My Final Essay

This essay says everything I have taken from this class:

The Cycle of the Highlow

“Youth cannot know how age thinks and reels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young” (“Phoenix” 826). While it might be strange to begin an scholarly essay with a quote from Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, the quote above draws an important parallel to the huge gap that grows every day in the realm of literary study: “high” vs. “low”, “old” vs. “new”—“vulgar” vs. “transcendent”. The establishment of merit within the literary is a hotly debated topic—a classification scheme which deems what should be read, and what is a waste of time is commonly heralded—“We must read Hamlet, but stay away from that Stephanie Meyer!” When attempting a defense of the “lowbrow”, the rhetorical questions abound—are “low” works derivative? Often. Do they simplify complex ideas and compress the aesthetic to a simple, easily marketable form? Frequently. Are they necessary, even as important, as the “high” literature they are derived from? Absolutely.

A reader might be confused at this point. How is it that a work can be derivative, simple, lacking in aesthetic merit—and valid and important at the same time? This assumption would create much confusion—if the view of literary scholarship is a linear one, in which the starting line is Everybody Poops, and the finish line is Finnegans Wake. Operating under this assumption, it would obviously make sense to jump right to the end of the race and experience the best rewards literature has to offer—rather than wasting time with the quite literal refuse at the beginning. It is likely true that a great majority of “lowbrow” works that are widely read today are quite generational and will fade away, never to be seen again; and, when they have gone, more will spring up to fill the place they have vacated. Perhaps it is in light of this that works of “lowbrow” literature are often shunted to the side, as something of not great importance. Yet a reader does a great disservice to himself/herself when they forget that “lowbrow” literature is a portal, not a road or a race, to greater and more “intellectually stimulating” works—a portal that travels both ways—cyclically, rather than straight to the end—as T.S. Eliot in his Four Quartets wisely shares: “In my beginning is my end” (Eliot 23.1). Applying Eliot’s wisdom, we must travel down multiple rabbit holes, experience many different stories, so we may appreciate all—rather than being confined to pure academia, or childish fancy.

It is easy to say this, but does evidence exist to back this claim? The answer to this question lies in examinations of “high” and “low” narratives of chaotic plerosis, ordered kenosis, and the Nabokovian “mysterious mental meneuver” required to create a synergy between both. The deep connection between plerosis and kenosis is no different than the connection of “high” to “low”, they depend on one another. It is through this thesis that the conventions of “high” and “low” are challenged, reminding the reader and potential scholar that one does not grow to become an adult by forgetting what is is to be full, nor can they remain an unemptied cup forever.

“As language approaches either order or disorder, it fails; yet language is most interesting at these points of failure…the movement towards disorder I call plerosis, meaning to fill, or more accurately here, overfill” (Peer 38). This language, and the literatures that follow it, are an attempt to present an audience with ideas and concepts that are fantastical in nature, and if the most simple and easy term were to be used to describe what literatures of plerosis are, it would be love. For what is love but “warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion” (Miriam), a chaotic vortex of emotion? The attachment to worldly ideas and concepts is the essence of plerosis, and the “filling” this creates is a direct parallel to its dark “emptying” sibling, kenosis. Plerosis in literature is the written expressions of this love—this chaos—and its expression through love of others, love of the physical form, and love of the mind.

The love of other physical beings and forms is at the heart of plerosis of others, embodied in literature by none other than Theodore Seuss Geisel, more popularly known as Dr. Seuss. The writer and illustrator of many fantastical rhythmic works that are still enjoyed today by the most often underestimated audiences—children. His simple rhythmic schemes do not contain the complexity and portmanteau of higher literature, but in the context of plerosis of others, his work speaks rich volumes. “A person’s a person, no matter how small!” The elephant Horton shouts, bluntly stating how imperative it is for a human society to exist that values the worth of all human beings—regardless of their physical appearance. Geisel implores audiences to look at groups of people as people, not enemies or dangerous “others”. Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (arguably a “highbrow” work) also echoes the themes of Horton Hears a Who, furthering the idea that difference is something often ignored and should be celebrated: “You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There are five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers” (Morrison 40-41). The main character, Milkman, travels on a journey of discovery and ignorance, ultimately realizing that one cannot deny their past, but it shouldn't keep them from flying either. Haroun and the Sea of Stories also celebrates this difference, with the Shadow Warrior showing that “silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly)” (Rushdie 125). It is through this plerotic love of others, requiring both the “high” and the “low”, that a reader begins their journey through literature.

Works of plerosis also attempt to fill the reader with love of the body, and the physical form of existence. Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book provides its own wisdom on the subject of death and mortality, the character of Silas advising the main character Nobody (more on that name later) “You’re alive Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you’re dead, it’s gone. Over. You’ve made what you’ve made, dreamed your dream, written your name” (Gaiman 179). To which Bod, after a few moments of personal reflection, responds “I want to go to school” (Gaiman 180). Ultimately, it is through knowledge that one enhances the perception of the physical world, and Gaiman realizes this, subtly slipping it into a “children's” book. Conversely, however, it is an easy thing to forget the physical world, and migrate into the realm of the mind, though a person does themselves a great disservice by neglecting experience, and not going “Down the passage which we did not take / Towards the door we never opened / Into the rose garden” (Eliot 13 lines 11-13).

One of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of works of plerosis is their ability to disconnect the reader from reality, sending them into a world of myth and dream, where the celebration of the plerosis of the mind/imagination occurs. It is only here that the celebration of the human imagination, of storytelling, can occur. Tim Burton’s most underrated film, Big Fish, follows the character of Edward Bloom, his life presented as a series of fantastical stories told to his son, William. William is greatly disillusioned with his father, because he claims to know nothing “true” about him, having only ever been filled with his father’s wonderful, entertaining stories of plerosis. As the film follows William’s disillusionment (more on this later) he and the audience learn that the fictions that Edward created are Edward—that we are unable to divest ourselves from our stories, they are our essence, all we are, a basin that is filled and then slowly emptied. Perhaps the ultimate work of plerosis, Finnegans Wake, is a work that, as John Bishop says, “is one of the easiest books in the world to generalize about” (Joyce xiv). But this romp through a dream, containing everything and nothing, reminding that we are “from atoms and ifs but we’re presurely destined to be odd’s without ends” (Joyce 455) and that the dream, our dream of imagination and illusion may be that “we have been hadding a sound night’s sleep? You may so” (Joyce 597). The final question of course is, if the enjoyment and illusion ofstorytelling was a dream, does that make it less valid? To return to Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?” (“Hallows” 723).

“Why are you making everybody die?” asks Alexandria, a young girl in Tarsem Singh’s film The Fall. She asks the fundamental question that lies at the heart of kenosis—the emptying—the movement towards order. The basin that is full must be emptied, reduced to its bare components so true examination can begin. The themes of plerosis (there are many) that are echoed throughout high and low literatures are the fall of the teacher, the failure of language, and the inevitability of death.

The idol must topple for order to exist. In order for her to find her way home, Dorothy must reveal the man behind the curtain, so she can understand what lies within herself. When one is filled with the magic and fantasy of plerosis, the teacher, story, or fable that it arrives in is a chaos that is accepted as truth, it becomes a belief. But it is absolutely necessary that that belief is questioned and challenged so that further intellectual growth can occur. Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The Lame Shall Enter First” is one of the more telling works about unquestioning faith, and the dire consequences it brings. When the main character realizes that what he believed himself and his son to be is completely wrong, it is too late, realizing that “He had stuffed his own emptiness with good works like a glutton. He had ignored his own child to feed his vision of himself” (O’Connor 481). The imposed ignorance towards kenosis can destroy a human. While it is one thing for an audience to parrot the words of Morpheus in The Matrix, challenging the nature of reality—but it is quite another to explore the idea of The Matrix being a movie itself, and yet another illusion. Harry Potter’s idol is shattered as well in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when he realizes that his mentor and hero is flawed and human, and can make mistakes. When Harry sees “a tear trickling down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver beard,” he knows that things will not be the same (“Pheonix” 844). It is through this transformation, this reordering of things, that Harry can grow to become a complete human being. Additionally, the reader makes an interesting discovery (foreshadowing the event above, in an oblique way) in the third book in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry is about to kill the man whom he believes killed his father. He doesn't commit murder, separating himself from his metaphorical father/villain Voldemort by choosing to perform a different series of events. This is also reflective of the kenotic movement away from disorder to order.

Following Jacques Derrida’s treatises on deconstruction and the recognition of language as a flawed system that is incapable of fully representing the human mind, Samuel Beckett critically examines the nature of words as an arbitrary concept, The Unnamable exploring the idea of language as a futile system, the main character wanting to do nothing more than stop talking, and inevitably realizing that “I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on” (Beckett 414). It is a common phrase in all literature that “words cannot express my (insert emotion here)” and this is the lower, more easily recognized form of Beckett’s words. It is through the absence of meaning in Beckett’s works that a reader makes the realization that as important, pleasing, and immersive as stories are, they are “such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep” (Shakespeare 4.1.156-8). The story must ultimately be revealed, the language, like the teacher, must be exposed for what it is, yet another vanity that must fall away.

This fall is what leads into the darkest part of kenosis. It is the final moment, when death becomes a very present force in a life, whether it is the death of the story, death of the physical form, or death of the mind. Death is the illusion, death is what is faced when the explorer in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave arrives and finds “...that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision.” It is when someone finds this clearer vision that Plato takes a great interest, stating, “what will be his reply?” This approach toward the ultimate order, the ultimate certainty, death, can completely destroy an individual—as it does with the villain of the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, who fails “to understand that there are things much worse than death” (“Pheonix” 814).

While the “mysterious mental maneuver” that Nabokov speaks about in his novel Transparent Things likely refers to the difficulty of passing from one state of being to another, the metaphor must be pushed further, to address the concepts of high and low, plerosis and kenosis. This maneuver is not the one of simply reading works, but recognizing that they all depend on one another to contextualize and validate their own existences. The work that explains this concept in a deceptively simple form that transcends both plerosis and kenosis is the children’s book The Giving Tree. This simply illustrated story by Shel Silverstein is about a tree that gives herself piece by piece to a boy that she loves, until nothing remains but a stump. The final pages of the book drive the point home:

“I am sorry,” sighed the tree. “I wish that I could give you something…but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry…” “I don’t need very much now,” said the boy, “just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired.” “Well,” said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could, “well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.” And the boy did. And the tree was happy. (Silverstein 48-51)

The tree, and the boy both realize that while life may become empty, there is always room for it to be filled again, and emptyed, forever a cycle. The “mysterious mental maneuver” is not that mysterious after all. It is so simple that it can be “written on the surface of an emerald” (Coelho 83). It is the idea of Tao, that, as Alan Watts says “I would say, on the contrary, you can't have something without nothing.” (Alan Watts). The glass might be filled, but it must be emptied eventually. This is the perpetual cycle, the “mysterious mental maneuver”.

Finally, the answer to Alexandria’s question, with a small piece of wisdom from yet another fictional character in Big Fish—“Have you ever heard a joke so many times you've forgotten why it's funny? And then you hear it again and, suddenly, it's new. You remember why you loved it in the first place.” So, why must everyone die? So there can be life. So there is context and meaning to everything, from the lowest of the low, to the highest of the high.

Works Cited

Alan Watts Electronic University. Acemdia/Buzin.net, 2007. Web. 24 April 2010.

Beckett, Samuel. Three Novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. Trans. Patrick Bowles, Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 1955, 1956, 1958. Print.

Big Fish. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, and Billy Crudup. Columbia Pictures, 2003. Film.

Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. Trans. Alan R. Clarke. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994. Print.

Eliot, T.S.. The Four Quartets. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 1943. Print.

Gaiman, Neil. The Graveyard Book. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. Print.

Geisel, Theodor. Horton Hears a Who. USA: Random House Publishers, 1954. Print.

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. New York: Penguin Group, 1939. Print.

Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Miriam-Webster Inc., 2010. Web. 24 April 2010.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Vantage Books, 2004. Print.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Transparent Things. USA: Vantage Books, 1989. Print.

O'Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. USA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1971. Print.

Peer, Larry. Romanticism: Comparative Discourses. England: MPG Books Ltd., 2006. Print.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of The Pheonix. New York: Scholastic Press, 2003. Print.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Scholastic Press, 2007. Print.

Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta Books, 1990. Print.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Stephen Orgel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.

Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree. USA: Evil Eye Music, Inc, 1964. Print.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Version 1. Washington State University, 1998. Web. 24 April 2010.

The Fall. Dir. Tarsem Singh. Perf. Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, and Marcus Wesley. Googly Films, 2006. Film.

My page in FW

Here is one of many of my annotated pages in FW:

Good Bloggin' and my Intro Paragraph

To begin, blogs I have enjoyed a lot this semester are Rio's (always providing interesting stuff for me to look and think about) Kyle's (your dreams are very interesting, sir), and Sam's (keeping me straight on every thing Dr. Sexon says, has said, and will say).

My blogging might become a little more scarce in the coming weeks, because I am focusing all my creative energy on writing the final paper for the class. I think it might kill me. This is a rough start to what I'm going to be writing on, and I hope that I can write a paper worth reading.

“Youth cannot know how age thinks and reels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young” (Order of the Phoenix 826). While it might be strange to begin an scholarly essay with a quote from Harry Potter, the quote above draws an important parallel to the huge gap that grows every day in the realm of literary study: “high” vs. “low”, “old” vs. “new”, “vulgar” vs. “transcendent”. The distinction between various literatures is a hotly debated topic—a classification scheme which deems what should be read, and what is a waste of time is commonly touted—“We must read Hamlet, but stay away from that Stephanie Meyer!” The rhetorical questions abound: are “low” works derivative? Often. Do they simplify complex ideas and compress the aesthetic to a simple, easily marketable form? Frequently. Are they necessary, even as important, as the “high” literature they are derived from? Absolutely. A reader might be confused at this point. How is it that a work can be derivative, simple, lacking in aesthetic merit—and valid and important at the same time? If the view of literary scholarship is a linear one, in which the beginning is Everybody Poops, and the end is Finnegans Wake, then it would obviously make sense to jump right to the end and experience the best literature has to offer—rather than wasting time with the literal refuse at the beginning. While certain works are arguably more “important” than others, and there are thousands of generic pieces of literature about men fighting dragons and saving princesses that might/should be avoided, a reader does a great disservice to himself/herself when they forget that “lowbrow” literature is (returning to the quote above) a portal, not a road, to greater and more “intellectually stimulating” works—a portal that travels both ways—cyclically, rather than straight to the end! T.S. Eliot provides his insights: “In my beginning is my end” (Four Quartets 23 line 1).

Is there any evidence to back this claim? Through examinations of “high” and “low” narratives of morality, growth, kenosis, and dream, these very conventions will be challenged, reminding the reader that one does not become an adult by forgetting or moving on from what inspired or moved them as a child, nor can they remain mired in the past—childlike forever.

The Alchemist

So, maybe I'm one of those highbrews, looking snootily down upon all "lowbrow" literature, but I think I'm one of the most staunch defenders of the "lowbrow". I say this because I was not super impressed by The Alchemist.

Granted, it is a very tightly written novel, and it addresses the themes of the class almost perfectly, but I was slightly irritated by the obtuseness of the novel. I felt like I was being told about finding and discovering my personal destiny almost every page. For me personally, it kinda takes the fun out of a text like this when we are reminded on every page that the character is going to succeed. So I want someone to explain to me that I should love this book, because I feel like I should like it, as it seems like everyone else is a pretty big fan.

Anywho, I was thinking for my thesis (for the paper) that I was going to contrast several highbrow works in the class with some outside works, specifically Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and The Graveyard Book, and the movies The Fall and Big Fish. I might throw in a bit of Harry Potter as well.

What is The Matrix? Does it Matter?

As I delve into the oft tread road of questioning the nature and meaning of "reality", I find this quote from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (is there anything not in Harry Potter?) to be particularly enlightening:

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that, Harry."

The character of Albus Dumbledore has just told the protagonist of the story to be wary of the Mirror of Erised (desire spelled backwards), a magical mirror that shows the viewer whatever the deepest desire of his/her heart might be. He reminds Harry that it is only illusion.

I will return to Mr. Dumbledore in a moment, but this interaction brings me back to questions I've had for a long time, which usually lead to the same conclusion: There is no conclusion, and I find myself sympathizing with the character of Cypher.

While I might be persuaded to argue that actual "reality" is better than a "reality" that has been created for me, I'm finding it hard to create a particularly compelling argument. Especially when I run up against this nagging little idea: what happens when you can't resist--can't change the reality you find yourself in? What happens when we don't know better? What happens when we are the characters in Waiting for Godot, waiting around for something to happen to us--rather than it being the other way around. Aren't our perceptions about the world around us an illusion, subjective viewpoints dependent on the viewer?

And what about all the people slumbering within the cave of the Matrix, oblivious? What do they want?

It is these questions that the movie ultimately fails to answer for me, attempting to drown out these questions with screams about a "reality" that is preferable to a "dream world", but it never specifies exactly what makes one reality better than the other (from a philosophical standpoint that is; of course, human beings being used like batteries is obviously not a desirable thing). Agent Smith raises this question in the final moments of the flawed (but ultimately rewarding) third film.

I think an answer, in part, is the one that Neo gives to this question--why does he continue to fight, struggle against inevitable defeat, desperately cling to the idea of "reality"?

Because he chooses to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YC7TMi0l68

I believe that it is our reactions, our choices that define us, give us "freedom". We may not be able to choose the cards we are dealt, but we do get to choose HOW to face those cards.

And so, I return to Albus Dumbledore. Rather than choosing to fall into a crippled scholasticism, sitting around all day musing about the meaning of reality--wondering what makes an illusion worth living, I choose to live--lest I forget how to.

Stranger Than Fiction

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, and there's this little speech he would give about drama that I think relates very well to the discussions we have in class, and Stranger Than Fiction.  You can read it here.

To paraphrase, people expect their lives to be similar to stories they read, and this gets us into all sorts of trouble. While, as Dr. Sexson has said, we are all stories (Harold Crick makes a journey of discovery to find out what story he is) we sometimes don't like the story that we find ourselves in.

This can lead to problems. We don't think our story is exciting enough, maybe it's too exciting, but for one reason or another, we can sometimes become very discontented with the place we find ourselves. Harold Crick experiences this, and when faced with his eminent demise, he begins to live "the life he always wanted".

It is rather unfortunate that some people spend their entire lives asleep, waiting for the big event, waiting for things to happen to them--waiting for that plot. We fail to realize, as Eliot says, that we "are the music while the music lasts".

But, as Harold learns in the end of the film, it is not the big things that save our lives--it isn't bulldozers destroying our apartments that make us fully conscious and aware of our existences--it's tiny little things that barely make a blip on our radars.

I am not presumptuous enough to say that I am tuned into the universe, or I am fully integrated into my own being, but I have a small list of things that save my life, almost every day:

Grover Bridge jumping, letters to Jules Feinberg, the word "poopbooger", chainsaws, toothpaste, peanut butter (from the jar), buck and rail fence, mustaches, the platypus, highlighters, post-it notes, hot dogs, giving blood, puppies and babies (in the same category), blue mold, poorly dubbed movies, daydreams, dust bunnies, funny hats, ties, newspaper clippings, calls to home, sunrises, sunsets, blue moons, wood-burning stoves, jalapenos, carrots, sushi, baseball, Woody Allen, riding a unicycle, burping loudly, frisbees, cooking, Star Trek, Neil Gaiman, cows, wheat fields, skyscrapers, bricks, accents, cookies, and a soaring heart.

That's just a few. I don't get too bored most of the time.

Finnegans Wake: My Thoughts

So,

I had a difficult time deciding what I was going to say about Finnegans Wake, because like John Bishop says,

"for while it may well be one of the hardest books in the world actually to sit down and read, it is one of the easiest books in the world to generalize about." (xiv)

I agree with Bishop. Saying anything definitively about the Wake is difficult, if not impossible--especially if you're a sophomore studying English Literature, and have only begun to lick the gargantuan salt block that is the world of literature, music, and culture.

But, here's what I think. I think Finnegans Wake is everything. But it is also nothing. It is beginnings, ends, monotone, songs, love, tears, death, rivers, food, shit, sex, pineapples, karate, soccer, lists, and, as Hamlet so aptly put it, "Words, words, words."

The book itself is a river of recurring themes, authors, and characters: Romulus, Remus, Brutus, Cassius, Sherlock Holmes, Giambattista Vico, Shakespeare, Adam, Eve, Cain, God, the eternal return--basically, anyone who's anyone in the world makes an appearance at some point.

Finnegans Wake can be a fun parlor-game for English-majors, taking an hour or two a week bent over a paragraph, attempting to decipher the meaning hidden in the words. But it is much more than that.

To understand the novel is a lifelong process, what it says now to a 20-year-old will change drastically when that 20-year-old becomes 40, and then 60. The reader falls into Joyce's well placed trap, the trap of eternal recurrence, the fact that we never realize what something is or where it is, until we return to it again and again, and as Eliot put, "know the place for the first time". 

But it is unfortunate that so many run from this text, fleeing from its enticing, jumbled print. Anthony Burgess, the author of A Clockwork Orange speaks very well on this in his novel Rejoyce:

"Difficult? Oh yes, difficult. But a certain difficulty is the small price we must pay for excitement, richness, originality. And we must learn to smile rather than frown: this is the world of 'Jabberwocky'. But the dream is not Alice's. We are dreaming a mature dream, remembering the past of mankind and the primal guilt that history hides but reveals. Yet the dream is a joke, as life itself may be." (250)

Because there is incredible depth in this novel! Because it seeks an answer, through crazed questioning--why do we continue to tell the same stories--why do we perpetuate the violence, the guilt? Is there another story? Or is this the only one we know? Joyce spent 17 years of his life asking this question, and it is up to us to unravel it.

If we can do this, if we take the time to have fun (I believe this to be the ultimate goal, not that high-handed stuff above), laugh, cry--we will be rewarded with the eternal vision:

"And the eternal vision is made out of muddy water, old saws, half remembered music hall songs, gossip, and the stain on a pair of underpants." (Burgess 279)

Reap the rewards people. Reap the rewards.

Still Thinking...

Still thinking about what I'm going to say about FW, but I wrote a short story the other day, kinda inspired by the 20-minute lifetime. Hope it's not crap.

Go Play Outside!
by Thomas Wells

“Go play outside!” said the boy’s mother. The boy didn’t really want to go, he was very involved in indoor boy activities—but he did. He ran out into the autumn world, losing himself in the whirlwind of dry leaves, snapping twigs, the softly caressing wind. He ran and he ran and he ran, and then he ran some more—until he came to a tree that he had never seen before. It was tall, taller than any tree he had ever seen, wider than ten trees tied together. It was all at once golden yellow, verdant green, and earthy brown, shifting and changing before his eyes. There were tiny little holes that were perfect size for boy-sized hands and feet.

And so, naturally, he began to climb. The boy climbed and climbed, and his hands and feet began to grow very sore—it was a very long climb, longer than he could have imagined. He almost stopped many times, and clambered back down, but he thought, “I have climbed so far, I might as well go to the top.” He climbed, and his limbs grew longer, his feet outgrew his shoes, his clothes became tight, and hair sprouted on his face.

Finally, the boy-who-was-not-a-boy-anymore (though that is still what we will call him) reached the top of the tree. But it was no longer a tree. It was a grassy plain, where there were many beautiful things. And so the boy explored them, and forgot all about the tree. He found a kingdom, full of people, who made him their prince, and he saved their kingdom from a dragon. He met wizards who taught him the mysticism and magic of the world. A princess who did not need saving saved him, and they found great love, greater than can bear description.

Great Darkness and Death found its way to the kingdom, and with it the people became sad and frightened, and the boy was sad and frightened as well. But through this the boy became wise, and he was no longer afraid of the dark, for it was part of him, and all of us.

Many years passed, and the boy was an old man, yet we shall still call him boy. He was still loved by his people, and his children valued him beyond compare. But he was old, and his wife had left him, and he was sad. He became sick, and needed to stay in bed. As he lie in bed, slowly breathing, he looked out the window—admiring the beauty of the sky, the cool breeze that swept in the window, bringing a faint reminder of adventurous youth. Slowly, his eyes began to drift closed.

He decided not to close them.

And the room changed. He was no longer in bed. He was in the top branches of a very large tree, and there were perfect boy-sized handholds and footholds leading down. He was very old, this boy, but he wanted to explore once again, and, his nightshirt flapping about his skinny legs, he began to climb down.

The climb down seemed to take no time at all; he seemed to remember that it was much harder coming up. At last, the boy placed his foot on the leafy copse of the forest. He looked around, and he looked at himself.

He looked at himself, and saw that he was a little boy.

Just a little boy.

And he ran home to eat supper.

Finnegans Wake p. 601-628

I've done it. I've gotten to the beginning of Finnegans Wake. Now just to read it all over again. I'll do a blog about my experience soon.

p. 601 (nothin')

p. 602

"Is his moraltack still his best of weapons?"

Morality is the best of weapons?

p. 603

"Haves you the time...Heard you the crime, senny boy?"

You done the crime, but you don't have the time.

p. 604

"Ecclesia."

Again?

"the unity in altruism through stupefaction"

Altruism through religions/factions is for idiots? I don't know if I agree.

p. 605 (nothin')

p. 606

"cherubical loins"

Nice.

"style, stink and stigmataphoron are of one sum in the same person?"

All religions are one. The Trinity?

p. 607

"lovesoftfun at Finnegan's Wake."

Oh yes.

"Hail, regn of durknass,"

Hail sleep?

p. 608 (nothin')

p. 609

There's a conversation between Muta and Juva, which kinda reminds me of MaMaLuJo.

p. 610

"Peredos Last"

There's ol' Milton!

p. 611

"Rumnant Patholic...utpiam"

Roman Catholic? Utopia, by crazy-pants Thomas More?

p. 612

"Highup Big Cockywocky Sublissimime Autocrat,"

What a title.

p. 613

 We did this one in class. Good stuff.

p. 614

"What has gone? How it ends? Begin to forget it."

We dream, and we forget. That is how we begin to live?

p. 615 (nothin')

p. 616

"Moral."

Is there one?

p. 617

"Conan Boyles"

There he is! Sherlock makes yet another appearance. '

"The grand fooneral will now shortly occur."

Will it? Is Finn going to wake?

p. 618

"Shame! Thrice shame!"

For what?

p. 619

"Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long! Or is it only so mesleems?"

We've slept so long. Or was it only a moment?

"A comforter as well."

Bedroom description?

p. 620 (nothin')

p. 621

"So not to see. Or see only a youth in his florizel, a boy in innocence, peeling a twig, a child beside a weenywhite steed."

This just sounds so beautiful.

p. 622

"Time? We have loads on our hangs."

We have so much time still left in the dream!

p. 623

"But once done, dealt and delivered, tattat, you're on the map."

You do stuff, you exist.

p. 624

"Before the naked universe."

I like that.

p. 625

"I've lapped so long."

Yes, yes you have.

p. 626

"And one time you'd rush upon me, darkly roaring, like a great black shadow with a sheeny stare to perce me rawly."

Whoa. This page sounds like someone expressing a love that can't be.

p. 627

"Thinking always if I go all goes."

Does the dream continue if we wake?

"They'll never see."

Nope.

p. 628

"Finn, again!...A way a lone a last a loved a long the"

And so it ends. And begins.

Finnegans Wake p. 581-600

p. 581

"vehmen's vengeance vective volleying,"

Ah, gotta love the alliteration.

p. 582

"Where there was a fair young...Who was playing her game of...And said she you rockaby...Will you peddle in my bog..."

I feel like we're only getting half of what's going on here. Maybe the other half is lost in the land of dreams.

p. 583

"The way he was slogging his paunch about,"

Gross.

p. 584

"Well, we all unite thoughtfully in rendering gratias,"

Gracias/Gravitas/Gracious? Though I find gravias the most deep. OOOH! PUN!

p. 585

"repeals and act of union to unite in bonds of shismacy. O yes! O yes! Withdraw your member."

Naughty naughty!

p. 586

"Here is a homelet not a hothel."

Lots of words for places people live in this sentence.

p. 587

"Phoenix Rangers'...Chelsies,"

Sports teams? Hockey, Soccer?

p. 588

"(Way you fly! Like a frush!)"

Fly away, like a thrush!

p. 589 (nothin')

p. 590

"Tiers, tiers and tiers. Rounds."

This line's kinda eerie. The never ending circles and tiers of this book.

p. 593

"Eireweeker to the wohld bludyn world."

H.C.E to the whole bloody world! I have a message!

p. 594

"Respassers should be pursaccoutred."

Trespassers will be prosecuted/persecuted?

p. 595

"Buried hearts. Rest here."

Nice. Still a little eerie.

p. 596

"Woodenhenge,"

Stonehenge's slightly less popular cousin.

"Jambudvispa Vipra"

There's Vico again.

p. 597

One of my favorite pages in the book.

"You mean to see we have been hadding a sound night's sleep? You may so. It is just, it is just about to, it is just about to rolywholyover."

You're telling me this was all a dream? No, it was much more than than. An apt statement about the book.

"graced be Gad and all giddy gadgets, in whose words were the beginnings, there are two signs to turn to, the yest and the ist, the wright side and the wronged side,"

God creates all these things for us?

p. 598

"Doom is the faste."

Unfortunately.

p. 599

"just mentioning however that the old man of the sea and the old woman in the sky"

Poseidon? Hemingway? Is the old woman in the sky an inversion of sky-father?

p. 600

"pool of Innalavia,"

The sea?

"the river of lives, the regenerations of the incarnations of the emanations of the apparentations of Funn and Nin in Cleethabala,"

Annalivia is the spring we all come from? The river?

Finnegans Wake p. 561-580

p. 561

"Has your pussy a pessname?"

I saw the Vagina Monologues the other night. This seems particularly relevant.

p. 562

"wend him to Amorica to quest a cashy job."

THE AMERICAN DREAM.

p. 563

"So you be either man or mouse and you be neither fish nor flesh."

So what are you?

p. 564 (nothin')

p. 565

"Tis jest jibberweek's joke."

The joke of the Jabberwock: nonsense.

p. 566 (nothin')

p. 567

"and Zosimus,"

Father Zosima, the Brothers Karamazov?

p. 568

"'Twill be tropic of all days. By the splendour of Sole!"

Sole? Sol? Shoe?

p. 569

"two genitalmen of Veruno, Senior Nowno and Senior Brolano"

Two Gentlemen of Verona is a very sexually charged play...

p. 570

"It is Stealer of the Heart!"

oooo...

p. 571

"Let us list!"

Yes, let us list.

p. 572

"Let us consider...Interrogarius Mealterum"

List, consider? What's next? Oh, interrogation.

p. 573 (nothin')

p. 574

"The jury (a sour dozen of stout fellows all of whom were curiously named after doyles)"

Ah, comedy.

p. 575 

Court scene?

p. 576

"He sighed in sleep. Let us go back. Lest he forewaken. Hide ourselves."

The character's about to wake up. Let's tone down the dream a bit here.

p. 577

"On to bed!"

Are we describing a room?

p. 578

"wellsowells!"

I found my name!

p. 579

"Earn before eating. Drudge after drink." 

Some advice?

p. 580

"bullseaboob and rivishy divil,"

SATAN!

Finnegans Wake p. 541-560

p. 541

"Duke Wellinghof...Walhalloo, Walhalloo, Walhalloo..."

A reference to Duke Wellington, the guy who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo?

p. 542

"Brimgem young, bringem young, bringem young!"

Mormons? Brigham Young?

p. 543

"peruses Big-man-up-in-the-Sky-scraps,"

We want gifts from the big man in the sky?

p. 544

"the pink of respectability,"

Wait, respectability is pink?

p. 545

"(Hearts of Oak, may ye root to piece!"

Rest/root in peace, trees.

p. 546 (nothin')

p. 547

"Till we meet! Ere we part! Tollollall! This time a hundred years!"

All right, we'll meet here again in a hundred years. This reminds me of a short story that I can remember about a guy who refuses to die, and death grants his wish, as long as they have dinner in one spot every 100 years.

p. 548 (nothin')

p. 549

"I went on to sankt piotersbarq that they gave my devil his dues:"

St. Petersburg? To give the devil his dues?

p. 550

"saffronbreathing mongoloid, the skinsyg"

I want to meet this mongoloid.

p. 551 (starts on 550)

"dazed by the lumpty thumpty of our interloopings, fell clocksure off my ballast:"

Humpty Dumpty?

p. 552

"adimdim adoom adimadim"

Hymn? Funny latin?

p. 553

"to split the spleen of her maw:"

Huh?

p. 554 (nothin')

p. 555

"What was thaas? Fog was whaas? Too mult sleepth. Let sleepth."

Someone almost woke up...

p. 556

"for she was the only girl they loved, as she is the queenly pearl you prize, because of the way the night that first we met she is bound to be, methinks, and not in vain,"

For some reason, this sounds really beautiful to me.

p. 557

"or them four hoarsemen on their apolkaloops,"

Apocaloops! Now part of this balanced breakfast!

p. 558

"Where are we at all? and whenabouts in the name of space? I don't understand. I fail to say. I dearsee you too."

AIIEEE! Existential crisis! The Unnameable!

p. 559

"Act: dumbshow. Closeup. Leads. Man with nightcap, in bed, fore. Woman, with curlpins, hind."

Sounds like either the Skin of Our Teeth or A Christmas Carol. Either way, awesome.

p. 560 (nothin')

Finnegans Wake p. 521-540

Just had a fire drill in the building where I work. It's 4am. Figured I'd do some homework.

p. 521

"Farewell, but whenever! Buy!"

Goodbye!

p. 522 (nothin')

p. 523

"weflected, wepowtew, that the evil what though it was willed might nevewtheless lead somehow on to good towawd the genewality."

Evil might lead to good?

p. 524 (nothin')

p. 525

"Gubbernathor!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governator.

"boatloads of spermin spunk about."

Ewww.

"Romunculus Remus, plying the rape,"

Romulus and Remus again.

p. 526

"Nircississies are as the doaters of inversion."

Narcissism/Narcissus/Necessity is the mother/doater?

p. 527

"A tickey for tie taughts!"

Nice wordplay. Rolls off the tongue.

p. 528

"You last led the first when we last but we'll first trump your last with a lasting."

Try and wrap your head around that one.

p. 529

There's a weird little 2L at the bottom of the page.

p. 530

"Let succuba succumb,"

More wordplay! Succubus.

p. 531

"By sylph and salamander and all the trolls and tritons, I mean to top her drive and to tip the tap of this, at last."

What a thing to say!

"His thoughts that wouldbe words, his livings that havebeen deeds."

This sounds cool and philosophical.

p. 532

"Fa Fe Fi Fo Fum!"

There's Jack and the Beanstalk again.

p. 533 (nothin')

p. 534

"Tiktak. Tikkak. Awind abuzz awater falling."

Morning sounds?

p. 535

"Tell the woyld I have lived true thousand hells."

This is epic stuff.

p. 536

"Well, yeamen, I have bared my whole past, I flatter myself, on both sides."

Is this the world talking to us through Finnegans Wake?

p. 537 (nothin')

p. 538

"A pipple on the panis,"

Gross.

p. 539 (nothin')

p. 540

"Things are not as they were. Let me briefly survey."

You're tellin' me.

Finnegans Wake p. 501-520

p. 501

"SILENCE."

I love it when people yell this.

p. 502 (nothin')

p. 503

"Well, I faithly sincerely believe so indeed if all what I hope to charity is half true."

Hopefully, all our charitable hopes and dreams actually do something?

p. 504

"Cimmerian shudders."

The Cimmerians were an ancient group of nomadic people who rode horses. Also, Conan the Barbarian was one.

"killmaimthem pensioners"

Phew. That's intense.

p. 505

"Amengst menlike trees walking or trees like angels weeping nobirdy aviar soar anywing to eagle it. But rock of agues, cliffed for aye!"

Nobody's willing to "eagle" it? We're all rocks and cliffs, solid and unmoving?

p. 506

"How near do you feel to this capocapo promontory sir?"

Is this a reference to the Capos in concentration camps during the Holocaust?

p. 507 (nothin')

p. 508

"I hear these two goddesses are liable to sue him?"

Have you ever read mythology? Being sued is the least of this dude's worries. He's probably going to be turned into a squid or something.

p. 509

"I put it to you that this was solely in his sunflower state and that his halioraping het was why maids all sighed for him, ventured and vied for him. Hm?"

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!?

p. 510

"But the right reverent priest, Mr Hopsinbond, and the reverent bride eleft, Frizzy Fraufrau, were sober enough. I think they were sober."

This makes me giggle.

p. 511 (nothin')

p. 512

"Megalomagellan...Crestofer Carambas!"

I like the play on megalomania/Magellan. The theme of this page is...EXPLORERS!

p. 513 (nothin')

p. 514

"Big Arthur flugged the field at Annie's courting."

Is this a King Arthur reference? Who is Annie? Anna Plurabelle?

p. 515

"Five maim!...I should like to euphonise that."

Sometimes, even James Joyce can't find a euphemism for something.

p. 516

"coaccoackey the key of John Dunn's field"

As an English major, I feel like I should get a joke about John Donne, but I'm missing it.

p. 517

"No but Cox did to shin the punman...Trulytruly Asbestos"

Gotta love those puns.

"marcy buckup!"

French, but misspelled.

p. 518

"Yet this war has meed peace?"

War and Peace? Political philosophy?

p. 519 (nothin')

p. 520

"heehaw hell's flutes,"

Sounds fun.

Finnegans Wake p. 481-500

p. 481

"Dream. Ona nonday I sleep."

Is this a reference to a change of perception?

p. 482

"Vulva! Vulva! Vulva! Vulva!"

Naughty.

"the point of eschatology our book of kills"

Eschatology. That's an old carry-over from Bible as Lit. Why bad things happen to good people.

p. 483

"my clothes from patrisitic motives,"

Patriarchal motives?

p. 484

"P.Q.R.S"

Rome, but jumbled?

p. 485

"Hastan the vista! Or in alleman: Suck at!"

Hasten the Vista! Or in America/German (in French): Suck it!

"Ichthyan!...Gags be plebsed!"

Jesus and God?

p. 486

"pliestrycook...brainpan...Tiens, how he is like somebodies!"

For some reason, this reminds me of Titus Andronicus cooking the sons of Tamora into a pie.

p. 487 (nothin')

p. 488

"I never dramped of prebeing a postman"

Nobody does, I suppose.

p. 489

"My dear sir! In this wireless age any owl rooster can peck"

Nice prediction, Mr. Joyce.

p. 490

"I speak truly, it's a shower sign that it's not."

If he speaks truly, he's lying.

p. 491

"A being again in the becomings again."

Eternal return?

p. 492

"especially with him being forbidden fruit and Certified by his sexular clergy...volvular,"

This just cracks me up.

p. 493 (nothin')

p. 494

"Ruby and  beryl and chrysolite, jade, sapphire, jasper and lazul."

Mineralogy?

"Ophiuchus being visible above thorizon,"

Orpheus?

p. 495

"was freely pledged in their pennis in the sluts machine,"

Naughty.

p. 496

"Alas for livings' pledjures!"

Alas! The pleasures of living.

p. 497

"Quinnigan's Quake!"

Whoa.

p. 498

"swanks of French wine stuarts and Tudor keepsakes"

A lot of pretentious people?

p. 499

"Dood dood dood!"

AH! He even predicted the vulgar language!

"God serf yous kingly, adipose rex!"

Something about Oedipus Rex.

p. 500 (nothin')

Finnegans Wake p. 461-480

p. 461

"MEN!"

What an exclamation.

p. 462

"eucherised to yous."

Something about the Eucharist?

p. 463

"Jonas wrocked in the belly of the whaves,"

Jonah rocked in the belly of the fish/he rocked on the waves.

p. 464

"Flu Flux Fans"

Probably my favorite wordplay so far.

"And old Auster and Hungrig?"

Austria-Hungary? HUNGRY.

p. 465

"Be hamlet."

Good advice.

p. 466

"my hero and lander!"

A reference to Hero and Leander?

p. 467

"And I see by his diarrhio he's dropping the stammer out of his silenced bladder"

Gross.

p. 468 (nothin')

p. 469

"Break ranks! After wage-of-battle bother I am thinking most. Fik yew!"

Sounds like somebody's about to sound the retreat.

p. 470

"A dream of favours, a favourable dream."

A fever dream? That's kinda what this book is.

"Eh jourd'weh! Oh jourd'woe!"

Today, there is a lot of woe? There's some weird French combos going on here.

p. 471 (nada)

p. 472

"Rest your voice! Feed your mind!"

Free your mind!

p. 473

"The silent cock shall crow at last. The west shall shake the east awake."

Reminds me of "the meek shall inherit the earth".

p. 474

This was a page we did in class.

p. 475 (nada)

p. 476

"a mamalujo by his cubical crib,"

You just can't escape Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

p. 477

"Or he's rehearsing somewan's funeral."

Is that someone Finnegan?

p. 478

There's some cool French going on here, that I don't exactly understand. Maybe Beckett helped out here.

"The duck is rising"

Nice play on "the dark is rising"

p. 479

The big paragraph on this page reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

p. 480

"bare his breastpaps to give suck, to suckle me."

That really won't work.

"Hunkalus Childared Easterheld."

We just can't escape H.C.E.

Star Trek and Finnegans Wake p. 441-460

The line I found that matched the Star Trek episode we watched was this one, from line 82:

"Time past and time future

Allow but a little consciousness.

To be conscious is not to be in time

But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,

The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,

The moment int the draughty church at smokefall

Be remembered; involved with past and future.

Only through time time is conquered."

It seems that one of the moments that the episode draws much attention to, is the idea of being fully conscious in your lifetime (like the poem above), be it 20 minutes, or 80 years. There's also a moment in the movie Star Trek: Insurrection, where time slows for two of the characters, which I think is a good representation of the idea of time being conquered by time. Just watch all of the Star Trek movies, great entertainment. (Especially First Contact, best homage to Moby Dick EVER!)

p. 441

"The inimitable in puresuet of the inevitable!"

Those who seek to be free of imitation will find, inevitably, that it is impossible.

"braying aloud like Brahaam's ass,"

Another Bible reference. Balaam! And Brahman.

p. 442 (nothin')

p. 443

"Home Surgeon Hume, the algebrist"

Another mysterious reference to David Hume?

p. 444

"fecundclass family of upwards of a decade,"

A creative family?

"The pleasure of love lasts but a fleeting but the pledges of life outlusts a lieftime."

Good line.

p. 445 (nothin')

p. 446

"We'll circumcivicise all Dublin country."

Circumcise? Civilize? Civics?

p. 447 (nothin')

p. 448 (nada')

p. 449

"O, the vanity of Vanissy!"

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." One of my favorite lines in the whole bible (Ecclesiastes!).

"hoopoe's"

Haroun, anyone?

p. 450

"Dash the gaudy deathcup."

Epic.

"Birdsnests is birdsnests."

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

p. 451

"I'd come out with my magic fluke in close time,"

This just reminds me of the Star Trek we just watched.

p. 452

"The Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin."

Sounds a lot like Bilbo's song from The Lord of the Rings. Plus Vico.

"I'm not half Norawain for nothing."

Yeah, being pale-skinned sucks.

p. 453

"exciting your mucuses, turning breakfarts"

Hehe.

p. 454

"No petty family squabbles Up There"

In Heaven?

p. 455

"cupahurling nor apuckalips nor no puncheon jodelling nor no nothing."

No apocalypse in 2012. No nothing.

"we may come, touch and go, from atoms and ifs but we're presurely destined to be odd's without ends."

My new favorite line.

p. 456 (nothin')

p. 457

"which I'm sorry, my precious,"

LOTR again. Nice.

p. 458

"Ahim. That's the stupidest little cough."

Is Joyce coming out here?

p. 459

"O, the wicked untruth!"

I agree.

p. 460

"Lock my mearest next myself."

I want to know what this means.

Finnegans Wake p. 421-440

p. 421

"Kiss. Isaac's Butt,"

Nice.

"Stop...Stop...Stop" 

Reminds me of a telegram.

p. 422 (nothin')

p. 423

"He was down with the whooping laugh at the age of the loss of reason"

The whooping cough? The age of reason? Some kind of weird wordplay going on here?

p. 424

"The hundredlettered name again, last word of perfect language."

It's a reference to the giant words above, which I think has made an appearance before. Now we know what it means. Kinda.

"Every dimmed letter in it is a copy and not a few of the silbils and wholly words I can show you in my Kingdom of Heaven."

Is this a reference to the Bible, and how it's a poor copy of what the creator divine has to say?

p. 425

"Outragedy of poetscalds! Acomedy of letters!"

A tragedy of poets? A comedy of letters? That's what this book is!

p. 426 (nothin')

p. 427

"one way or either anywhere we miss your smile."

This makes me sad.

p. 428

"may the tussocks grow quickly under your trampthickets and the daisies trip lightly over your battercops."

What a great blessing!

p. 429 (nothin')

p. 430

"(the bear, the boer, the king of all boors, sir Humphrey his knave we met on the moors!)"

This sounds kinda limericky.

"Dotter dead bedstead mean diggy smuggy flasky."

This just sounds cool.

p. 431

This page has feels like some weird sexual foreplay is going on.

p. 432

"I rise, O fair assemblage! Andcommincio."

What is commencing?

p. 433 (nothin')

p. 434

"For if the shorth of your skorth falls down to his knees pray how wrong will he look till he rises?"

ermmm.

p. 435

DIRTY.

p. 436

"apposite sex, not love that leads by the nose as I foresmellt but canalised love, you understand, does a felon good,"

Carnality does a fellow good?

p. 437

"The too friendly friend sort, Mazourikawitch or some other sukinsin of a vitch,"

Mozart is a son of a bitch?

p. 438

"him his chance to get thick and play piggly-wiggly, making much of you,"

WHAT?

p. 439

"I'll give it to you, hot, high and heavy before you can say sedro!"

This is some scandalous reading.

p. 440

"A hemd in need is aye a friendly deed."

A friend in need is a friend indeed!

What's so special?

While everyone's watching the Superbowl, I'm up here catching up on homework. Here's my take on the ordinary day:


Ordinary Days
by Thomas Wells
What's so special about the ordinary day?
atomoleculemicalettucheesourdoburger.

Hamburgers.
Air.
Blue jeans.
Tears.
Laughter.
Poop.
Bob Dylan (hip-hop).
Beer.
Grocerystorecake.
Rice.
Sky.
Snow.
Bleed.
Love.
Mort.
and macaroni and cheese.

giggly, "hun, I ain't never heard of one."

Finnegans Wake p. 403-420

As I was reading FW, I had a little revelation, and I don't know about everyone else, but sometimes I feel like the book is reading my mind, mirroring my patterns of thought. For example, if someone is talking about some tall person, I think tall - tree - Amazon Rainforest - weird fact about Bird-Eating Spiders that live in the Amazon. Sometimes it has led me to some arguably awkward situations. But I digress. Anyhow, here's the latest thing I was thinking about while I was x-country skiing the other day: -skiing - skiing trails - trails loop - eternal return - Finnegans Wake - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. To elaborate further, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a French short film that made its way to the Twilight Zone. It's the exact definition of the 20-minute lifetime, and you can watch it on youtube. It's awesome, and I won't spoil it.

p. 403

"(it can't be) sax...(it must be) twelve."

It can't be morning yet, the dream must go on.

p. 404 (nothin')

p. 405

"Those jehovial oyeglances!"

Those jehovah-like eye glances/eye glasses!

p. 406

"Mabhrodaphne"

Aphrodite, Daphne, and Mephistopheles?

p. 407

"His handpalm lifted, his handshell cupped, his handsign pointed, his handheart mated, his handsign pointed, his handheard mated, his handaxe risen, his handleaf fallen."

Sounds like someone chopping wood or something.

p. 408

"virgin bush"

awwk-waaard.

p. 409

"Ear! Ear! Not ay! Eye! Eye!"

A bidding war? Eye for an eye? What is going on?

p. 410

Some cool answer/response dialogue begins here.

p. 411

"Your diogneses is anonest man's"

Diegesis/Diogenes?

"freudful mistake, excuse yourself!"

Once again, Joyce is knocking Freud!

p. 412

This is my memorization page!

p. 413

"This, my tears, is my last will intesticle"

All I can say is props, dude, props.

p. 414

"So vi et!"

Soviet? So be it!

p. 415 (nothin')

p. 416

"He had eaten all the whilepaper, swallowed the lustres, devoured forty flights of styearcases,"

We've got a house-eater on our hands people!

p. 417

"The Gracehoper who, though blind as batflea...tossed himself in the vico"

Even blind animals aren't excluded from Vico's "ages".

p. 418

"We are Wastenot with Want, precondamned, two and true,"

We are all contradictions, dualities, dream-world and waking-world.

p. 419

The last four lines of the "poem" are fantastic. Plus they sound like a cool blessing.

p. 420

Another list, YAY!

Finnegans Wake p. 381-400

I'm on call tonight, so I'm doing this at like 1 in the morning.

p. 381

"Firbolgs"

Cool mythology reference, specifically, Irish.

p. 382

There's a part about beer at the top of the page.

"So sailed the stout ship Nansy Hans. From Liff away...Now follow we out by Starloe!"

And so the dreamship begins its voyage.

p. 383

"Trustan with Usolde."

There they are once again!

p. 384

"handson and huntsem, that was palpably wrong and bulbubly improper, and cuddling her and kissing her,"

Sounds like a sailor talking.

p. 385 (nothin')

p. 386

"yambling around with their old pantometer"

Dang old men, wandering around talking in their old pentameter.

p. 387

"Queen Baltersby, the Fourth Buzzersbee"

Queen "B".

p. 388

"(noo poopery!)"

Poop/pomp/poetry?

p. 389

"Queh? Quos?"

Reminds me of the French "quelquefois", which means sometimes.

p. 390

"earing his wick"

There's ol' HCE!

p. 391 (nothin')

p. 392

"poor Matt, the old pergrime matriarch, and a queenly man,"

Oooh, gender reversal!

p. 393

"from playing their gastspiels,"

Gatsby? Gospels?

p. 394

"dephlegmatised his gutterful of throatyfrogs,"

Someone has cleared their phlegmy throat?

p. 395

"for the rosecrumpler, the thrilldriver, the sighinspirer"

I think he's talking about a girl here, and she's a FOX.

p. 396

"What would Ewe do?"

Good question.

"Since Edem was in the boags noavy"

Perhaps a reference to the Firbolgs from earlier. Adam and Eve are on opposite ends?

p. 397

"Mamalujo"

There they are: good ol' Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

"M.M.L.J"

There they are again!

p. 398

"for the lives of Lazarus"

This is pretty cool. There are two different characters in the New Testament named Lazarus. Lazarus is also raised from the dead, giving another life.

p. 399

"Its pith is full. The way is free. Their lot is cast. So, to john for a john, johnajeams, led it be!"

EPIC.

p. 400 is blank.

Finnegans Wake p. 361-380

p. 361

"The water of the face has flowed."

Once again, referencing rivers, and it sounds like someone has cried.

p. 362

"of dire want with comparative plenty (thunderburst, ravishment, dissolution and providentiality)"

This is like a laundry list of bad things that happen to cities, earthquakes, ravishes, dissolution and provincialism.

p. 363

"(so calam is solom!)"

Absalom, Absalom!

"the wonderlost for the world hips"

The wanderlust/wonder lost for the world hits.

"angelsexonism"

Sex with angels? Anglo-saxon?

p. 364

"cooking up his lenses to be my apoclogypst"

WHAT?

"Micias and Gracias may the duvlin rape the handsomst!"

DOUBLE WHAT?

"jingoobangoist,"

Reminds me of jingoism.

p. 365

"peer of bellows like Bacchulus shakes a"

A pair of Bacchus-like fellows.

p. 366

"Sir, kindest of bottleholders and very dear friend, among our hearts of steel,"

Is this talking about the hole in wine racks, where wine goes? They're surrounded by wire lattices.

"Milcho Melekmans, increaminated,"

Of course, the milkman would be increaminated.

p. 367

"since threestory sorratelling"

Telling about all three stories in the house would be a bit too much.

"Down."

We're going down a floor?

p. 368

"Guns...Guns...Guns...Guns...Guns...Not to pad them behaunt in the fear."

Lots of guns here, and they aren't here to pad, but create fear.

p. 369

"They had heard or had heard said or had heard said written. Fidelisat."

Faith to language? Also, reminds me of the "flappers" in Gulliver's Travels.

p. 370

"the fire of the lewd into those soulths of bauchees"

Lewdness in sons of bitches?

p. 371

"The humming, it's coming. Insway onsway."

This text is in a different font for some reason.

p. 372 (nothin')

p. 373

"Heigh hohse, heigh hohse, our kingdom from an orse!"

High hose, commonly worn in Shakespearean plays, and a Richard the III reference.

p. 374

"Nomad"

This just reminds me of an episode of Star Trek.

p. 375

"Scrum around, our side!"

Rugby?

"Dalymount's decisive. Don Gouverneur Buckley's in the Tara Tribune,"

Rugby commentary?

p. 376

"You cannot make a limousine lady out of a hillman minx."

You can't make someone into something they're not.

p. 377

"Slip on your ropen collar and draw the noosebag on your head."

This creates some frightening imagery.

p. 378 

"Silence in thought! Spreach! Wear anartful of outer nocense!"

We're all just a bunch of nonsense?

p. 379

The BENKBANKBONK on this page is awesome!

P. 380 (nothin')