November 2011
pp. 98-101
As we move towards the end of the chapter, we are preoccupied once again with gossip and history, with naming and origin. All of Dublin is abuzz -- "Dub's ear wag in every pub of all the citta!" -- and "Wires hummed"; "Mush spread"; "Cracklings cricked"; "Aerials buzzed." The line between history and gossip is blurry, and the world hums with noise: "We were lowquacks did we not tacit turn" (loquacious about the lowest topics; quacking away; certainly not taking a taciturn turn). One of the interesting things about this section is the presence of technologies of communication; we've noted the ways Joyce shifts back and forth between the past, the present, and the future in terms of history, of literature, of empire, and here multiple modes of media exist simultaneously: "Morse nuisance noised." This may be anticipating a more "primitive" mode of communication: ALP's letter, which seems to be foreshadowed here: "an inkedup name and title, inscribed in the national cursives, accelerated, regressive, filiform, turrered, and envenomoloped in piggotry."
This lettristic language does not refer specifically to ALP's letter, but rather to something telling the story of the Viking past of Ireland: there are multiple references to the earliest families, but even the earliest families had themselves to be invaders and/or exiles at one point or another. (Could the "nailing up" of the "inked up name and title" be a reference to Luther, and thus to HCE's Protestantism, another thing that makes him a suspicious figure?) The letter is from a poison pen -- "envenomoloped" -- and has within it a Parnell reference too, "Piggot," the man who crafted the forgeries meant to bring Parnell down. Yet there is "no pentecostal jest about it": the man who is the subject of scrutiny and suspicion is a "skilful learned wise cunning knowledgeable clear profound" leader. HCE has as his background the Scandinavian warriors who overran Ireland, he is an emblem of the blending moves of history, and he will be "wresterected."
Page 100 refers to moments in Anglo-Irish history, a theme we spent quite a bit of time on from the point of view of literary history in thinking about Gawain, as well as the hybridization of language and literatures. Page 101, however, moves into "intimologies" -- the intimate knowledge brought about by the family and its history. The opening of the paragraph on page 101 -- "Do tell us all about" -- echoes the gossip from the page before, but also prefigures the ALP chapter (chapter 8), when the washerwomen call for the story to be told. Women are part of gossip and part of war, and bring their own version of knowledge; family shame parallels national shame: "Every schoolfilly of sevenscore moons or more who know her intimologies and every colleen bawl aroof and every red flammelwaving warwife and widowpeace upon Dublin Wall for ever knows as yayas is yayas how it was Buckleyself...who struck and the Russian generals, da! da!, instead of Buckley who was caddishly struck by him when be herselves." The story of Buckley and the Russian General is combined with the life cycle of women (girls to wives to widows), and the story of HCE and the cad is brought together with that of ALP, herself.
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