Notes from the April 2013 Meeting

[thanks Chris!]

Book 1, Chapter 6, pp.  139-141

“2. Does your mutter know your mike?” (139: 15-28)

At first glance, we noticed that this second question transitions away from the father figure, and, instead, focuses on some family dynamics—particularly ALP [mutter/mother] and her son, Shaun [Mike/Mick]. We believe that Shaun is answering a question asked by Shem, his brother. Shem, here, asks his brother, “Does your mutter [mother] know your mike?” In one regard, Shem seems to ask his brother if his mother knows who you are—does she know you are Mike?

But mike (mickey) also serves as an Irish slang for the penis here. (In some regard, every mother knows her son’s penis.) But the way Shem asks the question appears taunting, as though to insinuate Shaun having some sort of an Oedipal desire—wanting to usurp the mother’s love from the father figure.  However, we were concerned with the use of filial as a possessive noun rather than an adjective. If this is Shaun answering Shem’s question, is Shaun turning his eye to his sister’s bosom, or his mother’s bosom? Unsure of what to make of this, we continued.  

Overall, Shaun begins by turning his eyes “meoptics” from matters of public life “suchurban prospects”—city issues—to issues involving the family, but the talk seems to revolve around sexual intercourse—whether it is Shaun fantasizing about his mother, or imagining HCE and ALP’s sexual intercourse. The initial description Shaun, who we thought of as the “I” of the paragraph, depicts is that of a male authority figure “that pontificator” and “circumvallator”: that pontificator (a bishop/Pope/penis) surrounds and “dams” a moat, and, by crossing, “slipt” (slipped or slept) into her fortress. 

The penetration awakens the woman: “Ann alive,”  the lips of her begin to whisper [whether the lisp here is HCE, or her “lips” whispering, and the “bergs of Iceland melt in waves of fire” with “auburnt streams” [streams of fire, Hell/Hades?] , while in a “spooning” position [“spoon-me-spondees”] and “dirckle-me-ondnees” [tickle my undies], and the icebergs melt and gush like a “Rageous Ossean,” [raging ocean]. 

But where we continue to struggle is whether this is ALP and HCE having sex, or an intruder (possibly Shaun in Oedipal desire) conquering ALP, and replacing HCE as the object of the mother’s love. First, we take into account that the initial excitement that melts the icebergs stems from “grig mountains whisper” which recalls Edward Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” a composition for Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt play [listen to “In the Hall of the Mountain King” here]. The song is recognizable for its mysteriousness and whispery opening that methodically repeats, growing louder with each refrain, building up to a full eruption in the song’s climax—its own gushing ocean or orchestral explosion—a sexual orgasm. 

But that “Rageous Ossean” we believe may be “a lyre” (a liar), just as the Ossian myths [mythical son of Finn MacCool] supposedly collected by the Scottish author, James MacPherson, were discovered to be fraudulent creations authored by MacPherson himself. Is Ossean [Shaun], son of Finn MacCool [HCE], trying to pass himself off as the father with the mother? If intercourse happens, here, it is in a mounting or spooning position, [both sexual positions that happen from behind the woman], which could be part of a deception, a circumvallation—harkening back to Shem’s question—Does mom know you are her son / Does mom have intimate knowledge of your micky (Oedipal / incestuous)? 

Regardless, ALP/Issy’s “auburnt streams” [au as gold, golden streams, urine? or her auburn streams of hair] coupled with her “coy cajoleries, and her dabblin drollerises” are, by themselves, enough to “rouse his rudderup” [arouse his penis to erection] and “drench his dreams” [cause wet dreams]. We are offered opposing codes of conduct by which to judge their actions—“hot Hammurabi” [violent, eye for an eye] compared to “cowld Clesiastes” [more passive reflections on how to live life from Ecclesiastes]. But both codes, seemingly, are both seem to agree with that whatever happens here (possible incest) must be “reounded” and “denounced” by having the two involved “renounce their ruings, and denounce their doings, for river [forever + ALP] and iver [ever + Issy], and a night. Amin!”

The use of Iceland, here, also seems to support some sort of incestuous relationship at work in this question. At first, we remarked on the similarities in the spellings of Ireland and Iceland—that is, they are both spelled differently by one letter, both are small islands with small populations and Vikings ancestry (at least partially in Ireland). But Ireland has seen more movement within the population, whereas Iceland seems to have remained an isolated population. As a result, Iceland’s use of old Norse from its Viking/Norwegian predecessors is now incomprehensible to most Norwegians. And furthermore, supportive of our reading of the passage, Iceland has had centuries of problems controlling unintentional inbreeding largely a result of being an isolated population. Despite having records of family trees dating as early as the 9^th century, Iceland has a long historical problem with children born through incestuous relations. 

The third question, however, seems to allow the questioner to draw the answers away from the family. (In a way, we will see that the flow of the first four questions seem to flow well into one another based upon their subject matter—or answer—from 1. Father/Finn MacCool; 2. Family dynamics (Shaun—ALP—HCE); 3. The House; 4. Cities.) 

“3. Which title is the true-to-type motto-in-lieu for that Tick for Teac thatchment painted witt wheth one darkness…” (139:29-140:05)

At first we noticed that the Hammurabi code seems to reverberate into this question with the “Tick for Teac” (tick for tack/tit for tat/eye for an eye) teaching. But what we are looking for is a motto that can stand replace the original (“in lieu”) but also govern a specific house, as “Teac” (te-OKH) means house in Irish. The questioner, Shem, gives a few conditions for this new motto—“Where asnake is under clover [Lucifer undercover as a serpent, or Ireland pre-dating St. Patrick, with snakes under clovers], and birds aprowl are in the rookeries [rooks / castles in chess] and a magda [magna carta, another code of laws] went to monkishouse and a riverpaard was spotted”. But here, the list of conditions now defines through negation. It is as though the questioner knows that there can be several answers to this question, but uses negation to narrowly define precisely what he is seeking in an answer, just as laws add amendments to give more precise answers by saying what the law does not do. 

What we found most striking about the negations are that they are all homes or public places, and several of them have specific connections to Dublin. The negations suggest it is “not German suburbs” (Whorot/Vorort) “not Ousterholm Dreyschluss” (not an Eastern Swedish port city like Stockholm, nor is it the three castles on Dublin’s crest—drei Schloss), not a grocery store, houseboat, not a beehive, not a place where you knock or ring a bell (“Knox-atta-Belle”), not the felix culpa or Phoenix Park (“O’Faynix Coalprince”), not a one square room, not a gambling houses (Ebblawn/Dublin/Doubling Down), not “Le Mieux” (the best) not Antwerp, Belgium, not Musca (Moscow), not several pubs throughout Dublin (nor the Snug’s—private rooms for women, clergy, and lovers, within Irish pubs), it is not good or splendid, and neither was it, is it, or ever shall it be (“Erat Est Erit”)—nor was it Lucifer (“non michi sed luciphro”—not me said Lucifer). 

The answer mocks the motto of the city of Dublin: Obedientia civium urbis felicitas: “Happy is the city where citizens obey”—here, transforms into a motto of the house: “Thine obesity, O civilian, hits the felicity of our orb—“The unhealthily fat person is the happiest of the earth.”  This answer, however, paves the way for the next line of questioning, in which Mamalujo appears to answer. The questioner plays off this idea of “nayther Erat Est Erit” from the previous question by invoking the goddesses to answer questions of all time, alpha to omega, (a dea o dea).

4. What Irish capitol city (a dea o dea!) of two syllables and six letters, with a deltic origin and numinous end, (ah dust of dust!) can boost of having a) the most extensive public park in the world [Phoenix Park], b) the most expensive brewing industry in the world [Guinness], c) the most expansive peopling thoroughfare in the world [O’Connell street is the widest in the world], d) the most phillohippuc theobibbous paupulation in the world [horse loving, god-drinking/consuming, pauper population], and harmonise your abecdeed responses? (140:08-15).

It seems as though the obvious answer is Dublin—having both a Deltic origin [in terms of being the end of the River Liffey, beginning with the letter D, and also having a Deltic Origin—an origin that has changed over time, just as the symbol Δ, mathematically, measures change over time] and a nuinous end [suggesting ending in the letter “n” but also numinous, mystical end]. Yet, each of the four old masters of Mamalujo reply with incorrect answers, responding a) Delfas (Belfast, Ulter); b) Dorhqk (Cork, Munster), c) Nublid (Dublin, Leinster), d) Dalway, (Galway, Connacht). Each response, however, seems to highlight something specific about that town. 

First,  a) Delfas/Belfast highlights the shipbuilding industry but in a way that conflates it with suggests sexual intercourse and marriage—the constant hammering and the “bingbanging again the ribs of your resistance and the tenderbolts of my rivets working to your destraction” both appears as though it is attempting to wear out a resisting lover (possibly also suggesting a strategy in the separation of Ireland, but also sexualized, highlighted by the “orange garland”), which culminates into an orgasm, “ye’ll be shevering wi’ all yer dinful sobs we’ll go riding acope-acurly…down the greaseways of rollicking into the waters of wetted [wedded] life” (140: 16-22)

b) Dorhqk, likewise is incorrect. Highlighted here is the loquaciousness of the people, the “good old chimes,” and the beauty of their “silvry speech,” the sing-songy accent like a “mouth’s flower rose and sinking.” But the courtship with the accent does not seem all that happy. But it seems almost like a trap—as those getting engaged are bound like cattle—“with two loving loofs braceleting the slims of your ankles”—as though binding someone to a wall (140:22-28).

c) Nublin, too is incorrect, because the responder has reversed the lettering of the D & N. But it seems that even the Dublin that is described here would be incorrect, as we noted how it seems to be confusing Dublin, Georgia, along the Oconee river with Dublin, Ireland. While there are references to Dublin, Ireland—“James’s Gate,” it seems as though most of the passage is about leaving Ireland to start anew in America—leaving for Brooklyn (“brooklined”) as soon as the speaker makes money; Georgian Mansion, which suggests both 17^th century architecture, as well as a mansion in Georgia; gaining copper from soybeans, grown in Georgia; learning form “all the errears [errors] and erroriboose [ouroboros—the self eating snake] of comparative embottled history [embattled history, bottling history]” and “churning over the newleaved butter [turning over a new leaf—starting fresh in Georgia “from Atlanta to Oconee” another Alpha-Omega], but also Dublin, Ireland dairy—some of the best dairy in the world] (140:28-37).

d) Dalway, likewise, is celebrated for its fishing. “Hooking,” “trotty” [trout], “eel,” “Salmon,” “chub,” “dace,” and “Rodiron” [Iron rod fishing poles]. Also filtered into Galway’s section are  several other towns within Connacht: Mayo, Tuam, Sligo, Galway, as well as a reference to the city’s history with Spain—both as the landing spot of the Spanish Armada after defeat from the English navy, as well as having the Spanish Arch in Galway, a fish market (140-37-141:04).

Indeed, with each responder answering incorrectly, they now harmonize their answers abcd in a way that seems to mimic the approach of Edgar Allen Poe in “The Bells.” Joyce writes, “A bell a bell on Shalldoll Steepbell, ond be’ll go mass plon prismoss speople” which reverberates as a bells clanging across all four answers, there being four bells in the sentence. But each answer is wrong, so it seems each responder is united, together harmonizing failure (141:04-07). 

Is their union one of inequality? Or is making money [“feepence”] more important than equality? The people of Ireland, presented here as the “mass[es]” of “pri[e]stmos[t] [p]eople…” praise gon ness [Guinness] our fayst [first] moan neople [monopoly].” 

We became curious with the use of italics throughout the answer. We talked briefly if these spots seem to be significant, or if they may be spots where harmonizing may take place—after all, how does one harmonize four separate responses in a text? 

Italicized words throughout question 4:

 we’ll, leave, more, your, neople, Shandeepen, feepence, Aequallllllll! 

We note that there are eight italicized words, and eight “L’s” tagged onto the end of the last “Aequallllllll!”

We seem to continue moving outward in our focus. From Father, to Family, to Home, to City/State. Where will we go in question five? We’ll find out soon enough. 

Notes from the March 2013 Meeting

[thanks Chris!]

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!”

Notes from the February 2013 Meeting

Part I, Chapter 6, pp. 135-136

We're about two pages away from the end of Q/A #1, focusing on HCE, and our discussion continued to revolve around issues of kingship, the question of nation-states, and the emergence of civilization.  HCE is cast as king and patriarch, the founder of a nation, a civilization, a family--but the foundations upon which his rule rests is always questionable.  

Wellington Monument, Phoenix Park

Page 135 has us walking around Dublin and encountering the Porter family:  "the king was in his cornerwall...out pimps the back guards."  This opening clause alludes to this nursery rhyme, "Sing a Song of Sixpence," but it also mentions Cornwall and King Mark (the former showing up with some regularity as part of the Tristan and Isolde story), and there is a whiff of the bawdy in the queen "feeling fain and furry," and the guards are up to some kind of dubious behavior with "pimps" and "pump gun":  certainly sexual, possibly also threatening with violence, and as the reference to "furry" could also be a section of Phoenix Park, we might be returning to the scene of HCE's crime.  The next clause conflates a number of ideas about origin stories:  "to all his foretellers he reared a stone and for his comethers he planted a tree":  for his fathers he reared a stone--raised a city--and for his mothers he planted a tree--made new life; forefathers are also foretellers, the past telling the future, the "foretellers" can also be the four old men, the Gospel writers; the "comethers" can also the "come hithers," the gesture towards flirting and courting that leads to sex and possibly procreation. We might see the planting of the tree as Genesis or possible the Crucifixion, the stone as Exodus (Moses) or Peter building the Church.  This would also add to the typological reading encouraged by the Wake--different versions of the same story happening cyclically, each version prefiguring even insisting on another.  

This might also be a reference to Plato's Phaedrus:  the tree was the first source of prophesy, living as opposed to the dead source of stones.  Phaedrus is notable, of course, for being about rhetoric as well as about eros.  

But with leading a people comes exploitation, colonization, and the failure to keep promises, as we see in the references to "forty acres" and the "white stripe, red stripe" (the flags of England and Ireland, St. George's cross and St. Patrick's cross).  The reference to "wash[ing] his feet in annacrwatter" and "whou missed a porter" are references to HCE's married life, as well as Eliot's The Waste Land; "annacrwatter" while sounding like a possible reference to Anna, ALP, also echoes "anachronism," things out of time; the feet washing also sounds like a Christ reference.

We move to Europe both past and present (annacrwatter: anachronism over the water) with "Dutchlord, Dutchlord, overawes us"; in the 17th century the Netherlands would have been a commercial and cultural center, holding a lot of influence over England, but this also echoes the increasing power of Germany as Joyce was writing in the 1930s.  The bloodless "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 becomes the terror of nascent Nazism. HCE is part of this, the "Headmound," his body actually the geography of Dublin and of Europe, "king and martyr" opening a catalogue of English churches.  Another reference to Dutch history, "Orange and Nassau," hearken again to the influence and the passing of power, again connected with the church:  "he has trinity left behind him."  (We spent a lot of time wondering over Billy-in-the-Bowl, infamous legless strangler.)

The references to prophesy (what is the relationship between prophesy and history, foretelling and telling the past?) continue with "the handwriting on his facewall, the cryptoconchoidsiphonostomata in his exprussians; his birthspot lies beyond the herospont and burialplot."  The handwriting is a reference to the Book of Daniel, and while, weirdly, the long crypto-word is a reference to an actual play performed at the Theatre Royal, it also holds within it a number of possible keywords:  crypto, phono, nosto, con.  "Exprussians" is also expressions, the hiding of meanings in one's expressions, but it also echoes the end of the Prussian empire.  Origin is beyond being a hero and being buried:  can we not transcend origin?  Does where we come from always mean more than where we wind up?  Perhaps this question is answered as our hero wanders the streets of Dublin accompanied by the ghost of Daniel O'Connell (the Book of Daniel):  "many hundreds and many score miles of streets...his great wide cloak lies on fifteen acres."

We noted here and elsewhere, by the way, that there are a number of references to acres:  once you can measure land, you can have civilization.  The rest of the page conjures an urban landscape, while flowers and vegetables are cultivated:  all marks of civilization.  As we see on the next page, HCE is the "hortifex magnus."

Page 136 combines a number of references to Sumerian, Dutch, and the theater.  We thought this continued the themes already outlined--civilization, writing, empires lost--while also bringing in a popular culture, even kind of artificiality, element.  We have references to both Homer and Moore, poets who create songs out of memory and story; and the two plays alluded to, My Awful Dad and Timour the Tartar, seem self-evidently relevant if you've been following along.

We focused on the first third, the middle, and the end of the page.  The first third of the page brings in the four old men/Gospel writers, Mamalujo:  a series of fours appear:  wind dries, rain eats, sun turns, water bounds, exalted and depressed, assembled and asundered.  These all also form a dialectic, the cycles of nature, rising and falling, coming together and breaking apart.  The next set of four all refer to water:  bored the Ostrov, leapt the Inferus, swam the Mabbul, and flure the Moyle.  In between "go away, we are deluded, come back, we are disghosted" -- the dialectic of religion and modernity.  

HCE is the founder of cities, giving the people what they want; he is like Leopold Bloom founding his New Bloomusalem.  He has to fall, no?  He offers "a coq in his pot pro homo" and "pancircensor" -- bread and circuses as well as being mindful of being kept from overstepping.  He "starts our hares yet gates our goat":  he's annoying but helps us keep everything in order.  The end of the page combines Latin references to managing the state effectively and to Dublin:  Baslebridge (Ballsbridge), bally clay (Baile Atha Cliath) -- but it is his feet that are off "bally clay":  he is the man of the people and the founder of the city, but he must fall.  And he does:  "he crashed in the hollow of the park, trees down" -- but then rises again -- "as he soared in the vaguum of the phoenix, stones up" -- and we end where we started, with trees and stones.

Notes from the January 2013 Meeting

Part I, Chapter 6, pp. 133-134 (quality, not quantity!)

Our discussion for this meeting focused on the nature of civic space, and the role politics and ideology play in constructing space and time.  Remembering that one of HCE's avatars is Mr. Porter, public house proprietor, we considered the importance of hospitality to the polity, the relationships among citizenship and community, and the oscillations among private/public and sacred/secular spaces.

The page begins with the echoes from last time of the relationship between Ireland and America, particularly in the context of diaspora ("though you rope Amrique your home ruler is Dan").  HCE as Adam ("ex-gardener") gives way to the man in the mackintosh ("the oil silk mack...micks his aquascutum") -- perhaps this is an echo of Ulysses, but it also conjures up a man who is up to no good with the "kay women" and giving employment to "gee men" (whores; G-Men, or detectives, according to McHugh here).  HCE comes off as something of a lurker, echoing his transgression in Phoenix Park (which may have been both/either sexual and/or political).

The next series of lines evoke the language of insurance, indemnification:  "against lightning, explosion, fire, earthquake, flood, whirlwind, burglary, third party, rot, loss of cash, loss of credit, impact of vehicles"; the sequence ends with references to Piggott and Parnell:  "unhesitent in his unionism and yet a pigotted nationalist."  What is the connection between insurance and empire?  According to Wikipedia, insurance came about more or less with human civilization; in modern terms, and perhaps relevant to our purposes, the Great Fire of London in the 17th century prompted the development of insurance as we know it.  Property becomes defined by risk, and risk is something to be managed.  Civilization, property, insurance are intertwined.

The indemnification, corporatization, and commodification of the public space and of political life continues through the next few lines:  the "sinews of peace" is in "his chest-o-wars," "fiefeofhome, ninehundred and thirtunine years of copyhold" -- here possibly connecting insurance and copyright, but maybe referring to the 30 Years War and the 39 Articles, and fiefdoms and home -- as well as "aldays open for polemypolity's sake" -- aldermen and the polity.  The kinds of religious, or sacred, conflict that shape the secular state emerge in the next series too:  "popeling runs down the Huguenots; Boomaport, Walleslee...Master Mudson, master gardiner [Adam again]" -- we have popes versus Huguenots, we have Napoleon -- and the French Revolution, its political ramifications and the ways it transformed the sacred (ie, Gregorian) calendar into a secular or pagan construction of time, as we shall see further along.  We also have Wellesley, Duke of Wellington -- although I hear Waldensians there, too, an early Protestant sect.  These conflicts echo domestic conflicts with "paunch and judex," judex = judge (I hear Jew and codex there, too).

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake, says Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, and that seems to be what is being evoked in the next series:  "hallucination, cauchman [cauchemar, nightmare, although also possibly a man of nightmare], ectoplasm [ghosts], baabaa blacksheep" and "white woo woo woolly" -- counting sheep.  Perhaps in his dreams or his nightmares HCE is the ruler, the ruler of his home, of his city, of his universe:  "all fitzpatricks in his emirate remember him, the boys of wetford [Wexford] hail him babu; indanified himself with boro tribute" -- here we have Brian Boru, Babu, a Hindu term of respect, and multiple references to tribute -- the early, tribal, primitive version of what insurance becomes in modern capitalist society?

At the bottom of page 133, the connection between these references to empire, civil society, government, and political structures and their history; and the public space of hospitality and civic life -- namely the pub -- is made explicit:  "lebriety, frothearnity, and quality" (liberty, fraternity, equality, sobriety, levity, froth).   This reference to the motto of the French Revolution is followed by references to kings:  basidens, ardree, kongsemma, rexregulorum.  In a Viconian fashion we cycle through monarchy and democracy.  HCE is a king figure and a man of the people.

But the concern spreads to empire and to quest, the taking over of lands for gold, God, and glory:  "eldorado or ultimate thole; a kraal of fou feud fires, a crawl of five pubs" [kraal being Afrikaaners for a village, Dutch origin coming originally from the Portuguese, fou being crazy in French, drunk in Scots, feud being surprisingly clear; connecting or echoing kraal and crawl, empire and pubs].  Signifiers of Irish civic/social life -- pubs, beer -- coupled with references to the diaspora serve to render "Irishness" as transnational.  Beer becomes what Graham in our discussion called a "social solvent":  even Gaudio Gambrinus, the Flemish king who brewed the first beer, makes an appearance.

The middle of page 134 brings together the theater as well as the French Revolution calendar issues already alluded to.  Empire, ideology -- these shape our very experience of time (contrast this way of thinking about time, calendar time, with the Viconian cycles moving through the Wake:  cosmic time, archaeological time, secular/sacred time, closing time).  Joyce refers to the controversy between the Irish and Roman churches over the date of Easter (of course the date of resurrection being significant for the Wake), as well as the controversy over the French Revolution calendar displacing the Gregorian:  "he can get on as early as the twentysecond of Mars [here literalizing Mars=March] but occasionally he doesn't come off before Virgintiquinque Germinal" (we took get on/come off as a dirty joke, too).  Rick, Dave, and Barry refers to Richard Burbage, David Garrick and Barry Sullivan, all of whom played "Crookback," or Richard III (timely!).  Richard III thus serves as a theatrical figure and as a thwarted king:  here we see him in all his avatars, much like we see HCE.

Speaking of avatars:  we were able to connect these conversations about calendars and the different perspectives of time to, what else, reading:  the way you talk about something alters the nature of the thing you are trying to talk about.  Geography and space become different depending on who is making the map; time becomes different depending on who is making the calendar.

This global/cosmic perspective comes back to HCE in Dublin, with bridges, connectors to different parts of the city over water (and the relationship of the city, its neighborhoods, and its waters is important because that is the man and his family themselves):  Portobello, Equadocta, Therecocta, Percorello (all referring to bridges and aqueducts, urban infrastructure and remnants of empire and history), as well as contemporary landmarks in Dublin and mythic figures and spaces in Irish culture and history:  shellborn (the Shelbourne Hotel), Watling Street (near the Guinness brewery), and the giant ivy (Parnell) from the land of younkers (young men=Tir-na-nOg).  It also comes back to his family and the family/life/sexual cycle:  "soft youthful bright matchless girls should bosom into fine silkclad joyous young women...not so pleased that heavy swearsome strongsmelling irregularshaped men should blottout active handsome wellformed frankeyed boys" (this reminded us of the men eating in "Lestrygonians," too).

Ultimately, as we move through question-and-answer #1, bearing in mind the Q & A is meant to draw out all of the versions of HCE -- Hapapoosiesobjibway [have papooses (children) everywhere], the Justesse of the Jaypees (Justice of the Peace), the something behind the Bug of the Deaf (earwig/Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker) -- we see the weaving of nation, history, and family, and the rising and falling of them all:  "husband your aunt and endow your nepos...time is, an archbishopric, time was, a tradesmen's entrance."

November/December 2012 Report

Just because we haven't been blogging doesn't mean we haven't been meeting!  Too busy to blog, not too busy to meet.

So, to catch everyone up for 2013, here's where we are (pp. 126-132):

We've made it to Part I, Chapter 6:  the twelve-question "quiz show."  The end of Chapter 5 (p. 125) sets up our questioner, Shem the Penman: "that odious and still today insufficiently malestimated notesnatcher."  We get the gist of what Shem is like, as a son and a quizmaster:  "shoots off in a hiss, muddles up in a mussmass and his whole's a dismantled noondrunkard's son."  Shem is the writer and the joker, out to expose his father, here compared again to Noah, drunk at noon and discovered in shame by his sons.  The quiz in chapter 6 will parade the key characters and their qualities before us in all their multivarious forms.

In our meetings we've only gotten a bit into the first Q&A:  "What secondtonone myther rector and maximost bridgesmaker was the first to rise taler through his beanstale than the bluegum buaboababbaun or the giganteous Wellingtonia Sequoia; went nudiboots with trouters into a liffeyette when she was barely in her tricklies..." (126).  The answer, as we will see on p. 139 (eventually) is "Finn MacCool!", one of HCE's avatars.  Knowing the answers helps you understand the questions, as once you see that all of Q1 is about HCE you can pick out the qualities and traits and elements of his story his son chooses to highlight (not all of them flattering).  But let's back up...

The introduction to the quiz indicates our interlocutors, Shem and Shaun:  "Shaun MacIrewick" and "Jockit Mic Ereweak," sons of Earwicker (with some "Jhamieson" thrown in for good measure).  We can look for "twelve apostrophes," a dozen questions, one for each apostle.  Shem aims for "three of them" -- the three children -- and "free natural ripostes to four of them" -- the four old men/chroniclers, Mamalujo.  We can look for all of these figures to make an appearance in Chapter 6.

HCE is our myth-erector, myth-making and also perhaps erecting something of mythic proportions (you can take that as a dick joke), and we might read the bridgesmaker as a reference to Dublin, crossing both sides of the Liffey.  As we'll see throughout the quiz, HCE's body is connected to Dublin and European geography (map courtesy of robotwisdom.com):

More dick jokes: "first to rise taller through his beanstale."  And then an uncomfortable whiff of incest: "nudiboots with trouters [fish references abound, especially salmon further on, with their spawning/death/return associations] into a liffeyette when she was barely in her tricklies [menses]" -- this is a reference to Issy, the daughter of ALP, and thus a diminutive Liffey.

Once we move away from the family, a number of themes emerge in Q1:  old/new, East/West (with a smattering of Ezra Pound), pagan/Christian.  Homer and with him the pairing of Greek/Irish literature, history, culture (similar to the foundation of, of course, Ulysses); Norse history and epic; Irish history; pre-Christian pagan history -- all of which should be pointing us towards the epic origins of HCE, the connection of his story to foundational myths and legends crucial to the formation of Ireland (and Europe) itself.  Part of this bigger picture are questions of nationhood and identity, kingship, states, and empires.

"Between youlasses and yeladst glimse of Even":  Between Ulysses/Ulysses and the Iliad is a glimpse of Eden.  Homeric texts frame the prelapsarian world, and perhaps the homecoming that comes after the Iliad is itself a glimpse of Eden.  The Odyssey is sometimes considered a more "feminine" text and the Iliad more masculine (you lasses and ye lads), and Samuel Butler even had a theory that the Odyssey was written by a young woman (a theory Joyce was familiar with, as his Trieste library shows, documented by Michael Patrick Gillespie).

A Christian/liturgical view of time appears here, too, at the top of page 130:  Christienmas at Advent Lodge, lenty illness, Easterling of pentecostitis -- Christianity as illness, at any rate -- as well as the unpleasantness of church history:  "comminxed under articles but phoenished a borgiess" (articles of faith, Borgias).  From this background, Finn MacCool/HCE also "learned to speak from hand to mouth till he could talk earish with his eyes shut" -- something interesting here about speaking and sight, and the speaking from hand to mouth may be a reminder of the famine, which shows up elsewhere, too, in these pages, particularly with reference to emigration to the US.

Epic history conjoins with the recent past and the role emigration plays in Irish memory, and is connected to HCE spawning little Dublins throughout the world:  if he is Dublin, then his epic stature allows him to reproduce little Dublins in his image:  "twenty four or so cousins germinating in the United States of America and a namesake with an initial difference in the once kingdom of Poland" (24 different towns called Dublin in the US, plus Lublin in Poland; the reference to the "once kingdom" is noteworthy here, too, as the kingdom/country of Poland has disappeared and reappeared with almost tragic frequency depending on which more powerful country sought to absorb/destroy it, of particular importance as Joyce was writing in the 1930s, and chapter 6 was written later than most of the rest of the book, in the darkest days leading to the Second World War).  This spawning, though, came from death:  "stood his sharp assault of famine but grew girther, girther, and girther."  Cultivation leads to civilization, but also to colonization.

Page 131 brings us back to Dublin, with a list of the initials of Lord Mayors (including L. O. N., Laurence O'Neill, who served from 1917 to 1923 and saw, among other things, the First World War and the establishment of the Free State).  Unlike America, here "the streets were paved with cold," and "he felt his topperairy" -- referencing "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," a song from WWI.  Here HCE "learned how to fall," is "distinctly dirty but rather a dear" (Dear Dirty Dublin), and, of course, "haveth chieftains evrywehr [Wehrmacht], with morder."  He is the "first of the fenians" and the "roi des faineants," last of the kings.  But this page also has a number of references to Ossian, Ossian being Oisean and also Finn MacCool, but also being a literary hoax perpetrated by James McPherson, who claimed to have collected the tales of Ossian from oral sources.  Thus Ossian becomes another of HCE/Finn MacCool's avatars, but also a fraud.

Two other figures struck us as important on page 131:  the apostle Paul and Parnell.  Paul appears in the first third of the page:  "was struck out of his sittem when he rowed saulely to demask us and to our appauling predicament brought us plagues from Buddapest [Buddha/peste=plague]."  Saul was struck from his saddle on his way to Damascus, thus "demasking" us, revealing belief in Christ -- but this also does lead to the "appalling"/Pauline predicament of dealing with sin and salvation.  Parnell appears, as well, as the doomed "uncrowned king of Ireland":  "his Tiara of scones was held unfillable until one Liam Fail [William Gladstone] felled him in Westmunster [Westminster, but also West Munster/Briton]...we are pledged entirely to his green mantle" as opposed to the "vikelegal":  the Vikings who conquered Ireland first, and then the viceregals who ran the colonial administration under British rule.  Parnell is a "faulterer" [one who has faults, one who falls, adulterer] and so is HCE:  "we darkened for you, faulterer, in the year of mourning but we'll fidhil [fiddle; be faithful; fidelis] to the dimtwinklers when the streamy morvenlight calls up the sunbeam."

Page 132 returns HCE to his place in Dublin again, not only as part of the landscape but connected to water, hearkening not exactly to ALP, his wife the Liffey, but to the seafaring/sea conquering past.  The name Costello, linked to the Spanish presence, shows up a few times; "burning body to aiger air on melting mountain in wooing wave"; "made a summer assault on our shores and begiddy got his sands full"; and with a reference to resurrection/death/spawning:  "as for the salmon he was coming up in him all life long."  Water is used here, too, similarly to the "Does it flow?" passage in "Ithaca"; Joyce quotes in full and verbatim the epitaph on the monument -- a fountain -- to Sir Philip Crampton, famous surgeon:  "the sparkle of his genial fancy, the depth of his calm sagacity, the clearness of his spotless honour, the flow of his boundless benevolence" (132).  It would seem, given some of the other things we know about HCE, that this is ironic, especially since it might also echo Phoenix Park and HCE's crime:  the crime may have been urinating in public, and "Phoenix" itself comes from Fionne Uisce, meaning clear water.  There was a fountain near the Viceregal (!) Lodge called Fionn-uisg, or "Feenisk."

Make sure to join us again in 2013, when we might actually finish another chapter or two!  Happy new year!

Report from August 2012 Meeting

Notes for the August meeting, pp. 120-123 

(picking up from the colon fourteen lines down the page, starting “all those red raddled…”

As noted from the July meeting, we are in the midst of navigating through Joyce’s “analogy / parody / play” of Sullivan’s analysis of the Book of Kells. What begins to manifest in this section is Joyce’s mockery of Sullivan’s analysis for its somewhat superficial qualities—that is, it appears to remark only about the style, and instead says nothing about the substance of the text. The Sullivan-like narrator of this section, furthermore, attempts to tell a story about the writer of this letter / book / text by knowingly casting judgments on other cultures based upon HOW the language is presented but not on WHAT is actually presented. 

Consider how Joyce’s narrator, here, insinuates characteristics of the writer based solely on the style—the “superciliouslooking crisscrossed Greek ees awkwardlike perched there and here out of date like sick owls hawked back to Athens: and the geegees too, jesuistically formed at first but afterwards genuflected aggrily toewards the occident” (FW 120.18-21)

Can “crisscrossed” [maybe also “Christ’s cross”] E’s demonstrate a “superciliousness” in Greek culture? They look as “awkward” and “out of date” today as “sick owls” [possibly an allusion to Egyptian hieroglyphics where the Owl represented the letter “m”—an inverted “E”] may have “hawked [looked] back to Athens.” Egypt, after all, to the Greeks was considered an especially backwards culture. The narrator continues with “gee-gees” “Gs” that may have been written by “jesuistically.” What judgments will lie in the future as texts are “aggrily [eagerly?] interpreted by those who bring them towards the Western World [the occident]. 

Joyce may tip his hand in this section to future readers and scholars (like ourselves) who study his strange and curious style in Finnegans Wake. Indeed, we are often attempting, with this book, to make interpretations “over the text, [by] calling unnecessary attention to errors, omissions, repetitions and misalignment” (FW 120.15-16). This may be Joyce anticipating scholars who pour over his Finnegans Wake drafts and notebooks—scrap-heaps that give clues to Joyce’s personal and writing history.  These often appear somewhat organized (as with the titled sections of his Scribbledehobble notebook) but are also littered with “red raddled obeli cayennepeppercast over the text” (120.14-15)—or “read riddled with red crayon marks [cayenne peppers = red, but also a reference to Joyce’s preferred use of “crayons” to mark edits, changes, or places he took material from in the notebooks] over the text”—our attempts to make sense of the fragmented knowledge left to us. 

Indeed, the narrator continues to move forward with the analysis of letter/language styles that judge the characteristics of those cultures: “Ostrogothic [Austrian gothic] kakography” [shit calligraphy or bad writing]; “Etruscan stabletalk” [ancient Italian attempts to “stabilize” language? but also filthy gossip—talk within the stables—the things behind closed doors]; the “constant labour to make” Jew and Greek pass as the same in one another’s eye [“ghimelpass [Jewish letter] through the eye of an iota [Greek letter]” / a theme within Ulysses “Jewgreek is Greekjew”], “and one peculiar sore point in the past; those throne [monarchy but also thrown] open doubleyous (of an early muddy terranean origin)” (FW 120.22-27) [“w” keeping with a developing pattern of “E” (Greek) “M” (Egyptian)”W” (Mediterranean)—the signs of HCE at various stages in human history—reminding us once again that it is history being interpreted, judged, misinterpreted, reinterpreted, and sometimes based on how the story/letters/language is presented, and not our understanding of what has been written]. It is “hornful digamma [di=2, gamma = C, but also dilemma] of your bornabarbar” (FW 120.34). Barbarians, here, is used in a definition similar to its Greek origin—anyone who is not of “our” culture. 

We did not get to talk much of the following section during the meeting (I was fumbling and bumbling what I wanted to say and unable to make the connections I wanted to make) —Feel free to skip what I have tried to develop here to make the connection I wanted to make when we did actually talk about this section:

To back up this claim—Joyce references one of his lesser known works—

“the Aranman ingperwhis through the hole of his hat, indicating that the words which

 follow may be taken in any order desired, hole of Aran man the hat through the

 whispering his ho” (FW 121.12-14).

The reference is to Joyce’s 1912 article he wrote while in Galway with Nora and their children, submitted for publication in the Il Piccolo della Sera newspaper in Trieste, Italy: “The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran: England’s Saftey Valve in Case of War” (Critical Writings 234-37). Within the article, Joyce comments on a British plan to build a new port in Galway—one that will connect Canada to the United Kingdom through Ireland—allowing for the flow of “granary,” “goods,” “passengers” “wealth” and “energy” into Galway and through to Dublin and Holyhead before making its way to London—a plan that would pump life “through this new artery of an Ireland drained of blood” (CW 235). 

This sentiment, Joyce writes, compares to the mirage of the poor fisherman of Aran—a mirage of independence—as “Up until a few years ago the village elected its own king, had its own mode of dress, passed its own laws and lived it itself. The wedding rings of the inhabitants are still decorated with the king’s crest: two joined hands supporting a crowned heart” (CW 234). This bliss of independence, a separateness from their “United Kingdom,” seemingly is the mirage of the fisherman’s life. It is the conflict that will come with the creation of this new port—a complete misunderstanding of a people, of a culture, of a way of life. 

Joyce and his companion are invited into the home of an old lady for tea and buttered bread [an act of hospitality contrasted to our earlier mention of barbarianism—“bornabarbar” (FW 120.34)]. The old lady’s son “sits near the fireplace and answers the questions of my companion in an embarrassed and humble manner”—answering questions that indicate he does not know his exact age—but that he’ll soon be old—and that he is unmarried because there are no women for him (CW 237). These things, Joyce insinuates, do not matter to these people. The man “confused and smiling” at the questions “remov[es] his hat from his head, [and] sinks his face in the soft wool” (CW 237), showing his embarrassment. “Aran,” Joyce writes, “is the strangest place in the world. A poor place, but no matter how poor it is, when my companion tries to pay, the old lady rejects the money almost angrily and asks us if we are trying to dishonour her house” (CW 237). 

Feel free to resume here!

In short, this reference suggests the powers at large impose their meanings, their values, onto others—in language, in culture, in life. The harbor is said to bring money to Galway—but the people, at least in this passage, do not value money, or recognize themselves as British—they had their own King, laws, customs. It is a meaning and life that is judged by a reader who imposes and privileges his values, and often without ever understanding the cultures that he prejudges—and it has happened over, and over, and again “(here keen again and begin again to make soundsense and sensesound kin again) (FW 121.14-16)”

More judgments are made against cultures and the style of the writing—“haughtypitched disdotted aiches [H’s]” “Jaywalking [J] eyes [I]” almost spelling out this text’s “sahib” [owner] giving us the “principial” [first], the “medial” [middle], but not the “final” letter [M]—which is “always jims in the jam” (FW 121.16-18). 

We begin to move away from letters (but not for long) as this paragraph continues (yes, this is all one paragraph—pp.119-123) and onto some of the illustrations—“that strange exotic serpentine, since so properly banished from our scripture” [possibly an allusion to St. Patrick removing the snakes form Ireland—but also a hint of the narrators own haughtiness—calling the symbol “exotic” and praising its “proper banishment” from “our” scripture]. What further makes this text inferior in the opinion of this narrator is its “studious omission of year number and era name from the date” mockingly calling this omission “the one and only time when our copyist seems at least [last] to have grasped the beauty of restraint” (FW 121.20-21; 28-30). 

He attempts to place it in history by noting the “lubricitous conjugation of the last with the first” only occurs in ”the Bootherbrowth family of MSS., Bb – Cod IV [4], Pap II [2 or 11], Brek XI [11], Lun III [3 or 111], Dinn XVII [17], Sup XXX [30], Fullup M D C X C [1690—year of the “Battle of the Boyne” [where Catholic supporters of King James ultimately fell at the hands of the Protestant forces of William of Orange] (FW 121.31-35). Whether he can place a time and date with this seemingly chaotic order of numbers, letters, and events seems impossible. 

The language begins to mirror pirate talk; the narrator begins to examine “those ars, rrrr! Those ars all bellical, the highpriest’s hieroglyph of kettletom and oddsbones  [skull and crossbones—Jolly Roger], wrasted redhandedly from our hallowed rubic prayer for truce with booty” (FW 122.06-09). The “booty” may be foreign texts translated into English—the interpretations being “stolen” or “pirated”—There is reference, here, to two texts from the orient that were translated for the first times in English in the mid 19^th and early 20^th centuries: the “quatrain of rubyjets” Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859) (FW 122.11) and “ars all bellical” (FW 122.07) the Art of War by Sun Tzu (translated in 1905). 

The examination of R’s leads to a potential examination of the brother’s battles, “O’Remus [Remus] pro Romulo [Romulus]” (FW 122.09) the twin brothers who fought over where to build a new city [Rome—as Romulus killed Remus in their fighting]. The battle that ensues here takes the form of drinking [“Roe’s Distillery,” “porter,” “firefill’d cup,” “jig jog jug” and a game of cards “pinnacle” [pinochle] (FW 122.09-13). The players take turns throwing their cards down with a “whang” (FW 122.13;15;16;17) in the backdrop of mannish parlor room talk where the “whangs” take on a sexual tone “and there she’s for you, sir, whang her, the fine [w]ooman, roughe to her lobster locks, the rosy, whang, God and O’Mara” (FW 122.14-16). 

But often this sexual innuendo appears more to do with card playing mixed with Irish history: “loyal six I lead [leading with a six—but also maybe the loyal six of unionist Northern Ireland]” and “spoil five of spuds’s trumps [Spade trump cards in pinochle, also “spuds” as potatoes and a reminder of famine in Ireland]” (FW 122.10-14). There is a punch thrown—“whang, whack on his pigsking’s Kisser” [punched in the mouth with a possible reference to the Festy King—the pigsking—the King accused of dressing in coal to escape after selling a stolen pig – and a possible “Shem” character: see notes from June 2011 meeting: Festy King!] (FW 122.14-15). Kisser leads to more confusion – basia / bastum [lip kisses] (122.16; 32) or osculua [osculum-a cheek kiss] (122.16) or suavium [tongue kisses] (122.32). 

How, though, did we get this far off topic?

Easy! Language/translation/interpretation, here, has become unstable—with words holding “toomuchness” of meaning “fartoomanyness” of those fourlegged ems [meanings] (FW 122-23)—too many meanings, it seems, for the narrator to keep track of in an organized way, as the paragraph drifts into a chaotic state of incongruence. The narrator instead begins again to study the images on the “plainly inspiring…Tunc page of the Book of Kells” (FW 122.18)—but even here there are discrepancies.  The text is “Then there were two thieves crucified with him” but the pictures don’t match the text. This is simply noted as a discrepancy by the Sullivanesque narrator, who can only describe images but not actually interpret or analyze.

The paragraph concludes (phew) with references to more questions of letters “why spell dear god with a big thick dhee [D] (why [Y], O why [Y], O Why [Y]): the cut and dry aks [X] and wise [Y]—the symbols of male and female chromosomes. But when “all is zed [Z and said] and done” (FW 123), Joyce seems to remind the readers of translations in his own work—Ulysses: A modern Odyssey told in “eighteenthly [18]” episodes of Homer’s “twentyfourthly [24]” episode original. He thanks the man who published Ulysses in Dijon, France in 1922--Maurice Darantière with a simple “thank Maurice” for having “penelopean patience” [Penelope—the conclusion of Ulysses, also the weaver and un-weaver which ties into our discussion of meaning] in publishing the “seven hundred and thirtytwo strokes” [732 page Ulysses] so that those willing to “press on” through the book can “marvel” at the “vaulting feminine libido…sternly controlled and easily repersuaded by the uniform matteroffactness of a meandering male fist?” (FW 123.01-10).  The question is to the reader and about the reader: “Who will continue reading this masturbatory drivel?” Why, we will!

If I were in Springfield with Homer Simpson, I might need a Duff-Muggli (FW 123.11) before I continue. Join us for Duff-Muggli talk as we press forward into the murky depths of Finnegans Wake. 

Report from the July 2012 Meeting

Pages 116-120 (Book I, Chapter 5)

We are well underway in the interpretation of ALP's letter, which she has dictated to her son Shem the Penman (Nick; Joyce) to be delivered by Shaun the Postman (Mick; Stanislaus Joyce), but then gets lost in a midden heap to be found again by a hen.  We just about got to the section where it is analogized to The Book of Kells (119-123).

It's worth pointing out that a midden heap is a pile of domestic waste -- food, bones, shells, etc, -- that can be of use to archaeologists learning something about everyday life in past societies.  I can't help thinking that this is an excellent analogy to keep in mind while reading and trying to understand Finnegans Wake.  The everyday is of crucial importance, especially if we zoom out into grand recits, archaeological or evolutionary time, the sweep of history -- and then zoom back in on the family, the married couple, the hen picking around the trash heap.  How do we understand -- how do we read -- the artifacts -- the art -- that people leave behind?  It is these shards that make up the language and patterns of Joyce's novel.  (By the way, for an excellent discussion of the Joycean everyday, hop over to the Modernist Versions Project for Michael Stevens' lecture on "Calypso" and the everyday here.)

We've gone back and forth figuring out the narrative voice -- who's talking -- over the course of Book I.  Sometimes we get the story in ALP's voice, sometimes the sons (who each have their own voices), sometimes a "common man" voice, sometimes a more scholarly voice.  This was the subject of where we left off on p. 116.  Pages 114-116 were giving us the family story.  The bottom of 116 strikes us as ALP's voice:  "So hath been, love: tis tis: and will be: till wears and tears and ages...a good clap, a fore marriage, a bad wake...such is manowife's lot of lose and win again."  Once we've heard the family story, we get the woman's perspective on cycles of life and history:  love, marriage, children, death.  Men might make decisions and wage wars, but women have to clean up the mess.  This perspective also connects with the larger pattern of the book as the paragraph ends with repetition evoking "The Ballad of Tim Finnegan": "lose and win again...who's chin again...grown in again."

There is another reference to the passage of life:  "If juness she saved! Ah ho! And if yulone he pouved!" -- If youth but knew! If age but could!  But ALP also "saves" "jeunesse" -- the youth of herself? her children? the life of her husband?  The hen -- "quiqui," or chicken -- finds the letter, "told in sounds in utter that, in signs so adds to, in universal, in polyglutteral, in each neutral idiom..."  The old world of Ireland is evoked with "spurtfire turf a'kind o'kindling when oft as the souffsouff blows her peaties up" (peat, turf, kindling).  This merges here and at the end of the paragraph with sexual innuendo (cf later, III.4, when the Porters are having sex and she accuses him of having never "wet the tea" -- slang for female satisfaction):  "claypot wet for thee," "ould cup on tay," "hottin me souser," "caldin your dutchy hovel" -- these conjure a bread and circuses, Shelagh Delaney-esque "a bit of love, a bit of lust, and there you are" in the dire circumstances of post-famine Ireland.

This paragraph also features key players like:  jambebatiste (John the Baptist and Giambattista Vico), brulobrulo (Bruno of Nolan who was "brule," or burned, at the stake), and of course ereperse, Persse O'Reilly, HCE -- who will show up again in a few different forms on page 119, just as he showed up in the "Ballad of Tim Finnegan" before.

Contrast this with the references to a new life in America, for that provides a contrast here -- the history of America is conjured in the move from Ireland to places like Boston and New York (like Woodside, Queens, our old stomping grounds, which still has a significant recent Irish immigrant population).  "Nozzy Nanette" (No No Nanette, a musical from the 20s) "tripped palmyways with Highho Harry" -- Harry Frazee was the person responsible for getting No No Nanette to Broadway, with, rumors had it, money from the sale of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.  New York figures here as "Nieuw Amsteldam" (along with "grape, vine, and brew").  These emigrants write home, "oldworld epistola of their weatherings and their marryings and their buryings."

Meanwhile, those left behind "in our wee free state, holding to that prestatute in our charter, may have our irremovable doubts as to the whole sense of the lot, the interpretation of any phrase in the whole, the meaning of every word of a phrase so far deciphered out of it, however unfettered our Irish daily independence, we must vaunt no idle dubiosity as to its genuine authorship and holusbolus authoritativeness."  Here authoritativeness -- conjured by authority and authorship -- is hocus pocus and of the hoi polloi, the people, and all at once (the meaning of "holus bolus," according to McHugh).  The interpretation of statutes, of charters, laws, letters, texts -- well, we have doubts AND we must vaunt no dubiosity.  Of course.  We have talked before about the importance of horses and bulls to Irish history, especially in the colonial context.  Of course history, and the Wake itself, is a cock-and-bull story:  "desultory horses," "bafflelost bull," "Coccolanius or Gallotaurus."  In addition to the Tristram Shandy-esque reference to "cock and bull," there are also numerous references to Gargantua and Pantragruel, especially with regard to horseriding and winedrinking -- again, literary figures who are larger than life, much like our own HCE.

But the focus here is not just on HCE but on the letter about him written by his wife, "anyhow, somehow and somewhere, before the bookflood or after her ebb, somebody mentioned by name in his telephone directory [cf Thom's Directory for the writing of Ulysses; note mention of telephone, technology for communicating, modernity]...wrote it, wrote it all, wrote it all down, and there you are, full stop.  O, undoubtedly yes, and very potably so, but one who deeper thinks will always bear in the baccbuccus [Bacchus] of his mind" -- written undoubtedly and potably, which makes me think of Finn Fordham's claim that the Wake is a drunken text.

The next paragraph continues the emphasis on writing, beginning with writing as sacred and then moving to the impossibility of an authoritative interpretation (although, would such a thing be desirable?  As a rabbinic teaching states, he who translates literally is a fraud).  We start with "Soferim Bebel" and "dormerwindow gossip," "soferim" being the Hebrew word for writers of sacred texts, and also "suffering," a reference to the Tower of Babel, and then gossip.  I also think of people leaning out their windows to hear the town cryer:  news or gossip?  (For a great discussion of the impact of news on modernist literature, especially Finnegans Wake, see David Rando's Modernist Fiction and News.)  The "shout in the street" leads to divine chaos, and also maybe even misunderstanding and lies, the crux of HCE's difficulty as he tries to clear his name: "every person, place and thing in the chasomos...moving and changing every part of the time: the traveling inkhorn...the pen and paper, the continually more or less intermisunderstanding minds of the anticollaborators, the as time went on as it will variously inflected, differently pronounced, otherwise spelled, changeably meaning vocable scriptsigns."  This is one of those passages that seems to be commenting on itself, and the novel as a whole, our reading and our attempts to share what we get out of it.  Writing and history and interpretation are akin to both prophesy and gossip:  "writing on the wall," "hue and cry."  Yet writing is just as likely to be left on the midden heap:  jottings," "dried ink scrap of paper," "tare it or leaf it."  Are these artifacts to be left for history to figure out?  Or simply garbage?  The question of how things are to be written down, how they are to be delivered, and what they mean preoccupy Shem and Shaun as the focus shifts away from ALP, as does the narrative voice.  The question of how to read and what texts are worth to the interpreter or critical eye is made via a literary joke at the end of the paragraph at the top of page 119:  an allusion to Francis Jeffrey's famous review of Wordsworth's The Excursion in the Edinburgh Review:  "This will never do."  He almost certainly would have said the same thing about Joyce, who himself suffered at the hands of reviewers and critics (criticism and curation as cultural imperialism, as we discussed last time; see also Joyce's own "Gas From a Burner").

Text as object of interpretation and as holding a place or being defined by history moves into Joyce's analogy/parody/play on The Book of Kells.  According to McHugh, the paragraph starting on page 119 begins with the introduction by Sir Edward Sullivan to The Book of Kells.  Sullivan writes, "Its weird and commanding beauty; its subdued and goldless colouring; the baffling intricacy of its fearless designs...have raised this ancient Irish volume to a position of abiding preeminence among the illuminated manuscripts of the world" (see McHugh for the full quote).  Compare Joyce:  "whiplooplashes"; "bolted or blocked rounds"; "round thousand whirligig glorioles"; "illegible airy plumeflights, all tiberiously ambiembellishing the initials majuscule of Earwicker"; "the curt witty wotty dashes never quite just right at the trim trite truth letter"; "a word as cunningly hidden in its maze of confused drapery as a fieldmouse in a nest of coloured ribbons."  Joyce actually conjures the visual quality of The Book of Kells, its flourishes and embellishments, all in the service of the sacred.  Does a book actually have mystical powers?  Where does its authority lie?  Note also that The Book of Kells is actually the four Gospels, which play a role here in the personae of Mamalujo, the four old men.

This is ultimately HCE's story:  "that farmfrow's foul flaire for that flayfell foxfetor," "the initials majuscule of Earwicker," "his hes hecitency Hec."  The sigla for HCE and ALP appear (the rotated clockwise E and the delta, respectively), echoing The Book of Kells via the visual within the text.  It also hearkens back to the forged Piggott letters that brought down Parnell, with the misspelling of hesitancy, which reminds us that texts can be traitorous and any story can be a lie.