Thanks to Jen!
pp. 111-113
We began on page 111 with the question “Why then how?” and a description of a melted negative of a picture of a horse, which is reminiscent of the first picture taken of a subject in motion: a horse with all four legs off the ground. The narration here is in a pompous voice, perhaps that of a lecturer. The distortion of the negative ties in with the misinterpretations of the letter. When ALP’s letter was pulled out by the chicken, it was accompanied by a distorted photo. The partially melted negative of a horse is a reminder of horses melted down into glue, and also brings to mind the idea that the negative could have been distorted from the heat produced by a trash heap or compost pile, out of which the letter was picked by the hen. Chris (I think?) noted that horses appear in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in Mr. Deasy’s office where he has a print of Great Horses of History.
[Janine adds: One thing of interest to me here too is the nature of the artifact: the negative, the letter. The thing we're trying to interpret has a materiality, a form, and a maker. The matter of meaning v. the physical matter of the artifact. The other thing we've noticed generally is the clearest language in the Wake is often the language being used to clarify the unclarifiable. In other words: the parts we see as being easiest to read and decipher are the parts explaining something we'd struggled with for a half-hour.]
We discussed how there are multiple levels of distortion in every story as it evolves from the original through the varying interpretations and repetitions of the story. Joyce also uses the word “targum” to reference the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew bible. This led to discussion of the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Even the stories of the Old Testament are transformed and given new meaning and significance by the New Testament. Later in the same paragraph, Joyce refers to “Zingari shoolerim,” Gypsy scholars whose interpretations of the gospels changed the original meaning of the Old Testament.
The final line in this same paragraph uses the phrase “auld hensyne,” which is reminiscent of auld lang syne. We discussed “auld” meaning gold or golden, and “hensyne” referring to hen speak, hen scratchings, or simply hearsay. [Janine adds: There's also the "Tip" throughout, which hearkens us back to Kate, p. 79.] That would place importance on the hen digging up ALP’s letter and on what the letter has to say.
It seems that the more the letter is discussed in this section, the more convoluted it becomes. The more opinions added to the mix, and the more interpretations offered, the more difficult it becomes to navigate back to the actual meaning or topic at hand. This led us to discuss the chicken and the egg and how that idea contributes to our understanding of history. In this case, which came first: the story or the letter? Joyce refers to the hen in terms of “her genesic field,” leading us to believe that the hen is where this story originated.
On page 112, Joyce writes, “…but any of the Zingari shoolerim may pick a peck of kindlings yet from the sack of auld hensyne.” The use of the phrase “pick a peck” led us back to the tongue twister “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” The tongue twister itself is nonsense: if a pepper is pickled, then it’s already been picked. [Janine adds: Again, chicken/egg.] Therefore, the wordplay becomes more important than the meaning. Perhaps Joyce is hinting at the idea that what is said in the letter is nonsense or of no importance; rather, the interpretations and varying iterations of the letter’s story are what is truly important here. [Janine adds: wordplay came up again on p. 113 with "No minzies matter." We heard echoes of Lewis Carroll here: "All mimsy were the borogroves." Wordplay/nonsense don't matter -- don't signify -- except in and of themselves.]
Also, the action being taken in “pick a peck of kindlings” is to choose a shard or fragment from a larger pile of many such pieces. In spreading gossip, frequently we choose just the parts that are of interest to us personally, or just the parts we find most compromising or scandalous for the others involved. Likewise, we choose what we remember. Just as the gospels are four retellings of overlapping events, our memories are different versions of what happened according to individual people. [Janine adds: p. 112: "It is not a hear or say of some anomorous letter" -- amorous, anonymous, recall Woolf's "Anon."]
Janine picks up here for a bit:
We also saw pp. 112-113 cycling back to the family story. The hen, scratching out her letter, "was kind of born to lay and love eggs (trust her to propagate the species and hoosh her fluff balls safe through din and danger!)." We've talked in the past about feminine discourse, feminine writing, and we saw this at work in the paragraph beginning "Lead, kindly fowl!" -- which opens the door to said feminine discourse. Possibly also androgyny: "she is ladylike in everything she does and plays the gentleman's part every time." Acting? Taking the gentleman's part, ie, supporting/defending him? She not only writes but reads: "Biddy Doran looked ad literature."
Female reading continues on page 113, and we saw the end of the paragraph (continuing from 112) as hearkening back to the family. "She is not out to dizzledazzle"; unlike "adamologists" (in the beginning was the word, naming, adamantine, male) "she feel plain plate one flat fact thing." The thunderword ("Thingcrook etc. -- we saw thing, lex -- light, reading -- pasture, him around her, kin) brings us back to the family, and to HCE: "He had to see life foully the plak and the smut"; "There were three men in him" (testicles etc. but also the two sons within the father); "apple harlottes" and "little mollvogels"; "Treestone with one Ysold." Again -- after the thunderword, we're reminded of the main plot, and offered a bit of clarity as plot moves ahead of interpretation.
