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!