), the paragraph begins similar to Molly’s soliloquy in Ulysses but does not appear to offer any affirmations, however. It seems as though where Molly may chose her path, the speaker in this section has no such choice. The speaker is on “tramstrack” [tram-tracks] that can only lead down one rhederhoad [carriage road]. “O Adgigasta, multipopulipater!” [the giant father of many populations] is in his mausoleum behind the speaker who continues down the path of other civilazations past: “Hannibal’s walk” [Roman tradition] of “Hercules work” [Greek creation]. There is a cry to “Halte” [stop] and this interlude paragraph ends giving way to the voice familiar from the first paragraph discussed in this month’s reading.

We only had time to work through part of the next paragraph (spanning pages 81-84). We concluded for this meeting with the line “Let me go, Pautheen! I hardly knew ye” (82). The paragraph begins with a 21 line sentence. The narrator may have returned the reader to the opening scene of Finnegans Wake: “It was hard by the howe’s there, plainly on this disoluded and buchan cold spot” [It was heard by the Howth ‘ere, (it may be house as well) plainly on this desolate or cold spell” (81). The narration begins to set up the tale of an attack based on mistaken identity. The “attackler” either intoxicated or sick “between colours with truly native pluck” (81) confronted his perceived adversary - “Oglethorpe or some other ginkus” [giant?] resembling Michelangelo (81). Maybe in the retelling of this story, the narrator is reluctant use the same language of the incident because “sacrilegious languages” are blotted out, substituting “b—y [and] b—r” for bloody and buggar. We may have entered a formal setting. Regardless, there was an attack that took place here, with the attacker “catching holst [hold] of an oblong bar he had…with which he usually broke furnitures” waving this bar/pipe at the his adversary in a fashion that meant battle “whethertheywere Nippoluono engaging Wei-Ling-Taou” [Napoleon engaging Wellington] or “de Razzkias trying to reconnoistre the general Boukeleff” [the Russians and Buckley which will be reexamined in Book II] (81). The shorter of the two was holding a “portable distillery” while the “toller” (82) [taller] cried “Let me go, Pautheen! [Whiskey] I hardly knew ye” (82). This is where we left off for the meeting.

Lots to look forward to in the next meeting: whiskey, fighting, religion, desire - join us for our May meeting [barely!] if you b—y well dare!

Notes from the March 2011 Meeting

March Notes: 75-79

We had a larger group this meeting, so we felt it best to return to the closing lines of Book I Chapter III and the first few lines of Chapter IV. HCE is buried. The slow, sentimental prose of falling rain “Sdrops” that concludes chapter three has created a “teargarten” grave for HCE as we move into chapter four (74-5). Chapter four opens “As the lion in our teargarten remembers the nenuphars of his Nile…” We presumed the lion here refers to HCE, who sleeps inside of his grave. His grave is a tear garden, but also a tiergarten [German for zoo], a place of captivity. As a lion thinks of the days outside the zoo walls – “remembers the nenuphars [flower – lotus/water lily] of his Nile” (75), HCE remembers the days before his imprisonment. He “bedreamt” [dreams/remembers] those “lililiths [1. note HCE’s stutter, 2. Lilith – first wife of Adam: threat to patriarchal order and male sexuality, and 3. lily resonating with the nenuphars] undeveiled which had undone him” [dreams of those girls unveiled which caused his fall] while he pays no attention to “the watchful treachers at his wake” (79).

The opening page is characterized by the excessive use of Dutch and also paired words. JP consulted a JJQ article by Geert Lernout, “Dutch in Finnegans Wake.” He suggests the language in 1.4 is to “Dutchify” HCE, render him foreign in another way. Many of Joyce’s references to Holland are negative, it being (like England) a Protestant imperialist country. Much of Joyce’s use of Dutch is Afrikaans-Dutch, a language spoken by colonizers in South Africa. Lenout notes that many Irish found the political situations of Ireland and South Africa to be similar. As for the language doubles, 28 [possibly 29] appear on page 75 alone [Issy’s 28 classmates?].* The pairings seem to go well with the reading of HCE obsessively replaying the events with the two girls in the park in his rest. The selection of the Nile for this passage’s stream, further plays with this idea of doubles, it having two tributaries, White and Blue. “Marmarazalles from Marmeniere” [Mademoseille from Armentieres] was a popular WWI song among British troops, noted for its saucy lyrics relating to a tavern-keeper’s daughter.

We noticed an odd poetic meter that introduces the HCE’s children as well as the Tristam and Iseult legend: “the fields of heat and yields of wheat where corngold Ysit? shamed and shone.” Corn [wheat], is a key characteristic of Iseult, but the presence of shamed and shone [Shem and Shaun] suggest that Ysit could read Issy. (75). It is with this rhyming line that the paragraph changes in focus. Whereas the narrator makes the initial claim that HCE “knew not the watchful treachers at his wake” this claim is recanted. “It may be, [we have to look up a bit in] our good township’s [newspapers]” if he was “conscious of enemies” particularly that of his “wordwounder” a man similar to William the Orange “kingbilly whitehorsed” was spreading evil throughout the country with a “distinguished dynasty of…posteriors [children], blackfaced connemaras not of the fold but elder children of his household…”(75-6). We noticed the precence of William the Orange within the latter half of p. 75, “kingbilly whitehorsed” [white horses being those of English rulers and royalty]. The release of terror into this society creates the need to submit to authority over time for the benefit of the whole: the rise to the motto of Dublin “the obedience of the citizens help the health of the whole” (76).

The first paragraph open ubiquitously: “Now gode” [it can be read as follows wholly changing the context of the paragraph: Now good, Now go, or Nou goed meaning All right in Dutch, No good, No god, Now god, etc. The narrator instructs us to “leave theories there and return to here’s here. Now hear [Listen] ‘Tis gode again [It’s good again, It’s God again]. There is talk of the teak coffin “removed from the hardware premises of Oetzmann and Nephew” (66) reenters the text. It appears as though “a number of conservative bodies” having gone through all the regulations of laws and channels of bureaucracy [committees, voting, proper resolution, koorts (court’s) order, groundwet (constitution)] are attempting to use this coffin to transport HCE from his “protem grave in Moyelta” [temporary grave] “while his body still persisted.” He is to be taken “once and for all out of plotty existence” (76). But just like the second half of the paragraph, something “fairly fishy” has happened with “erst curst Hun.” (76).

In the next paragraph spanning 76-77 the grave site is introduced as an “underground heaven or mole’s paradise.” We discussed two aspects that seem to operate hand in hand in this section. 1. issues of destruction and war and 2. the presence of harvest and festivals. In regard to the former, the group discussed whether or not underground bunkers or tunnels were present in Joyce’s time. We are brought into the destruction of war as we move to page 77 – hydromine, T.N.T. bombingpost, aerial thorpeto, minefield, sheildplated gunwale, tripupcables, etc. indicate the outbreak of war and violence (77). What is most interesting in this regard is the reminder that the “masterbilder” is the one that “openly damned and blased by means of a hydromine” (77). The masterbuilder creates but also creates objects that destroy like the weapons of war catalogued in this paragraph. In another regard, however, we noted that in a continuation of “Donawhu” legend (75) [O’Donoghue from Irish folklore linked to good harvests]. We have a phallopharos [penis god?] who’s “inversion” intends to “foster wheat crops and to ginger up tourist trade” (76). And in the midst of the war imagery, the two harvest festivals of pagan Ireland are represented in “Sowan and Belting” [Samhain – close of harvest – November 1; Bealtaine – Spring Festival – May 1]. Regardless, at the end of the section, a stone slab is placed over HCE’s grave and he is given “a very fair-worded instance of falsemeaning adamelegy: We have done ours gohellt with you, Heer Herewhippit, overgiven it, skidoo!” [We are done with you – Go to Hell – Mr. Herewhippit/Earwicker, get lost!].

My notes consist of household objects, things that could be given as gifts, and Dutch names of various meats. Maybe he is quarantined in “t’house” where he remains “safeathomely” (77, 78) in his “presenile days.” (78). As HCE falls into a thousand year sleep (hypnos chilia eonion) “explosions and reexplosions” of thunder [Donnaurwatteur = Thunderweather; Hunderthunder = Hundred Thunders] strike the Earth. The Grand age ends and lots of deaths are anticipated? [78]. These paragraphs seem to signify HCE, after his death and burial, passing into myth and “culture,” an object of study. The voice(s) become reminiscent of tour guides, historians, summarizers, village explainers. “Look at all the things he had, all the junk that now becomes artifacts, that he used to live his totally ordinary life.” The reference to “Boughtenland” is another link to the Netherlands, a commercial empire, land of traders and hoarders.

The last section of this months notes contained lots of death, burial, decomposition, and putrefication / petrification of dry rotting bodies. The war continues with “The other spring offensive” (78). It seems as though this is a civil war between “New South Ireland and Vetera Uladh [Ancient Ulster]. “Foughtarundser” presumably HCE [Vater Unser – Our Father] has been buried seven times mirroring that of Cian in Finntown, a mythical Irish chief whose body was rejected by the Earth seven times. But HCE has been buried in a “watery grave” now for “three monads” [months, but also Monads; Giordano Bruno’s 3 Monads: 1. God 2. Souls 3. Atoms] (78). Both sides seem represent factions of the same “Celtiberian camps” and view their respective sides as having the favor the “eternals [who were] owlways on their side” (78). Imagery includes terminology and references to the American Civil War. One “grant ideas” [Ulysses S. Grant’s ideas?] grunted is “With the Pope or On the Pope” a reference to the Second Battle of Bull Run, where General John Pope told his soldiers to “Come back with their shields or on their shields.” Man’s violence continues. But as we move to page 79, it may be that during these times “involved in darkness” [enveloped in darkness] “falsesight[ings] of HCE, the “first old wugger of himself in the flesh” [sightings of HCE in the flesh] “circulated freely” – yet others suggest his is “hibernating” and with a lot of fish references [rainbow trout, roach/carp, minnow, salmon], “secretly and by suckage feeing on his own misplaced fat” (79).

This is where we broke for March. HCE is buried, but sightings and rumors complicate his death or hibernation. Our hero is gone. The world is at war. We do not speak Dutch. We can’t go on. We’ll go on.

*1. Nenuphars/Nile 2. Ariuz/Arioun 3. Boghas/baregams 4. Marmarazalles/Marmeniere
5. Brievingbust 6. Besieged/bedreamt 7. Stil/solely 8. Undeveiled/undone 9. Watchful/wake
10. Fooi/fooi. 11. Zeepyzoepy 12. Larcenlads 13. Zijnzijn/Zijnzijn 14. May/moest
15. Wheat/where 16. shamed/shone 17. want/we 18. wasted/within 19. broadsteyne/’bove
20. Twillby/Twillby 21. hellof/hours 22. Wordwounder 23. nomened/Nash
24. weeping/world 25a. kreepons-kneed (not sure if this counts due to different “k” sounds - would still fit though creating 28 + Issy = 29). 25b. milk/music 26. married/missusses 27. might/mercy 28. distinguished/dynasty

Two for the Price of One: Reports from January and February

Join us for our next meeting: Sunday, March 27th from 4-6. We're up to page 76!

Pages covered: 70-76 (Book I, Chapters 3 and 4)

So, the big news from our February meeting is we cracked Chapter 4. We paused to marvel at the beautiful rain language at the end of Chapter 3 (p. 74), looked ahead a bit to what we might expect in the new chapter, and reflected on what we'd just finished.

In that vein, we'll go back to January to catch us up. The closing pages of Chapter 3 (69-72) situate HCE in a long line of invaders, violators, and malefactors. He is part of this history, but he is also subject to some very creative insults. We get HCE's "long list (now feared in part lost) to be kept on file of all abusive names he was called" (71.5), an encyclopedia, a litany, a travesty of Pseudo-Dionysius's list of the names of God and Adam's imperative to name (70.36). The list also reveals HCE's--what? paranoia? persecution complex? legitimate concern that people are out to get him? The list shows that people think he is a drunk, a Protestant, a lunatic, an artist, a murderer, a bigamist. Yet he does not respond: "Anarchistically respectsful of the liberties of the noninvasive individual, did not respond a solitary wedgeword beyond such sedentarity, though it was as easy as kissanywhere for the passive resistant in the booth he was in to reach for the hello gripes" (72.16-20). The Mookse and the Gripes are referenced here (and will feature in Chapter 6), as well as bit further down: "That more than considerably unpleasant bullocky before he rang off drunkishly pegged a few glatt stones, all of a size, by way of final mocks for his grapes, at the wicket in support of his words that he was not guilphy but, after he had so slaunga vollayed, reconnoitering through his semisubconscious the seriousness of what he might have done had he really polished off his terrible intentions finally caused him to change the bawling" (72.26-32).

The shifts from insults to the threats of physical force back to mocking, words, slangish volleys--all point to the relationship between naming, cursing, and violence. Odysseus ("nobodyatall") and the Cyclops ("Wholyphamous"--note also the contrast between being a nobody and being wholly famous, or even infamous, a contrast that characterizes HCE's experience of fame and shame) make an appearance, as does HCE's stutter ("cocoa come outside to Mockerloo"--Mockerloo again bringing together mocking/insults/violence through language and actual violence/warfare in Waterloo). Cursing is visible in gesture, too: "bit goodbyte to their thumb" (73.5-16). Throughout this passage, cursing, voices, language, "duff and demb institutions" appear (73.20): "Gog's curse to thim," "manjester's voice" (we liked that one), "(Et Cur Heli!)".

From these curses, there is a shift in tone at the end of page 73, one that resonates with history and stories of kingship. We realized that underlying pages 72-73, which formed the bulk of our discussion at the February meeting, is Macbeth: sound and fury signifying nothing. With the end of a king comes the end of civilization and its institutions, and the voice becomes a means for cursing. (Speaking of Shakespeare, you'd be right to hear Caliban here, too, and Prospero with his own complicated kingly role.)

As HCE is buried at the end of Chapter 3, silence falls among stones, quiet except for the sound of the rain: "so witness his chambered cairns a cloudletlitter silent" (73.39). Perhaps too this scene echoes "The Dead," with rain instead of snow: "A testament of the rocks from all the dead unto some of the living" (73.43). There are also allusions to resurrection, kings that will return--Finn MacCool, Arthur, Parnell--and the covenant that is part of such a promise--Abraham ("Allprohome": the patriarch and a reference to Home Rule--a lot of this too has to do with a people betrayed by its rulers, alluding to English colonial rule over Ireland, something that will come back with the William of Orange references in Chapter 4).

The drops falling on HCE under the stones at the end of Chapter 3 become the "teargarten" and the Nile of the beginning of Chapter 4. HCE dreams of the girls: "tots wearsense full a naggin twentyg...those lililiths undeveiled which had undone him." William of Orange is the dominant figure on page 75: Joyce uses a lot of Dutch here to conjure the "noninvasive individual."

And that's where we sdopped. Join us on 3/27!

Back from Holiday Hiatus: Report from the November Meeting

Join us for our next meeting: Sunday, January 23, 4-6 p.m. at the Starbucks on 4th and South!

And now...here's your update.

Pages Covered: 66-69 (Book I, Chapter 3)

Two major threads emerged from this meeting's discussion: the relationship among the siblings Shem, Shaun, and Issy and their parents/progenitors; and male/female authorship. Focusing on these two elements give us insight into plot, character, and theme, but they are also connected; Issy's female voice competes with those of her brothers, providing an alternative and disruptive model for authorship. Parenthood and authorship offer complementary and competing ways of thinking about creation.

Each of the siblings appears in their multiple forms here: the brothers are Cain and Abel, Mick and Nick, Mutt and Jute, pen and post. Issy is revealed in all the shapes she takes: snow, rain and cloud ("the Nivynubies' finery ball"); the girl who will become a woman; the daughter who turns into her mother. Issy is a temptress, and language around prostitution, adultery, and masturbation is used to talk about her: "Finding one day while dodging chores that she stripped teasily for binocular man and that her jambs were jimpjoyed to see each other, the nautchy girly soon found her fruitful hat too small for her and rapidly taking time look she rapidly took to necking, partying, and selling her spare favours in the haymow" (68). We noticed echoes of "Nausicaa" here too.

Similarly to that chapter in Ulysses, we thought about this section has having something to say about female voice and authorship: "(there are certain intimacies in all ladies' lavastories we just lease to imagination)" (68). As elsewhere in the text, parentheses are important for what they hide and reveal. Ladies' lavatories (recall Swift's Celia) hide intimacies that are part of the male imagination, but so do their love stories. Here we shift into something that more resembles Molly's chapter in Ulysses: a love story that can only be imagined.

This section then makes a familiar move: it goes from the microcosm of the sibling relationship, to the larger world of the family romance, to the cosmic vision of the family unit within history. We are brought out into the "dearmud" of Irish history, which is connected to the crime of HCE: "poor pucker packing to perdition, again and again, ay, and again sfidare him, tease fido, eh tease fido..." (68). We see here again the cycles of family/national/universal history as the parents and children are single and all: "A reine of the shee, a shebeen quean, a queen of pranks. A kingly man, of royal mien, regally robed" (68). HCE and ALP are king and queen, even in their fall.

Speaking of falling, our discussion concluded with Milton and Paradise Lost. HCE and ALP are king and queen, but they are also the fallen couple. Animals make an appearance on page 69, goats, hogs, kids, donkeys, goats (gout!), cats--humans have the power to name, to author, in Eden, a power that is taken away and granted again, over and over. So the garden is "triplepatlockt on him on purpose by his faithful poorters to keep him inside probably and possibly enaunter he felt like sticking out his chest too far and tempting gracious providence by a stroll on the peoplade's eggday" (69). Versions of HCE and his family let him in and expel him, raise him up and make him fall, in an endless cycle of pre/postlapsarianism. Temptation, fall, and resurrection comprise key themes in these passages, as elsewhere.