Report from the June 2012 Meeting

Welcome to the June 2012 report, and happy belated Bloomsday!  If you're following along at home, no, you didn't miss an installment: there was no May 2012 meeting (first one we've missed in like three years! It won't happen again!).

We meet on Wednesday evenings once a month for the rest of the summer; please get in touch if you'd like info on dates/times/venue.  Back to weekends starting in September.

A quick note of Joyce-related news:  the Modernist Versions Project hosted at University of Victoria is doing YoU: Year of Ulysses (#yearofulysses on Twitter).  From now until June 2013 they'll be releasing an episode every two weeks of their digitized first edition of the novel.  The "Telemachiad" was released on Bloomsday, followed by a Twitter chat for readers the following week.  "Calypso" will be released on July 6, followed by a chat on July 13, and so on until next Bloomsday (full schedule on their site).  In addition to the digital edition and chats, the MVP is creating a series of video lectures and podcasts by prominent Joyceans: the first installment is by Robert Spoo, Joyce estate and copyright expert (fittingly enough).  Check out the site for the Modernist Versions Project for more info, and to follow along over the course of YoU.

Onward...

Book I, Chapter 5, pp 113-116:

We saw these pages as bookended by discussion about language and writing, with a lot of stuff about the family drama (and incest) in the middle:  culture, written culture, shared culture, culture of the family (these would be from the paragraph beginning "Let us now" to the paragraph ending "under some sacking left on a coarse cart?").  The connection we saw was for Joyce, the family drama among parents, children, and siblings is an archetypal subject, a foundational story for many cultures; at the same time, many stories, many uses of language, are co-opted by hegemonic or imperialist structures like universities and museums:  teaching can be a form of curating, and curating can be a form of imperialism.  Why can't we all use language and stories like common, ordinary people?  This might seem to be at odds with the entire project of Finnegans Wake, but not really:  Joyce draws on archetypal stories and everyday language, refracting them through history, the unconscious, the dreamworld -- and he expects everyday people to come together and make sense of his text in everyday language.

So the first paragraph we looked at on page 113 is a truncated Psalm: "Let us now praise famous men" -- except our praising here is cut off by official business and interference: "weather, health, dangers, public orders and other circumstances permitting."  We noted a great deal of police presence here -- note the repeated use of forms of "police" on the bottom half of the page (we liked "You are a poorjoist, unctuous to polise nopebobbies," combining "nope" and "bobbies," and the reference to Joyce himself).  This connected, for us, to the surveillance culture of colonial Ireland, but we also started thinking of cultural gatekeepers as policing figures: teachers, curators, critics.  The references to Giordano Bruno/Bruno of Nolan (also the Dublin publisher Browne and Nolan) and to Mick and Nick (Shaun and Shem; Michael the Archangel and the Devil; cf later: "The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies) also allude to the policing of ideas: the burning of Bruno at the stake, censorship, belief/unbelief: "be we mikealls or nicholists...whether browned or nolensed [no-lensed, not able to see], find it devilish hard now and again even to believe itself [perhaps also references to Thomas the Doubter -- belief/knowledge/seeing?]."  The Latin echoes this, too, another quote from Psalms: "Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not...They have hands, but they handle not." These could refer to reading, as well; what struck us was the reference to hands:  curators handle artifacts, but then also Thomas believed when he handled Christ's body.

The last paragraph at the bottom of page 113 starts with "I" and we wondered who the "I" was.  The I could be Shaun?: "I am a worker...You are a poorjoist [Shem?]", thus opening the way to talk about the siblings on pp. 114-115.  Shaun is giving his version of the story, from the point of view of the pragmatic brother: "a tombstone mason, anxious to pleace averyburies [place/please everybody/burial]."      The top of page 114 hints at brotherly conflict: "We cannot say aye to aye.  We cannot smile noes from noes."  The page becomes orderly as the "tombstone mason" speaks:  "One cannot help noticing that rather more than half the lines run north-south...while the others go west-east."  We thought of this as ruled paper, as the gridlines on a map, and also how we read:  Chinese or Japanese goes north-south, Indo-European languages go west-east.  These are the "cardinal points" for language, as "traced words" "run, march, halt, walk, stumble."  The paragraph situates language and writing in history with "incunabula" (pre-Gutenberg books) and "ruled barriers," not just language rules or ruled paper.  This might be "antechristian" -- predating Christianity but also anti.  Language is part of power and empire:  "the homeborn shillelagh as an aid to calligraphy" (reminds me of the old saw: a language is a dialect with an army).  The "advance from savagery to barbarism" could be a joke -- not an advance at all, because we haven't advanced as humanity -- but one of us pointed out it could be Viconian (Yeats got mentioned too) because we go through the cycle from savagery to civilization and then right back to barbarism again.  We also thought again that the language was distinctly curatorial.

We very much liked the end of the paragraph:  "But by writing thithaways end to end and turning, turning and end to end hithaways writing and with lines of litters slittering up and louds of latters slettering down, the old semetomyplace and jupetbackagain from tham Let Rise till Hum Lit.  Sleep, where in the waste is the wisdom?"  We heard echoes of Hamlet and Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife, who was illiterate incidentally), also Yeats ("turning and turning in the widening gyre"), Chutes and Ladders (also known as Snakes and Ladders, an Indian game introduced to England during the Victorian period), letters and litter (the trash-heap where the hen finds the letter), and Eliot's The Wasteland.  "Semetomyplace" struck us as a portmanteau carrying "semiotics," "metonymy," and "cemetery" -- a neat word bringing together Shem the Penman with writing and Shaun the postman (here, tombstone mason).  And Hum Lit, the core general education programs of Oxford and Columbia,  also highlights the curatorial function of criticism, and the ways universities become graveyards for literature.

Pages 114-115 focus on the family drama, not just the relationship between Shem and Shaun but bringing in Issy the sister and possibly the incest taboo.  We talked a bit about Joyce's biography, particularly his relationship with his daughter Lucia (for a cool new take on this, see Mary Talbot's Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, a graphic memoir of her father James Atherton, author of Books at the Wake, which draws substantially on the Lucia story).  This turned into a general conversation about the role of the life in understanding the "identities in the writer complexus."  The top of page 115 turns to Shem and writing: "Say it with missiles then and thus arabesque the page...Why, pray, sign anything as long as every word, letter, penstroke, paperspace is a perfect signature of its own?"  Writing leads into "incestuish salacities among gerontophils, a word of warning about the tenderloined passion hinted at." We have prostituta in herba -- the inexperienced prostitute -- turning into the modest in verbos -- supposedly an echo of Horace but more interesting for the echoes of modesty and verbiage/language.  Because these pages are mainly concerned with language, we thought, the family drama is cast in terms of sexological discourse, scientia sexualis -- "yung and easily freudened in the penumbra of the procuring room" (consulting room becomes brothel) -- "father in such virgated contexts is not always that undemonstrative relative," "pudendascope," "neurasthene nympholept, endocrine-pineal typus, of inverted parentage with a prepossessing drauma present in her past and a priapic urge for congress with agnates before cognates fundamentally is feeling for under her lubricitous meiosis."  This is an amazing parody of sexology and psychoanalytic language.

But really:  "'Tis as human a little story as paper could well carry" (bottom of page 115).  Page 116 goes on with the human story, the little story, which is the story of the Wake:  Buckley and the Russian General at the magazine wall, which is an avatar of HCE the father whose sons want to kill him.  The human family story is embedded in wider human history -- this is why the father HCE also has an avatar as the Russian General, as well as being a Viking and the city of Dublin himself.  We are drawn into the Bolshevik Revolution ("Bulsklivism...this red time of the white terror", could also be Wars of the Roses in England); the "social revolution," "the froggy jew" = l'affaire Dreyfus.  "We are not corknered yet dead hand!" -- one of several references to Ireland in the passage, fair city and coasts, but the dead hand, or mortmain, refers to the constraints placed on the living by the dead in a last will and testament.  We may be living in the present but we always have limits placed on us by history, and we always have sin.

Finally, what if we got away from the language of science, of curators and critics, of professors and police, and just used "lingo" that is "basically English"?:  "For if the lingo gasped between kicksheets...were to be preached from the mouths of wickerchurchwardens and metaphysicians in the row and advokaatoes, allvoyous, demivoyelles, languoaths, lesbiels, dentelles, gutterhowls and furtz, where would their practice be or where the human race itself were the Pythagorean sesquipedalia of the panepistemion...grunted and gromwelled...under some sacking left in a coarse cart?"  All of these refer to linguistic terms (vowels, demivowels, labials, dentals, etc) -- what if we got out of the panepistemion -- the place where we think we know everything -- and talked like regular people who live and die in the real world?

Report from April 2012 Meeting

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.

Report from the March 2012 Meeting

pp. 110-111

We picked up at the top of p.110. “Here…” we are advised by another lawyer type narrator to “…let a few artifacts fend in their own favour” (110.01), one of which we explored in this meeting – “About that original hen” (110.22) who is said to be “Belinda of the Dorans” (111.05). But right away, this narrator’s introduction to these “artifacts” read as artificial or arti-fiction more than anything capable of fending in its own favor. This narrator’s introduction appears influenced by folklore and myth, and eventually collapses into a form of paradoxical double-talk filled with qualifiers which lead to no clear meaning:

“The river felt she wanted salt [From: Story of Confucious, Master Kung by Carl Crow (1940)]. That was just when Brien [Brian Boru, First High King of Ireland (10^th century) and founder of the Brien dynasty] came in. The country asked for bearspaw for dindin! [Story of Confucious, Master Kung + dinner] And boundin aboundin it got it surly. We who live in heaven [the gods?], we of the clover kingdom [Ireland? Or China—the “Flowery Kingdom”], we middlesins [Milesian – Mythological inhabitants of Ireland who conquered the Tuatha Dé Danann + middle-sin (i.e. Purgatory)] people have often watched the sky overreaching land” (110.01-06).

As the paragraph continues there are several allusions to Irish writers and historians. Joyce inserts himself here with a reference to his 1907 critical writing, “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages” [from Critical Writings, a text that also creates a narrative for Irish pre-history]. The reference to this text is created by Joyce combining Saint” and “Sage into “Our isle of Sainge” (110.06).  However Sainge could also be J.M. “Sainge” [Synge], whose earlier works, like “Riders to the Sea,” focused on Irish-Gaelic peasants on the Aran Islands. There is also a “stern chuckler” [Laurence Sterne] and a reference to “Mayhappy” [Trinity College Dublin historian/classicist/mentor to Oscar Wilde, and famed Dublin-curmudgeon [perhaps a play on “happy”], John Pentland Mahaffy], whose one-liner “in Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs” appears later in the paragraph as “where the possible was the impossible and the improbable the inevitable” (110.06-07; 110.11-12).

            There are also, as we discovered, none-Irish literary references as well—particularly to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “me ken or no me ken Zot is the Quiztune” [Zot is German for obscene, Dutch for Fool, Albanian for God, Hebrew for That. + …to be or not to be, that is the question…]; Hamlet’s lady-friend, Ophilia, also appears in the “Drainophilias” [maybe Drown Ophilia, or maybe Joyce prophesizing a “love of Drain-o”]. There is also Voltaire, or from Christian scripture a reference to the “vaal [Veil] of tares [tears]” (110.09-15), Pha, child of Apollo, who rode the Chariot of Fire, “Phaiton parks his car” (110.10), Aristotle, “Harrystotalies [Ar-ee-stot-uh-lees] and the vivle [Bible]” (110.17). With reference to all these forms of writing, the paragraph ends by unweaving any discernible information in a somewhat clear prose of double-talk, suggesting all of these texts may be infinitely interpretable [as with ALPs letter] because:

“…nobody after having grubbed up a lock of cwold cworn [cold corn] aboove his subject […] will go out of his way to applaud him on the [unbiased] back of his remark for utterly impossible as are all these events they are probably as like those which may have taken place as any others which never took person at all are ever likely to be” (110.16-21).

The paragraph concludes with “Ahahn!” which, likewise, cannot fend for itself as Joyce presents it in this paragraph. It may be read as “Ahem” as with someone clearing their throat, “Amen” as with the close of a Christian prayer, “Aha!” as with Eureka; Ahab, in reference to nautical and water references from the paragraph, or “A hen” or “a hahn” [German for  rooster] which leads us to our next paragraph, “About that original hen.” (110.21-22).

Yes, what about that original hen? [“hen” or “sin”]. We start with a reminder of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” “April is the cruelest month.” In this paragraph we find that after the rot and waste of “Midwinter” comes the “Premver” [Primavera or Spring] and the “promise of a pril [April – the cruelest month]” (110.23), or the promise of the renewal of life. Whether this renewal is part of “life’s old sahatsong [sad song / sweet song / shat-shit song] we are left unsure.  We discussed whether this section may refer back to the hen’s [biddies – slang for domestic fowl (79.30)] found at Kate Strong trash-heap of “rotten witchawubbles” (79.30-31), here in the form of a “cold fowl behaviourising strangely” [a hen behaves strangely, a hen strangely rising] atop the “fatal midden [a dungheap] […] its limon […] fragments of orangepeel, the last remains of an outdoor meal […] and raw raw reeraw puteteurs [raw potatoes] (110.25-111.01)] to possibly plucks the letter from the trash-heap.

The son of a “strandlooper” [a beach bird], appears to have “trouved” [found or taken] this artifact in the form of “the Ardagh chalice” [a two-handed Irish metal cup from early Christian-time found by a child in a potato field in Ardagh, Co. Limerick, in 1868]. This child, “keepy little Kevin” (110.32) may be a Shaun character (Kevin Porter, Book III) due to Kevin’s proximity to jute (110.26) (Mutt and Jute, Book I—pp.16-18). “Keepy little Kevin” however, could also stand in as 18 year old Kevin Barry, the first post-Easter Rebellion Irish Republican executed by the British government (in 1920), who kept his secrets through torture until his execution.  Here is an excerpt from “The Ballad of Kevin Barry”:

British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell

The names of his brave comrades
And other things they wished to know
"Turn informer or we'll kill you"
Kevin Barry answered "No"

This Kevin, the narrator seems to insinuate, may have served his own self interests.  It appears as though the narrator presents the possibility that Kevin usurped this “patchpurple” [flowerly, ornate writing] (111.02) artifact from another child, “an iceclad shiverer” (110.24). Kevin saw (or found) in the artifact “a motive for future saintity [sanity or Saint-hood] and by euchring [tricks (or the Eucharist)]” this other “heily innocent and beachwalker”  child, [Holy-innocent or wholly innocent beachwalker] (110.33-35) with“pious clamour” as Kevin was trying to “wheedle” (110.36) raw potatoes out of Now Sealand.  The “massacre” appears like another brother battle: “a dual [twin concepts] a duel [a battle] to die [death] to day [new dawn – life], goddam and biggod [a curse (or giant dam) and a Big God (the giant-hero HCE?), sticks and stanks [material for dams, more painful than words], of most of the Jacobiters [a series of conflicts with the ambition to restore the (usurped?) Stuart dynasty into the British monarchy” (111.02-04).  

The narrator does not delve further into the discussion of Kevin, but instead returns for now on page 111 to a discussion of “the hen” or “the bird” from the previous page. “The bird in the case was Belinda [Belinda / Biddie?] of the Doran’s,” (111.05-06), who won  “Terziis [third] prize with Serni medal [silver – generally for second place] (111.06). HCE appears in the form of the contest or expo: “Cheepalizzy’s Hane [possibly hen (female) or haan (male), Dutch for rooster] Exposition” (111.06-07). Furthermore, the new matter at hand appears to be “what she was scratching [looking for] at the hour of klokking twelve [hour o’clock-ing twelve + clucking] looked for all this zogzag [whole-wide] world like a goodishsized sheet of letterpaper originating by transhipt from Boston (Mass.)” (111.07-11).

The contents of this letter do not appear to be all that interesting – it appears as a letter written about home. “Dear whom” does not give any information as to whom the letter is addressed to, though “it proceded to mention Maggy [who is Maggy?] well & allathome’s [all at home’s] health well” (111.10-11).  There is indirect mention of a wedding “some born gentleman with a beautiful present of wedding cakes for dear thankyou Chriesty” (111.13-14), and mention of a “grand funferall” [funeral - fun-for-all] for “poor Father Michael” (111.14-15), followed by general talk of “how are you Maggy & hopes soon to hear well & must not close it with fondest to the twoinns [twins – Shem & Shaun] with four crosskisses [xoxoxoxo] for holy paul [Paul - the letter writer in the Bible], holey corner [HCE?], holipoli [the many + holy city], whollyisland [?]” followed by a “pee ess [postscript-P.S.]” (111.16-18).

While the contents of the P.S. do not appear to be clear, as the talk transitions to locust who eat everything but a sign (maybe one of the plagues on Egypt?), and the taking of tea “tache of tch” (111.20) it appears as though “The stain” of “the overcautelousness [overcautiousness] of the masterpilker [bilker – a cheat, but also Ibsen’s The Master Builder, or the stains of a masterbator] here, as usual, signing the page away” (111.20-21), “marked it off on the spout [spot + spur] of the moment as a genuine relique of ancient Irish pleasant pottery of that lydialike [ladylike] languishing class known as a hurry-me-o’er-the-hazy [a note to self].

            “Why then how?” (111.25).

            It appears we have only more questions that we hope you will help us to answer 

Report from the February 2012 Meeting

February meeting

106-108

We continued making our way through the list of names for ALP's "mamafesta."  We returned to an idea that has come up in the past:  what does the story look like when told from the woman's point of view?  How is the female writing/rewriting different?  With ALP's letter, it is woman's writing that saves the day, and here ALP overwrites the epic/history/legend we have already been through.  

A few titles that leapt out to us:  I'm the Stitch in the Backside You'd be Nought Without Mom, He Perssed Me Here with the Ardour of a Tonnoburkes, The Mimic of Meg Neg and the Mackeys, The Suspended Sentence, Fine's Fault Was No Felon, His is the House that Malt Made, A Tree is Quick and Stone is White So is My Washing Done by Night.  There are a number of titles that include the ALP/HCE initial letter combination.  Several titles, such as The Mimic.. and The Suspended Sentence refer to the Wake itself.  Fine's Fault and The House that Malt Made refer to the fall of HCE, including his appearance as Mr. Porter, another one of his avatars.  A Tree is Quick and Stone is White… could refer to the two myths of Daphne, turned into a tree to elude Apollo and whose leaves came to serve as crowns, and Niobe, turned to stone by the deaths of her children (7 girls and 7 boys).  As Adeline Glasheen points out, too, the tree/stone combination refers also to Shem and Shaun and life and death; the washing hearkens us forward to ALP and the washerwomen at the end of Book I.

The end of the list of titles is actually completely straightforward, almost as though ALP is tired of all this monkeying around and wants some good common sense to reign in the story of her husband and his indictment:  First and Last Only True Account all about the Honorary Mirsu Earwicker, L.S.D. (pounds shillings pence), and the Snake (Nuggets!) by a Woman of the World who only can Tell Naked Truths about a Dear Man and all his Conspirators how they all Tried to Fall him Putting it all around Lucalizod about Privates Earwicker and a Pair of Sloppy Sluts plainly Showing all the Unmentionability falsely Accusing about the Raincoats.  This is straightforward, slangy, irritable, and serves as the wife's riposte to the gossip about her husband, while also taking his side ("first and last only true account," "naked truths," "dear man," "conspirators," "tried to fall him," "putting it all around," "falsely accusing").  It also conveys the idea that the crime is sexual:  naked truths, sloppy sluts, raincoats (condoms).  

[America (the West) also figures somewhat prominently:  Thonderbalt Captain Smeth and La Belle Sauvage Pocahonteuse (the French for "shame" making its way in there), The Last of the Fingallians.  It reminded us of Donne:  O my America!]

The insertion of the commonsense approach at the end of the list struck us as a kind of puncturing:  no longer about epic or grand narrative.  This is a wife with a particular perspective ("a woman of the world"), not a collective looking for a scapegoat.  This is a defense.  Then the voice/tone shifts again, in response to the mamafesta --

With "the proteiform graph" and the "polyhedron of scripture" on page 107, the book becomes almost three-dimensional; it exists in multiple kinds of spaces, prewriting, prehistory, then beyond the time when "naif alphabetters would have written it down".  The forms of writing are shifting, hybrid, fluid:  "proteiform," "ambidextrous," "his (or her)."  And if we want to find sex here, we will:  "To the hardily cruising entomophilust then it has shown a very sexmosaic of nymphosis in which the eternal chimerahunter…bewilderblissed by their night effluvia with guns like drums and fondlers like forceps persequestellates his vanessas from flore to flore."  The "vanessas" are a reference to Swift's love, as is "stella," and it would seem that the "chimerahunter" is pursuing sexual desire from flower to flower (for deflowering?).  But this might also be a general comment on misreading, or overriding:  as Wordsworth writes in "Simon Lee," "It is no tale/but should you think/perhaps a tale you'll make it."

And so "we must grope on" in a "kitchernott darkness," where a "multiplicity of personalities inflicted on the documents or document and some prevision of virtual crime or crimes might be made by anyone unwary enough before any suitable occasion for it or them had so far managed to happen along."  We inflict multiple readings through prevision, unwary, seeing what we want to see in anticipation of what we think we'll find -- while at the same time refusing to see contrarieties except as elements to be smoothed out, eliminated.  The sheer explicitness of the end of the mamafesta would seem to render interpretation unnecessary, and yet…

As we continue, we encounter "a jolting series of prearranged disappointments, down the long lane of (it's as semper as oxhousehumper!) generations, more generations, and still more generations."  Genre disappoints by not living up to our expectations, and so do our parents.  It's as simple, and as semper (always) as ABC, or aleph beth gimel (the ideograms for the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet).  

We are interrupted by an interlocutor at the bottom of page 107/top of page 108 who would ask "who in hallhagal wrote the durn thing anyhow?…by the use of quill or style…interrupted by visit of seer to scribe or of scribe to site…laden with the loot of learning?"  Was this written the same way anything else would be written?  Were there scribes and seers?  Is it learned?  These questions are deferred:  "Now, patience; and remember patience is a great thing."  Could be advice to readers of the Wake itself: we need patience as we return again and again to "this radiooscillating epiepistle."

At the bottom of page 108, in response to "the loot of learning" -- the stealing of stories, plagiarist's booty -- our interlocutor addresses "naysayers."  To say that the page "cannot ever have been a penproduct of a man or woman" is an "unlookedfor conclusion leaped at" -- again, we are accused of misinterpreting, when really it is the author who is "constitutionally incapable of misappropriating the spoken words of others" by using quotation marks.  Even the signifier of accuracy -- quotation marks -- is a kind of stealing (and a joke at Joyce, who always refused to use them).  Anything that makes its way into the text is evidence of the inevitability of literary symbiosis (to use David Cowart's term), and it's all there for the taking.

Report from the January 2012 Meeting

Thanks to Jen for the January report!                  

We picked up on page 104 with the start of ALP’s “mamafesta.” The passage begins with a parody of The Lord’s Prayer in which the words have been feminized (“In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve…”), but could been seen to become unfeminized by the end of the passage (“…unhemmed as it is uneven!). This brief prelude to the mamafesta includes the phrase “her rill be run,” referring perhaps to ripples and waves in a river. This connection between ALP and the river worked well with the last river reference on page 103, which says, “…we have taken our sheet upon her stones…”. With this in mind, it seems like the descriptors “Allmaziful,” “Everliving,” and “haloed” indicate that, though she is dumped on and beaten about a bit, ALP, like the river, keeps running on.

In discussing plurabilities, we noted that the mamafesta could be read as a monotheistic prayer to plurabilities. Additionally, it points out the plurability of husband and wife, as well as global and cosmic plurabilities. We also discussed the plurability of the gospels: the same story told over and over again, with varying details each time.  Plurability could also be read as the constant dance of compromise and sacrifice between a husband and wife, which relates to “Amoury Treestam and Icy Siseule.” This can be read in a few different ways—as a reference to Tristan and Isolde, as a reference to the husband as the tree and the wife icily cutting him down, or as a reference to an amorous husband’s advances and his icy wife. (Si seule is also French for ‘if only.’) This “cutting down” of the husband almost seems like one of the compromises or sacrifices between husband and wife, as, according to the reference from page 103 (“…we have taken our sheet upon her stones…”) it seems that the husband has probably behaved unjustly toward the wife as well.

We spent some time discussing the word “Mosthighest,” used in describing the mamafesta, and trying to decide what “Mosthighest” was referring to. ALP’s story itself seemed to be the answer. The first in the very long series of italicized phrases and statements is “Augusta Angustissimost,” which means most highest.

A little later on page 104, Joyce writes, “Ik dik dopedope et tu mihimihi.” “Ik dope” means to baptize, presumably in a river, and “mihimihi” means ‘me,’ continuing with the river imagery and its relation to ALP.

The references to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert continue when Joyce writes, “Groans of a Britoness,” and “From Victrolia Nuancee to Allbart Noahnsy.” We noted that two reservoirs of the Nile are named for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and that Queen Victoria was indeed Queen of the Nile, perhaps in the same way that ALP may be called Queen of the Liffey. This ties in with a reference to Cleopatra made on page 104: “Cleopater’s Needlework.” Cleopatra’s Needle is located in London. Cleopatra and Victoria also share the distinction of being ruling foreigners—a link shared with Napoleon and Hitler as well. The connection between Cleopatra and Victoria deepens after considering their somewhat gnarled family trees, both of which were founded on some amount of incest. We noted that incest is a crime that was considered permissible amongst royals but not so among common people. If HCE’s crime was incest, he was sinning above his station in life. However, this depends on the version of the story, because in some versions, he is the Festy King. In such versions, we could assume that incest wouldn’t be criminal.  The plurability of HCE’s story and its various iterations are somewhat analogous to the gospels in this way.

The parenthetical statement made on page 104 refers to the husband as “some such nonoun,” which would be read alternately as ‘no one,’ ‘not known,’ or ‘nothing.’ The parentheses end with the statement “He Never Has the Hour,” which refers to the incident in the park, where by asking for the time, HCE incriminated himself. A bit earlier on the page, HCE is called to mind with “Hoebegunne the Hebrewer Hit Waterman the Brayned.” As waterman, HCE would draw water from the river, his wife.

                  

The sentence, “Peter Peopler Picked a Plot to Pitch his Poppolin,” is a reference to Ireland itself—a plot of land was selected where the poor were to be sent. “Peter Peopler” may also be a phallic reference, especially when paired with “Pitch his Poppolin.” Following this play on Peter Piper and leading into the previously mentioned parenthetical statement, Joyce writes, “An Apology for a Big,” which is suggestive, given its placement beside “Peter Peopler.” The parentheses are followed with “Ought We To Visit Him?” which might be read in a variety of ways, but one way is certainly very suggestive of Peter Peopler’s popularity.

                 

This passage was also replete with references to fabric and needlework: “unhemmed,” “uneven,” “poppolin” (or poplin), and “needlework.” This brings to mind the idea of the Fates, spinning and weaving, as well as Penelope unraveling her shroud in order to continue her story. The tie to Penelope is especially significant given ALP’s prominence in this passage.

                  

At the top of age 105, Joyce writes, “To Plenge Me High He Waives Chiltern on Friends,” and we noted several different meanings here. The French word pleine means full, or pregnant. Reading “plenge” as “pledge” instead, it could be interpreted as marriage, like taking the “plunge,” or “plenge” could be taken to mean “plunge,” which could relate either to marriage or to sex. Or to both.

                  

Another river reference appears later on page 105 with “He’s my O’Jerusalem and I’m his Po,” with the Po being a river in Tuscany. The use of the apostrophe in ‘O’Jerusalem’ makes it seem like an Irish surname. ‘O Jerusalem’ is a hymn, so the sentence could be reread to say “He’s my hymn (or him), and I’m his river.”

                  

“The Man That Made His Mother in the Marlborry Train” refers both to Jesus Christ, who made his mother famous with his conception and birth, as well as Confucius, who was born in a cave called the Hollow Mulberry Tree. This sets up another East-West contrast.

                  

Going back to page 104, we begin to see versions of ALP as a girl. Joyce writes, “Arcs in His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the Flur,” which reminds us of the rainbow girls.  In Spanish, a rainbow is called el arco iris, and the sky is called el cielo. Additionally, the use of the word ‘arc’ reminds us of Noah’s ark. This statement appears right beside the “Waterman” reference. We also noted that a rainbow has a start and an end, much like stories or alphabets, and specifically alpha and omega. We found out that apparently the Chinese have no record of the deluge, which pits an Eastern version of Noah’s story against our Western tradition—yet another plurability.

                  

Finally, we discussed the different references to and images of cows and milk in this passage. These ideas were reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus’s evolution from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to Ulysses, from baby Tuckoo and the milk cow in Portrait to the milkwoman who appears in the Telemachus episode of Ulysses. 

Reports, Further and Such: This Time, for December

And another, for December 2011:

This one is by the incomparable Chris Murphy, who always does a wonderful job:

FW Reading Group, December 2011: 101-103

“[Soiled] Man Saved By Sillied Woman by the Waters of Babalong”

We spent a few minutes catching up as several of the members were not present at the previous meeting.  We recalled the foxhunt and the chasing of HCE from and spent a few moments going over some of the issues that appear in the text, specifically several that appear in the first half of the paragraph we continued (the Pranksquean riddle, Buckley and the Russian General, and Humpty Dumpty). We continued from the line “What fullpried paulpoison in the spy of three castles…” (101). 

The paragraph moves away from HCE, “Homo Capite Erectus” (101.12) and, instead, shifts the focus onto a woman using feminine pronouns.  We assume this woman is ALP, “zhanyzhonies” [wife, wives], “bondwoman of the man of the house” (101.32), with a “mouthless face” [a river] (101.30).  There is the thought of a letter, as the “queen’s head affrancisant [a stamp], a quiet stinking plaster zeal [glue/plaster onto an envelop]” and “prepostered or postpaid” [preposterous or an HCE imposter, Shaun the Post, delivering a letter with postage paid] (101.24-25).  There are praises of this woman throughout the remainder of this page as well as many paired words and phrases, which played into thoughts of brother battles of “cadet and prim” [younger son and first son], the hungray and anngreen [in a Leopold Bloom observation in Lestrygonians: Hungry man is angry man, but also grey and green, or the conquer Attila the Hun—grey in beard, and orphaned Anne of Green Gables] (101.35-6). 

The paragraph continues with more praise but now with Biblical and Irish Folk references on the next page. “She who shuttered [sheltered] him after his fall and waked [the Tim Finnegan fall and wake] him widowt [became a widow but also without] sparing and gave him keen [the Irish tradition of crying at the wake + Cain] and made him able [Able] and held adazillahs [Adah and Zillah, the wives of Cain and Able] to each arche [Ark] of his noes [Noah]…” and so forth (102.1-4). The aside, “(ur, uri, uria) [water, rain, gold with connotations of urine…dare I say Golden shower?] we referenced dually to the woman being a “Szpissmas” [shit-piss-ma/mom] (101.28) and an earlier reading of ALP as the stream of urine that washes vomit down the sewer drain on 64.9-22- from the November 2010 posting: 

We discussed the possibility of a character’s vomit being similar to the ash coving Pompey in regards to Leopold Bloom’s thoughts in the Lestrygonians episode of Ulysses. Bloom thinks, “Drink till they puke again like christians” (U.8.49), and we believe, like Pompey is covered in volcanic ash, so too is the pavement covered in vomit by “an overthrewer [thrower-upper]” (64). “All are washed in the blood of the Lamb” (U.8.9-11) and the idea of through dirtiness we become clean. Interestingly enough, it is the meaning of the Greek prefix para, as in parasoliloqusingly, that Bloom struggles to remember in Lestrygonians. Continuing with cleanliness coming from dirtiness, a “young reine,” we believe to be ALP, in the form of the “liffopotamus” [Liffy + Potamus, Greek for river, or hippopotamus] (64) cleans the pavement, washing “as mud as she cud be, ruinating…” [as much as she could by urinating – a stream of urine cleaning the vomit, but also cleaning as mud and cud – as mud and regurgitation]. The paragraph ends with an allusion to the end of the Anna Livia Plurabelle (FW.I.VIII) chapter and close of Book 1: “they were all night wasching the walters of, the weltering walters off. Whyte” (64) is strikingly similar to “Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!” (216).

The paragraph again, however, takes a turn. We began to discover Queen Victoria allusions within the passage. There are two explicit references to a queen/quean in the section (101.24, 102.10). In the context of a fallen man, we discussed Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert: Victoria’s long mourning—“she gave him keen” (102.2) and the rumors of her “finicking here and funckin there” “straddl[ing]” the stable-boy, John Brown, “Equerry” [horsestables]: the rumors of Victoria as a “louisequean” [French slang for “whore” + queen] (102.9-14). The “circusfix” of life—birth, love, and death—happen, in a Christian sense, here, with the “Tinktink[ing]” of churchbells on “Equerry Egon” [Basque for Christmas Day – Egueri Egun]: and for the one on the crucifix, begin again.  Yet, the contents of the “piecebag” (“pawns, prelates [bishops], and pookas [Irish folklore goblin who spoils the harvest + also the Rook in chess]” are “pelotting” [plotting] “to crush the slander’s head” (102.15-7), or bring down the person who ruined HCE’s reputation. 

All of these issues resonate within the next paragraph. “Notre Dame de la Ville” [Our Lady of the City] (102.18-19) will plead for HCE. We are affirmed “her name is A.L.P. And you’ll agree. She must be she” (102.23-4). There is reference to the rainbow girls “Poppy Narancy, Giallia, Chlora, Marinka, Anileen, Parme” – which, translated into various languages create the spectrum of visible light – the “rainbow huemoures” in order: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet (102.25-7).  But life’s circus “Tifftiff today, kissykissy tonay and agelong pine tomauranna” (102.28-9) can often be a curse: as Eve is “Crippled-with-Children” but must “speak up for” Adam, “Dropping-with-Sweat?” (102.29-30), forced to labor.

A poem follows conflating the Book of Genesis with the curse of marriage. It also appears to take a counter tone to the praises of the woman from the earlier passages. The poem begins with a reference to Arthur Guinness [Genesis] who leased the land for the Guinness Brewery for 9000 years “Sold him her lease of ninenineninetee, / Tresses undresses so dyedyedaintee” [999-year-lease was a British common law agreement for “life” but typically restricted to 99 years, in Guinness’s case, it is truly a lifetime lease]. But the buyer, here, may be experiencing some remorse: Goo, [Fool]… gulped it all / Hoo was the C.O.D.? / Bum! 

The remorse comes in the form of the allusion the poem draws upon, that is, it is fashioned after the song “At Trinity Church I met my doom” about a man who thinks his new wife is rich—“Cash in the bank of course she’d plenty / and I like a lamb believed it all / I was an M-U-G (Drum!) , but ends up crippling him with poverty (102.33-5). The poem continues with a reference to “Island Bridge” [Islandbridge in Phoenix Park where the Liffey River becomes tidal] (103.1), presumably referencing ALPs next encounter with “The Fin” (103.3) of The Wake, HCE. The poem ends with a regretful “That’s what she’s done for wee! / Woe!” (103.3-7), as in, she has only caused ruin. This, however, cannot be taken seriously, as, within the poem, is a reference to the woman who translated Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man into Swedish and signed an International Protest against the pirating of Joyce’s Ulysses, Ebbe Attaboom (Attabom, attabom, attabombomboom! [yet, we also discussed how this sounds very much like something from Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”] (103.2-3).

The final paragraph seems to return to praises of the power of ALP as a stand in for all women.  She has the power to cure any “Nomad” [Noman (Odysseus)/Everyman] (103.8) as with the reference to “Naaman” who, in the Bible, is said to be cured of Leprosy when bathing in the “Jordan” river in Palestine (103.8-9). The song itself seems to be someone “taken our sheet upon her stones” [taking a shit upon her story] (103.9).  It seems as though the singer of the song is aware that “we list [live], as she bibs us [a mother placing a bib on a baby feed it], by the waters of babalong [baba – in baby sounds + Babylon]” (103.10-11) – that the manchild needs his motherly/wifely mate to cure him of his ills – A solid [or soiled] man, once again, saved by his sillied woman.  

The episode ended. We opted not to venture into Book I.5 without the rest of the group – to turn a new chapter in a new year! We wished each other respective happy holidays. Enjoyed a few merry drinks, a lot of laughs, and shared a lively discussion on why we read Joyce. We hope to see you all again in January. 

In anticipation of our first meeting of 2012...Some Reports

Excuse us while we catch up...

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.