Starting at the bottom of p.136, “the mountain view…”
The bottom of page 136 continues with our discussion of the father figure, HCE. We seem to be simultaneously overlooking the city of Dublin from the Wicklow Mountains just south of Baile Átha Cliath (possibly HCE’s feet which, here, are said to be “bally clay” (136.33) but we are also within a Dublin bar. From the mountaintop “mountain view” perspective, we appear to be looking north toward some pale light (“lumin pale”) possibly Dublin and the River Boyne (“boinyn water”) further north of the city from the mountains. Yet, we are also within the bar, receiving the recipe for a hot whiskey: “Lumin pale” (lemon peel), “lamp of succar” (lump of sugar), “boinyn water” (boiling water), and “three shots a puddy” (Paddy’s Irish Whiskey distilled in Cork) (136.36-137.1-2).
We remain in both places at once. Simultaneously standing on rocks and earth minerals (diamond, “garnet” a red colored crystal) but also at “Wynn’s Hotel” (Wynn/Gwyn/ Welsh for “fair” or “white”—equivalent to the Irish “Fionn/Finn”) which returns us to the character HCE, a “Swed Albiony” (an albino from the Nordic country Sweden or a Swedish born Englishman “Albion”)—a porter and father, but also a hero/giant whose buried body creates the city. HCE’s begin to inundate pages 137 & 138: “Hennery Canterel – Cockran eggotisters, limited” “heard in camera and excruciated” “heavengendered, chaosfoedted, earthborn” “honorary captain of the extemporized” “Elder Charterhouse’s,” “excrescence to civilized humanity,” “H.C. Enderson,” hears cricket on the earth,” “has come through all eras.”
But page 137 takes an interesting turn. If we are in Wynn’s Hotel (or Finn’s hotel), we are in an important place within the James Joyce/Nora Barnacle biography: Finn’s Hotel is where a young Nora Barnacle, worked as a chambermaid after she moved from Galway to Dublin, possibly serving up hot whiskeys, “fletch and prities [potatoe skins], fash and chaps [fish ‘n chips]” (137:11) or, more generally, pub grub to Dublin drinkers.
But where this biographical information becomes alarming is in its inclusion of the “Juke” and “Kallikak” studies (137:11-12), pseudonyms given to families studied by eugenicist sociologists Dugdale and Goddard, respectively. Their studies suggested, more specifically, that “crime” and “feeble-mindedness” were genetically inherited traits. While the Juke study examined the link between heredity and criminality, Kallikak study examined a genetic link to feeble-mindedness, a term generally used for all forms of mental deficiency, specifically related to poor moral choices and low intelligence. To read up more on the studies, please click here.
There appears to be some comments hidden within the layers of this section, comments that seem to set up Nora as possibly at fault for the increasingly apparent mental disorder that would consume the couple’s daughter, Lucia. Indeed, setting the scene in Wynn/Finn’s Hotel, where Nora worked as a chambermaid, does seem to suggest Joyce’s “eggo/ego” (137:08) may be troubled, here, with the condition of his daughter. He may be contemplating his own faults for drunkenness and sexual infidelity (which could set him up as a Martin Kallikak with his own sexual fall—having a child out of wedlock with a chambermaid), but reading through it, it feels more as if Joyce is passing blame onto Nora for Lucia’s inherited condition (as Deborah Kallikak—a beautiful but “feebile-minded” chambermaid—according to the eugenics’ studies—produced a family of degenerate males and feeble-minded females.
But we cannot know the real answer. Joyce sets it up as another chicken or egg question—“Hennery Canterel – Cockran, eggoisters, limited.” And the sexually charged language that follows seems to suggest that both husband and wife were engaging in extramarital affairs—the father “plough[ing] it deep on overtime” (sowing seed while staying late after work—wink wink, nudge nudge, say-no-more) and a mother whom “as all evince must have travailed her fair share”—though no evidence is given (possibly linking back to Joyce’s sexual allegations against Nora) (137:08-17).
Yet this story lurking in the subtext seems to be a story that cannot be told openly, just as often happens when couples squabble—they say things to blame the other indirectly—hinted at, but not spelled out entirely. This strategy seems to mirror the comically lighthearted exchange that follows, told between two people with a shared history where memory fills the blanks of private stories—
“not forgetting the time you laughed at Elder Charterhouse’s [HCE’s] duckwhite pants and the way you said the whole township can see his hairy legs…” (137:20-22).
It is only part of the story, the rest of which does not need to be openly discussed. The other person addressed remembers the incident, but does not need to respond, does not need to elaborate on the significance of the story (we assume it is Shem talking about Shaun mocking their father, HCE) but we are denied the background knowledge of the story. It is, instead, a private memory, theirs to “not forget,” and not a part of other families’ history.
It may be that Nora/ALP or Issy/Lucia becomes a “kersse” [curse/Persse O’Reilly, recalling sexual transgression] like that of the “aulburntress” [albatross] in Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” here, a curse that burdens the family, hanging over the “nape” of this Mariner’s neck—though, the image is moving when we stop and consider it—a wife or daughter wrapping her arms around the nape of a husband/father’s neck, holding on, as though in happier times: a loving embrace, but also a curse (137:22-23).
The bottom of page 137 through the top of page 139 seems to run over some of the main themes that have emerged throughout the early parts of the book. Indeed, we have images of Parnell and the Pigott letter, “his year-letter concocted by masterhands of assays, his hallmark imposed by the standard of wrought plate” (137:25-26)—forged “essays,” which also returns us to our recollection of ALP’s letter and the questions of its authenticity throughout the end of Book I, Chapter 4 and throughout Book I Chapter Five. We have illusions to Buckley and the Russian General—“beschotten by a buckeley” (138:13-14), brother battles personified through Jacob & Esau—“kicks lintils when he’s cuppy and casts Jacob’s arroroots” (138:13) and through a contrast between “H.C. Endersen” (136:16)—the storyteller, Hans Christian Anderson and possibly an instance of Shem embodying the father—contrasted to “Ivaun the Taurrible” (136.17)—a Shaun incarnation. We have 4 kings of the British Isles embodied as one entity that “has come through all the eras” (138:30-31) possibly a reference to Mamalujo: William the Conqueror (“woolem the farsed”), Henry VIII (“hahnreich the althe”), Charles II (“charge the sackend”), & Richard III (“writchard the thord”) (138:32-33).
As the first question winds to an end, we have already an understanding regarding whom this question is about. The dominating figure from book 1; the hero of folklore, the father, the “Answer: Finn MacCool!”
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