Report from the September Meeting

Thanks to Chris Murphy for contributing the post! Don't forget our next meeting: October 24th, 4 to 6, the Starbucks at 4th and South -- see you there!

Beginning at the bottom of page 59 “See I crack, so, he sit in the poele…”

Continuing with themes from the last few sessions, p.59 through the bottom of p.60, we share the sentiment of the “perspirer” who knows “ho har twa to clect infamatios” (how hard it was to collect information), as we receive more information from passer-by types being asked to testify their accounts of HCE’s reputation, ranging from: “the skalot shame” it would be to “jailahim in lockup…with ehim being [a n]orphan and enjoining such wicked illith(health)” to exoneration, placing blame on “Them two bitches [who] ought to be leashed.” To a 17-year-old revivalist, the coincident (coincidence-incident) of “interfizzing” [interacting] “with grenadines (grenadiers) and other respectable and disgusted peersons using the park” is bad enough. “That perpendicular person is a brut! [as she insinuates HCE, in a perpendicular, erect, form |_|_| as a peering + person = peerson]. But a magnificent brut!" Each passers-by's testimony is suspect; of course there is drinking: grenadine, fizzing, brut. An unnamed “wouldbe martyr” also chimes in, but only after being “grilled” on the subject. Possible associations to fraudulent testimonies under electro-shock torture, as his grilling comes while he is “taught/thought” to wear bracelets” and is in discussion of “shadowers torrified" (terrified or tortured-fried) by “potent bolts of indradiction (Indra the Zeus-like Indian God or – lightning talk)."

We discussed how the chaos of the streets creates a need for an authoritative regulation of morality. Without fear of lightning (indradiction) “there would be fighting all over Cuxhaven.” And with no clear law recorded to punish HCE, Sylvia Silence, the girl detective, suggests “he should pay the full penalty…as pew Subsec. 32, section 11, of the C.L.A. Act 1885,” the law that sent Oscar Wilde to prison. Wilde’s figure epitomizes this regulation in terms of human sexuality. Wilde’s shadow, as we discussed, is present throughout pp.60-61. “We have meat two hourly,” which reminded the group of De Profundis “I have met too late or too soon,” the “C.L.A act of 1885,” “that sheew gweatness was his twadgedy,” written with an influx of Wilde letters that stand in for R’s. It seems, as Meagher notes, there is something more at work, a “siege of his trousers.” Keeping with interchanging letters signifying errors and shadowy signifiers, p.61 also features repetitions of q-p and p-q, pints and quarts, “Questa and Puella, piquant and quoite.” The mirroring of the expressions reminded the group of Issy looking in the mirror. And interestingly enough, Puella is Latin for girl – but if the p were to take its q mirror image, completes the Italian phrase questa and quella: this and that.

The bottom of p. 61 creates a shift in the text, in subject matter and in style. The collection of information, for now, “is now all seen heard [and] forgotten.” The language of the text shifts as well. We noticed that while the previous section focused on the pronouns “I” and “you,” (58-61) the bottom of p. 61 creates a shift that carries over through p. 63 to “we” and “us.” Who are the we and us in the shift? Well, they are we ourselves, us, along with our self-reflective text/narrative that reminds us, that “We seem…to be reading our Amenti [Book of the Dead] in the sixth sealed chapter,” FW being a book of the dead itself, is reminding us that chapter six, the Quiz Show, is still sealed, in that we haven’t read it yet, and while we think we may have answers, we do not yet know the questions.

The narration warns us, on pp.61-62 about the flaws of the testimonies given, being “fables” of “la[y]men and their counts” that may “beyessed [or] denayed…given to us by some who use the truth but sparingly…” and with their “proper sins” they will rise up against HCE as if he “as were he made a curse for them…” Lots of imagery to the seafaring on the top of p. 62 “the outraved gales of Atreeatic” the Adriatic Sea, “shipalone, a raven of the wave” possibly remembering the quest that brought HCE to Ireland or a journey that takes him elsewhere now.

This warning introduces us to the “premier terror of Errorland,” which we will now enter. In Errorland starts with what we perceive as an intentionally fabricated “transparingly nontrue” account of HCE's crime in the park told through a Lionel Hutz like-lawyer. This speaker concocts scenarios he is unsure of, yet seems to make up as he moves forward. The story is introduced that HCE “one tall man, humping a suspicious parcel” while walking home may have been attacked with a “revolver placed to his [face] with the words: you’re shot, major, by an unknowable assailant (masked)” who may have been jealous of the girls in the park. This is, of course, followed by a question mark, as though the speaker is working out the story himself as he speaks it. On p. 63 the story continues. The tall man can either be shot or have his face bashed in by this assailant for non-compliance. The speaker stutters “that that that” as he tries to move the possible story forward, and HCE is arrested by a town guard for being out after dark with a bottle of alcohol at Haveyou-caught-emerod’s temperance gateway.

End: page 63 “Haveyou-caught-emerod’s temperance gateway was there in a gate’s way.

October Meeting 10/24

My calendar gadget isn't working, so here's your announcement for the next meeting:

Sunday, October 24, from 4:00-6:00.

Starbucks at 4th and South in Philly.

Be there.

Report from the September meeting coming soon!

NEW VENUE and Notes from the August Meeting

PLEASE NOTE: We'll be meeting upstairs at Starbucks on 4th and South, across the street from Jim's Steaks. (I posed the question "coffee or beer?" to the group to help choose a place...I didn't think to make steaks an option, but perhaps hereafter...)

Pages Covered: 56-59 (Book I, Chapter 3)

We began at the bottom of page 56 noting differences in voices: a philosophical voice v. a narrative voice. This might be seen at the beginning of the last paragraph on page 56: "But in the pragma what formal cause made a smile of that to-think? Who was he to whom? (O'Breen's not his name nor the brown one his maid)" (ll. 31-33). As we've noted elsewhere, the parenthetical often serve to highlight a change in voice. This becomes pretty clear on pages 58-59, when the parenthetical voice starts speaking French and makes commentary on the main text (often slightly lewd).

The fallenness of HCE (Humphry Chimpden Earwicker, Here Comes Everybody, etc.), "the forefarther," and of all men was a focus for these several pages. As HCE's fall is told and retold, ALP (Anna Livia Plurabelle, his wife) is brought in, too: "Before he fell hill he filled heaven: a stream, alplapping streamlet, coyly coiled um, cool of her curls" (57.10-12). This is the vision of ALP as flirty young girl, not as the older troubled wife she becomes. This bringing together of HCE and ALP at the top of page 57 also includes the four old men who judge HCE's fallenness and will spy on HCE and ALP later. Here they appear as Armagh, Clonakilty, Deansgrange, and Barna.

As long as we're bringing in some of the main characters, the next two paragraphs have Shaun and Shem, the sons of HCE and ALP. Shaun is the professorial voice and Shem is the joker. So Shaun says, "Thus the unfacts did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude..." (57. 16-17), commenting on the story of his own father, and the book as a whole. The reference to Lewis Carroll immediately before and after lead us to see how the whole thing is a sort of riddle--"sol slithe dodgsomely" (l.26)--and the Wake is very much indebted to Carroll's version of play and joke-making. Art might be "unfacts," but it lasts.

Of course, Joyce might also be alluding to Carroll's/Dodgson's predilections, with references to "exposure" (sexual? photographic? both?), the "nethermore" (Poe, there too, with "quoth the raven nevermore), the "tata of a tiny victorienne, Alys, pressed by his limper looser" (57.28-29). The riddle and the sin here are part of HCE's story, and the joker (Shem) and the professor (Shaun) are brought together in the figure of Carroll/Dodgson.

Page 58 continues the motif of sin, judgment, and fallenness. The top of the page offers references to Parnell, who fell from power due to his adulterous affair with Katherine O'Shea: "His Thing Mod have undone him: and his madthing has done him man...ulvy came, envy saw, ivy conquered" (ll. 1-2, 5-6). The trajectory of Parnell's fall -- "his muertification and uxpiration and dumnation and annuhulation" (8-9) -- echoes HCE's. The "jostling judgments" of the crowd, those who follow the "evidencegivers," is heard here, too: "Oho, oho, Mester Begge, you're about to be bagged in the bog again. Bugge...But, lo! lo! by the threnning gods, human, erring, and condonable" (16-19). The final trio of words there makes HCE, indicating he is the subject of the paragraph.

The end of page 58 and beginning of page 59 brings back theatrical motifs, which we've seen elsewhere (pages 32-33, 48-50). It seems Joyce uses these motifs to point to social performance, the performative nature of social rituals like trials, to masking and disguising, and here even to highlight the ways beauty can be cheapened: "a goddinpotty for the reinworms and charlattinas" (59.12).

Fascinated? Join us for our next meeting on September 26, Sunday, from 4 to 6!

Change of Venue

Please note the change of venue for the August 12 meeting: Irish Times. 629 South 2nd St. (b/w South St. and Bainbridge) We'll meet downstairs.

Apparently we didn't get drunk enough for Dark Horse.

Notes from the July Meeting/Report from our Foreign Correspondent

Pages Covered: 53-56 (Book I, Chapter 3)

Beginning with the paragraph starting "And there oftafter...," we dove into the ongoing saga of HCE, but other characters made their appearance as well, particularly Shem and Shaun. We realized that the pages we talked about were playing out patterns that recur throughout FW: east v. west, versions of history (Roman, Viking, British colonial, Irish revolutionary) while also bringing in elements of popular culture (theater, advertising, radio) and different religious traditions. The paragraph on p. 53 is notable for its repetition, bringing to the fore HCE's stutter (a sign of his guilt) but also highlighting the structural and linguistic repetition that drives the book: visavis, shoulder to shoulder, maymay rererise in eren, sonsons grandsons. We also noted how syntactic moves, especially the use of parentheticals, point the reader to notice shifts in tone--even in mid-sentence. The parentheticals in this section also comment on the "narrative" as a whole: imitation! conventional! I tell you no story. We think this might be the combination of the HCE story with the presence of his sons, Shem and Shaun, and while the story is being told the brothers offer conflicting commentary, further highlighting the opposition between the two (like Jacob and Esau, Shem and Ham), and the tension between father and sons.

The next two paragraphs bring in Irish history and then different parliaments; the paragraph beginning "Any dog's life" on p. 54 especially uses a multitude of languages and has different political systems embedded in it. This is both a Babel reference, the beginning of history and the beginning of language, but plot-wise it is HCE overhearing tourists in his pub. We experience the languages the way he would: overheard, outside, fragmented.

The next paragraph, "And, Cod, says he with mugger's tears," we were able to pick out bits, but overall it left us bewildered, especially the enormous parenthetical towards the end that breaks up the word "globe": gllll (parenthetical) lobe. But we did think it might be looking ahead to the Nightlessons in Book II, Chapter II: "Maggis, nick your nightynovel!" (Nightynovel being also a reference to FW itself.)

Finally, the long paragraph from pp. 55-56 continues this self-referential motif by talking about how writing, especially writing a life, is a way of dying, of killing something off. The House of HCE, like the House of Agamemnon, is "fallen indeedust," and all that is left is for "biografiends" and "factferreters" to pick over it. There's also a lot of jokes about the pen and the phallus: "his manslayer's gunwielder protended towards that overgrown leadpencil which was soon, monumentally at least, to rise...". At the same time, though, the paragraph is full of references to HCE's resurrection, "phoenix in our woodlessness." Speaking of self-referentiality, there are a bunch of allusions to Ulysses here too, from Stephen's thinking of "manorwombanborn" ("Proteus") to Bloom's "limp father of thousands" ("Lotos Eaters") and the seedcake on Howth ("Lestrygonians"). Joyce is creator and destroyer, writing a world into being which is also part of watching it disappear.

There was also a lot of talk about urination and tall pointy monuments. ::snicker::

One observation was that Joyce takes things we naturally use to order our world--cycles, numbers--and appropriates them into structures to order the world of FW. So if you're used to seeing structures in your everyday life, in both the civilized and natural world, you will see those structures in the book as well--and the boundary between the civilized and natural world is always getting blurred. Which leads me to...

Report from our Foreign Correspondent

Who is me. (That last observation on structures was one I picked up in my travels: credit where credit is due.) A quick note to say that late June/early July is like carnival season for Joyce people, with symposia and summer schools in Trieste, Dublin, Zurich, and elsewhere. I had the opportunity to spend a week working on FW with Terence Killeen, focusing on Book I, Chapter 6, and I'm looking forward to bringing more of what I learned to the group. I also heard an excellent roundtable on the question of whether FW has "integrity": is it as fragmented as we think? as ordered and coherent as we suspect? both??

Please note our next meeting is August 12. You can also keep up with us by friending us on FB here.

We're moving!

Our next meeting is July 8 at Dark Horse Pub, 421 S. 2nd Street, from 7-9 p.m. We're up to page 53! Come for a Guinness and wildly meandering conversation about heretics, Victorian theater, Islam, and masturbation.

AND:

All future updates from meetings will appear in this space. If you'd like to visit the old site, here it is.