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')

Finnegans Wake p. 341-360

p. 341

"Buckily buckily, blodestained boyne! Bimbambombumb."

Bombs create bloodstains?

p. 342 (nothin')

p. 343

"I was bibbering with vear a few versets"

That's how I understand this this book. "Bibbering" to understand a few verses.

p. 344

"Weepon, weeponder, song of sorrowmon!"

Weep on, song of songs, o' song of Solomon.

p. 345

"he whipedoff's his chimbley phot, as lips lovecurling to the tongueopener"

I never want to hear chamber pot, lips, and tongue in the same sentence ever again.

p. 346

"Fruzian Creamtartery is loading off heavy furses"

Freudian commentary is a load of heavy feces. Nice.

p. 347

"Be the why it was me who haw haw."

But was it me who laughed?

p. 348

"I've a boodle full of maimeries in me buzzim"

Memories in my heart, and "mammories" on my chest?

p. 349

"countmortial or gonorrhal stab?"

I don't know, both sound really painful.

p. 350

"Yet still in all, spit for spat, like we chantied on Sunda schoon,"

Tit for tat, eye for an eye, just like we learned in Sunday school.

p. 351

"fun I had in that fanagan's week."

Lots of fun at Finnegans Wake! Also, could the "week" be a dream?

p. 352 (nothin')

p. 353

"In sobber sooth and in souber civiles? And to the dirtiment of the curtailment of his all of man? Notshoh?"

In sober truth, and sober civility? No, I must remain drunk for my men! Sounds like some kind of crazy general.

p. 354

"cococancancacacanotioun"

Ca ca. Scatology is a big part of FW (duh), Beckett parodies it/pays homage in Waiting for Godot (the "cacademy").

p. 355

"We all, for whole men is lepers, have been nobbut wonterers in that chill childerness"

We are all noble lepers wandering in the cold. I like thinking of humans like this.

p. 356

"reading in a (suppresses) book...pastureuration"

Is he making a reference to the suppression/sterilization of literature by different groups?

p. 357

"Culpo de Dido! Ars we say in the classies."

Play on carpe diem?

p. 358

"fesces and frithstool"

poop.

p. 359

"Attention! Stand at!! Ease!!!"

Reminds me of a drill sargent. Those guys always use too many exclamation points.

p. 360

"jemcrow"

A reference to the Jim Crow laws in the United States?

Finnegans Wake p. 281-300

Oops, Forgot this the other day.

p. 281

There's some French going on here.

"But Bruto and Cassio"

There they are again.

p. 282

"But where, O where, is me lickle dig done?"

Ah, nursery rhymes.

p. 283 (nothin')

p. 284

"Ba be bi bo bum."

Jack and the Beanstalk again!

p. 285 (nothin')

p. 286

"As Rhombulus and Rhebus went building rhomes one day."

Romulus and Remus once again, for the win!

p. 287

"Now, whole in applepine erdor...If we each could always do all we ever did."

If we could have our ways, we would all recline against apple and pine trees.

p. 288

"in spite of all the bloot, all the braim, all the brawn, all the brile, that was shod, that were hat, that was shuk all the while, "

This is just really grotesque sounding.

p. 289

"Benjermine Funkling"

This guy sounds better than Benjamin Franklin. Funkling sounds like the kind of guy I'd want to hang out with.

p. 290

"such a coolcold douche as him"

That sounds really uncomfortable.

p. 291

"were a wrigular writher neonovene babe! Charles de Simples had an inirmierity complexe before he died a natural death."

I just like the wordplay between inferiority and infirmary.

p. 292

"equally so, the crame of the whole faustian fustian,"

New this Spring, The Faustian Line of Menswear. I like it.

"Plutonic loveliaks twinnt Platonic yearlings--you must, ow, in undivided reawlity draw the line somewhawre"

There is no difference between night and day, sleeping and waking, but the human mind needs to draw the line, create the distinction.

p. 293

There's a lot to be taken from the picture. If you talk to me, I'll show you what I thought.

"Anna...Ante Ann...Aiaiaiai, Antiann"

Anna Plurabelle, and Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

p. 294

"Lumps, lavas and all...We're all found of our anmal matter."

Ooh, a contrast between the animate and the inanimate.

p. 295

"When I'm dreaming back like that I begins to see we're only all telescopes."

I like to think of all of us as telescopes.

"All's fair on all fours,"

All's fair in love and war. And if you're an animal.

"The haves and the havenots: a distinction."

Old school economic definitions. Nice.

p. 296

"With a geing groan grunt and a croak click cluck."

Old McDonald! YAY!

"hogwarts"

HARRY POTTER! ZOMG!

p. 297

"Fin for fun!"

Finish for fun? I think not. The fun is in the reading.

"Hurdlebury Fenn,"

Nice.

p. 298

"Ecclasiastical and Celestial Hieracrchies. The Ascending. The Descending."

Wisdom leads to ascension, blind worship leads to hell.

p. 299

"As Ollover Krumwall sayed when he slepped ueber his grannyamother."

Oliver Cromwell slept with/under his grandmother?

Read footnote 4, about the Doodles family. Awesome.

p. 300

"noland's browne jesus"

This line is pretty interesting.

Finnegans Wake p. 321-340

p. 321

"Flammagen's ball."

That's the kind of dance I want to go to.

"Copeman helpen."

Copenhagen?

"with an arc of his covethand,"

The Ark of the Covenant, but it also sounds like someone stealing something.

p. 322 (nothin')

p. 323

"drop down dead and deaf,"

This sounds like a pretty hardcore thing to happen to someone. Dead and deaf? Phew.

p. 324

"And they poured em behoiled on the fire. Scaald!"

There's a lot of burning going on here.

p. 325

"Anna Lynchya Pourable!"

There she is again!

p. 326

"Nansense, you snorsted?"

Nonsense, you snorted. (Perhaps about this book)

p. 327

"with a roaryboaryellas" 

Reference to an Aurora Borealis, AKA the Northern Lights.

"old Humpopolamos"

Humpty Dumpty, the Hippopotamus?

p. 328

"like a Slavocrates amongst his skippies,"

Socrates amongst his hippies? Socrates the slave?

p. 329

"The soul of everyelsebody rolled into its olesoleself."

Collective conciousness?

p. 330

"used dripping layers to shave all the furze off his face."

Furze?

"Knock knock...Knock knock...Knock knock."

AIEE! The perpetual knock knock joke! Run for your lives!

p. 331

"I'll tittle your barents if you stick that pigpin upinto meh!"

WHATTT!?

"nana karlikeevna"

A reference to Anna Karenina?

p. 332

"cataraction!"

Oh crap, a combination between contractions and cataracts. This is gonna be ugly.

p. 333 (nothin')

p. 334

"This is me vulcanite smoking,"

Volcanoes, Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, and a Star Trek reference all rolled into one!

p. 335

"hibernian knights"

Arabian Nights, anyone?

"when aimee stood for Arthurduke."

When friends stood for King Arthur?

p. 336

"We are once amore as babes awondering in a wold made fresh where with the hen in the storyaboot we start from scratch."

I love this line, we're all babes in the woods.

"Drouth is stronger than faction."

Truth is stronger/stranger than faction/fiction?

p. 337

"mankey nuts!"

Monkey nuts! Haha.

p. 338

The part with the description of the character of BUTT is pretty awesome. I imagine him as a fat Russian clergyman.

p. 339-340 (Nothin')

The Skin of Our Teeth

Some real quick parallels between The Skin of Our Teeth and Finnegans Wake:

On page 12, the play starts over again, reminding us of the eternal return.

On page 13, I though Sabina was echoing a comment sentiment about FW:

"I hate this play and every word in it. As for me, I don't understand a single word of it, anyway--all about the troubles the human race has gone through, there's a subject for you."

What she doesn't realize is that Finnegans Wake has the troubles of the human race, just not in a easily deciphered form.

pg. 78:

"What's life anyway? Except for two things, pleasure and power,"

This sounds a lot like the bad guy in Haroun.

The speech on page 85 is one of the better speeches ever, in my opinion.

Finally, we've got page 109:

"That's all we do--always beginning again! Over and over again. Always beginning again."

Good stuff.

Finnegans Wake p. 301-320

p. 301

"All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law."

Life sucks, and we live in fear until the day of Judgement?

p. 302 (nothin')

p. 303

"This is brave Danny weeping his spache for the popers. This is cool Connolly wiping his hearth with brave Danny." 

This is just gross.

"Ideal Present Alone Produces Real Future."

This just sounds cool.

p. 304

"MERCI BUCKUP, AND MIND WHO YOU'RE PUCKING,"

French (very much), and mind who you're (CENSORED)?

p. 305

"if you're not your bloater's kipper may I never curse again on that pint I took of Jamesons."

Cain, if you're not your brother's keeper, than I will never drink again!

p. 306 - 308

Lists. Yes.

"A place for Everything and Everything in its Place, Is the Pen Mightier than the Sword? A Successful Career in the Civil Service, The Voice of Nature in the Forest, Your Favorite Hero or Heroine...The Uses and Abuses of Insects...Why we all Love our Little Lord Mayor...Should Ladies learn Music or Mathematics?"

There's a ton of famous mythological characters on the side of 307.

p. 309

"It may not or maybe a no concern of the Guinnesses but."

Is Guinness interchangeable with family/alcohol here?

p. 310 (nothin')

p. 311

"O, lord of the barrels, comer forth from Anow"

Lord of Barrels. Pretty prestigious title.

p. 312

"Group drinkards maaks grope thinkards"

Groupdrink makes groupthink. Tankards/thinkards, who grope things.

p. 313

"Godeown moseys and skeep the beeble bee."

Go down Moses, and tell Pharaoh to let thy people go! There's a cool spiritual that goes with this.

"dearagadye"

Didgeridoo?

p. 314 (nothin')

p. 315

"his rubmelucky truss rehorsing the pouffed skirts of his overhawl."

Are we talking trusses (hernia-girdles) right now. Because I can only imagine what pouffed skirts are.

p. 316

"make a rarely fine Ran's cattle of fish."

A fine kettle o' fish.

p. 317

"Cloth be laid!"

God be praised!

p. 318

"O wanderness be wondernest and now!"

Oh, the wilderness be wonderous and new/wandering the wilderness now?

p. 319 (nothin')

p. 320

"Infernal machinery (serial number: Bullysacre, dig care a dig)"

This interests me, I don't know what it means, but an Infernal machine is usually a reference to some kind of artillery.