The Key To The Kingdom

From these few words we are led to return by a “commodius vicus of recirculation” to Howth Castle and Environs, or to HCE, for, in the magic dream wraith of this book each may be the other, and both the same; the Human Conger Eel, ever evasive. He has a dozen names in this Eyrawyggla saga, and answers to all of them.

But this key?

That it is of some interest there is no doubt. But it is not obvious. It is not until well into the story, that we are offered;
 

“Angus! Angus! Angus! The Key Keeper of the seven doors in the house of the dreamdoory in the house of the household of Hecech say sayeth, Whitmore, Whatmore. Give it over, give it up, Mawgraw.”

Hecech is no other than Here Comes Everybody, or as noted Howth Castle and Environs; Humphrey C. Earwicker himself.

So we have a plain declaration there are seven doors and seven keys!

It may be thought, for one moment that Howth Castle may exist, a tourist destination, somewhere in Ireland; or an ancestral home; but Joyce warns us, “Give it up, give it over,” which could well mean in Joycean,  “Don’t be silly; these are but words”; another riddle, for this paragraph runs on, three, plus, solid pages, all appearing to be talk about himself, HCE; the dark stream running free!

However it is to be remembered that a key has been carefully introduced in his Blue Book, Ulysses. Bloom makes a point of bringing the key to our notice, first in the opening paragraphs of the Calypso episode; then, markedly in Aeolus, and again in Eumaeus and in Ithica. There may have been, nebulous, dim, in the back of his mind the “Seven portals into hell,” of the Muslim faith. The beginning, the features of a vision, the ‘Wake’ in his dreams.

So, well aware of the teasing depth of Joycean wit, it was thought to be no waste of time to search for these seven keys in the Wake.

As Joyce said, “That’s only beginners”

So, a quick search, speed reading, just skimming the pages for the word “key”, and lo, the seven, are revealed.

The first P8.
 

“For her pass key, apply to the janatrix, the mistress Kathe.” (Tip.) 

And, one is ushered into the Willingdone Museum: this is a significant story of The Duke of Wellington; another famous Englishman who was an Irishman. (Where would English literature be without those magnificent Irish writers?)

There is in Dublin a splendid obelisk in honour of the Iron Duke; and Joyces museum equally good. Should be studied in every school in Australia!

The second, P31
 

  “Jingling his turnpike keys.”

 Echo of General Jinglesome!

The long para, is again a strong, highly romanticized picture of HCE.
 

 “An imposing everybody be always indeed looked.” 

But alas, nothing of substance. No pickings in this midden heap.

The third P93. This a tricksome one. It could be just a nod to the Hindu pantheon of gods – or, just mischief.
 

 “And so it all ended, Artha, Kama Dharma Moksa. Ask Kavya for the Kay.”

Surely Kavya is Kali, but could Kali be Kate? Or perhaps Kathe? We will meet Kath in many forms thru the Wake. Kath in variety ever Anna Livia.

Does this cryptogram tell us to ask Nora about the writing of his Orange Book?

The words are too Joycean for translation; but Kama an Hindu god of love; Dharma, the Life principle; Artha? Kali; destruction! Surely never a nice Irish girl, such as his Kate? But the mystery remains with James, or perhaps Nora.

The fourth, P311
 

 “I have not mislaid the key of Efas Taem.”

Reversed, Efas Taem, clearly, “The Meat Safe.”

Does he mean the house itself? This is but a phrase in a tirade of words of some twenty pages; all a paradox, a puzzle, a vast purple patch, the sub conscious flow of the Joyce mind; the inmost man revealed.

The Fifth P421.
 

 “The key at Kates_ _ _ _.”

The phrase is but one of perhaps a hundred in this paragraph. All are, or seem to be without meaning.

The only thing to note, is the use of Kate, yet again; she is, or appears to be the mistress of the house.

Is Kate but a synonym for Nora?

The sixth P615, this reads amid the wasteword;
 

 “That was the prick of the spindle to me that gave me the Keys to dreamland.”

This seems a significant statement, but it tells us little. A careful reading of adjacent words, above and below the phrase gives us just a mention of many fairy stories.
 

 “Sneakers in the grass, Keep Off.”

Does this mean, ‘This is my secret. Keep off!’

This the following phrase. The preceding sentence reads;
 

“But he day dreamed we had a lovely face for a pulltomine.”

He imagined that he had a lovely idea for a new book.

He continues; 
 

“Butter and margarine oil.”

This presumable to make things go easier for us!

Thousands of words. Enigmatic? Teasing? Red herrings for the exegetists?

Or simply the jumbled flow of word in Joyces mind, restless, disturbing.

The seventh Key is that given in the last words of the book 

On P628
 

 “The key to given.”

And sadly this key as great a folly as the others. That this key but returns us to the very beginning is a vast disappointment. It should surely have led us to a better understanding of the work; the key to Joyces version of the heaven promised by his priest in the early years; even to a better understanding of his life; but no, it is simply a return, that vicious recirculation, to that Irish stew of word again.

But all is not lost; there are now Seven Keys – seven subthemes. In the context; seven stories told in his Orange Book; seven special rooms in Howth Castle?

So the search continues!

There is talk P626, but this is a different key. An intimate very personal key to his heart.

The themes indicated by the Keys are here noted, but by no means fully explored.

Such will be a major work.

The ‘Key’ seems clearly; to go over the wall of words, and into the house by the back door; that is, not the words of the opulent fantasized frontage, but the scarce concealed words, hidden in the long paragraphs, and which tell in readable English, the simple story of what else, but the writing of The Book.

A strange, powerful writer; his undoubted command of language, his creative talent, his extraordinary memory, all either forsaken, or deliberately allowed the freedom of wanton excess. As he says elsewhere;
 

 “You thinking you be lost in the bush, boy?”

Lost in the bush indeed; but there is a Key. It has been used in the writing of this essay; as he tells us at the end of this paragraph;
 

 “But any of the Lingare schoolerum may pick a plek of kindlings from the sack of aued hensyne.”

Every day has its yesterday, and we may well be glad to 
 

“Take a cup of kindness yet for the days of auld lang syne.”

The reference to the seven keys appears on P377
 

“Angus! Angus! Angus! The Keykeeper of the Keys of the seven doors of the dreamadoory in the house of the household of Hecech saysaith, Whitmore, whatmore? Give it over, give it up. Mawgraw. Head of a helo, chesth of champgnon, eye of a gull _ _ _ .”

And so on for a few pages.

Work for the experts, the professors, the exegetists!
 
 

 
 

Names!

 
Joyce would have many happy moments as he wrote. Happy recollections of the books and lives of men long gone, their books, their thoughts, their lives recalled as he drew them out of the past, dusted them off, and brought them to the attention of yet another generation. What a pity he did not share some recollection of their work, as he paraded their names.

He mention Pliny, Gaius Secundus the Elder and his nephew, also Gaius Secundus and known as the Younger, but fails, such an opportunity, to tell us more. 

Even nothing more of the youngers romantic story of the evacuation, the tumult, at the destruction of Pompeii and of Herculaneum in 79 AD.
He mentions Bishop Berkeley on numerous, some very doubtful occasions, but as for a reasonable comment on the work of the Bishop there is nothing; just the use or misuse of his name.

He mentions Vico, who lived about the same time as Berkeley; Joyce makes very loose use of Vico’s theories about the evolving of humanity, the impact of new ideas and concepts. He could perhaps have drawn attention to Hitlers concept of the Third Reich and its impact on the history; - a dramatic reversal, a terrible degradation of human nature, a denial of the ethical foundation of civilization.

Vico would have written a great book had he lived thru the twentieth century. James however, saw it not; or said nothing; saw nothing of the flight of the nightingales, the exodus from Germany of the best humans; scientists, writers, artists and artisans who saw the horror growing about them and fled Germany, to add a new vision to the West. 

James fled Ireland for small reason indeed.

He became a ‘soonerite’, would sooner eat peas in Europe than split peas in Ireland; left the rebirth of a better Ireland to men like his friend Gogarty and others; he touches on most of the great names of history, of the human tide which has flowed thru time, but sadly seems not to know their story.

Strangely, the protagonist of this dreamdoory, Mr Finnegan is treated as a stereotype. He exists by name only; there is no picture of him, a pleasant, mature man, or otherwise.

He could be Humphrey C or perversely, he could be himself; he could be Bloom from Ulysses, now disembodied, alive only in dreamdoory, vague, bat like, flittering thru the story, noted only in passing; alive only to the imagined probability of his reincarnation. Anticipating the possibility of the day; plaything of the earwicker as to the day of such possibility, and blessed be the Gods, in the last words of the eyrawyggle, hopes realized, fears defeated; farewells said, a joyous hope for the meeting of old but young friends again, his Amazia and the haughty Niluna in his minds eye as he passes thru the gateway, the thing that men call Death, but, he believes, the open door into yet another Life; richer, fuller of fun; a more glorious experience than the brutal learning curve of this time round.
 
 

 
 

On Growing Up

Our first years offer rich promise!

P621
 

“A youth in his florizel, a boy in innocence, peeling a twig, a child beside a weeny white steed. The child we all love to place our hope in forever.”

So it has been since Time began for us, ever the golden hope of better things for the children

Oh, the bitter reality; that child, beside a teeny white horse, so often grows, P134, into 
 

“That heavy swearsome strongsmelling irregularshaped man.”

What ever happens to the, “Active handsome well formed frank eyed boys?”

Whatever indeed.

This a phenomenon which had defied both poet and philosopher. For seven thousand years. Why indeed? It is thought by many that it occurs because of a flaw, a fault in the original design. A seachange; a dramatic review of the gene helix, or perhaps even the present model be replaced with an improved Mark II is clearly needed.

With the parameters being set between the Angelic and that Animal which lost its head; there are too many variables; we do indeed need a better framework.
Prayers for such transformation are answered but rarely; only in selected individual cases!

However the flip side gives us cause for hope, for as Joyce notes;
 

“Soft youthful bright matchless girls should bosom into fine silkclad joyous blooming young women _ _ _”

Is an indication that evolution may indeed be onto a good thing and it is just the slow progression of our years; our short lives, too short indeed for the long view, hides the truth; proscribes our vision; challenges our understanding. As ever Belial himself is deceiving us, and the truth of the matter is that all’s well in this best of all possible worlds, and in the end, all will be well as well.

In the meantime those blooming young women will blossom into Mothers, and the real purpose of Life in this planet be consummated.

Other planets have their own worries; their own blossoming youth; their Amazias, their Nilunas, and possibly their own Avatars and Saviours, but alas, of them James knows nothing; no more, no less; than the rest of us.

All that we know is that Life inhabits this planet, in infinite variety and astonishing forms; in its thousands of forms of most marvelously controlled energies.

When the Life leaves, the form is dead; can do no more, and yet another of Lifes mysterious cycles takes over the poor remains, to be recycled, again and again over millions of years; Life the sole inhabitant of the planet, all others but an aspect of the infinite Mother. Gaia, indeed; the entity of whom all are but part; but the Gaia concept is that of a human mind some years after Joyce died.

James noted that things,
 

“Go bumpily along, generation after generation.” 

He had some visionary glimpse of the continuity, ‘the naked universe’, but in his better moments he knew Anna Livia to be immortal, forever renewing herself; the loved and lovely Anna Livia.

Are we not all confounded by the mystery?

As our Australian poet, Zora Cross wrote;
 

So may she give the everlasting life,
Earth hungers for in vain; 
Immortal mother and immortal wife,
Who heals the whole worlds pain.
 
 

 
 

More On The Book

“Indicating that the words which follow may be taken in any order deserved.”

So, please yourself?

On P120
 

“Sentenced to be muzzled over a full trillion times for ever and a night --- that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia --- ”

In plainer English, you will have to read it over and over for ever and a night (to get any sense out of it) and be plagued with insomnia for your trouble! 

On P118
 

“The variously inflicted, differently pronounced, otherwise spelled, changeably meaning, vocable script signs.”

There words speak for themselves! For his Orange Book, and for Joyce himself. 

On P117
 

“But while we are in our free state _ _ may have our irremovable doubts as to the whole sense of the lot: the interpretation of any phrase in the whole, the meaning of every word of a phrase so far deciphered out of it _ _ _ _ we must vaunt no idle dubiosity as to its genuine authorship _ _ _.”

On P115
 

“Tip. And it is surely a lesser ignorance to write a word with every consonant too few that to add all too many _ _ _ _ _ _ so pray, why sign any thing so long as every word, letter, penstroke paperspace is a perfect signature of its own. A true friend is Known much more easily, and better into the bargain. By his personal touch _ _ _ _.”

This paragraph seems to say, ‘write as you like, but your words will betray you, for a writer can be named by his work.’

Like, only an aspiring talent would write ‘Dubliners’, and only a mature creative talent wrote Ulysses, and it could only be J J who wrote Finnegans Wake 
Who else could write like Conrad? Or Tolstoy? Or Shakespeare?

So we assume from all the above; and such but a fraction of the whole; that the interpretation of the Wake is going to be difficult, and that we may be wrong about the genuine authorship?
 

“So, why, pray, sign anything when, the words speak for themselves.”

Such speculation leads, in the long haul, to Higher Criticism; a field for experts, and theres little doubt but that the experts have given the Wake, a slight taste of high criticism. There are parts of this book which “cry it from the housetops”; but such parts, tho plain, are buried in words; “variously inflected, differently pronounced, otherwise spelled, changeably meaning, vocable scriptsigns.”

The charge of ‘cherry picking’; selecting sentences to suit an argument, will surely be laid, this however is but the very shadow of the writing, for the gist, the real meaning, the hidden truth, is, as clearly shown here, is always thus concealed. He has with intent created a chaos, in which a world exists. Truths are discussed and revealed; people live and dream, love and love again, where a mystery they call Life flourishes in a magnificent beauty of colour, shape, purpose and infinite variety, and where yet another mystery, which they call Death, exists within their dreams and hopes of life everlasting; of a day of resurrection; of another incarnation; here again; the spirit is ever learning; ever growing, in a dim understanding. 

Of a visionary infinity toward which, all things, all creation is growing.

All such imagery, all such vision is present in the Wake but the core, the real heart is but the writing of the Book. Joyce speaks, in the usual odd, all too often very odd indeed, presence of this infinity; but he only ever sees it with the eye of talent, never with that of the visionary; never speaks with the Voice of belief; just the stray literary comment.

For despite our almost Universal hope of afterlife; few realize the implications.

The old Greeks told the story of one who pleaded for immortality, and such was granted. So he grew old and older, and yet older, helpless in the grasp of old age; in desperate condition indeed; knowing as he grew older, feeble and helpless in the importunities of ageing, that he could live forever. 

The fool, said the Greeks, he should have asked for eternal youth. So these wise ones, said, “Be careful what you ask of the Gods; you may not like it when it is given.”

So with mankind, and infinity, external life, and reincarnation; we may not be too happy with what we get!

As for Infinity, few, if any of us, can ever have real understanding of that concept.

Joyce wrote P112, 
 

“Yes, before all this has time to end the golden age will return with a vengeance. Man will become dirigible, and Ague will become rejuvenated _ _.”

This surely but a burst of poetry.

Yet another thought, glancing thru this section; is it possible that some (or much) of the assistance in the compilation of the Wake, was offered simply as friendly chat.

Perhaps a small group, taking, for starters, a simple idea; one of the quotes used above; say, “variously inflected _ _ _”; and; because they are sitting round a warm fire, on a bitterly cold day in January, “the mercury held in a vice like grip” and there is wine in plenty, and Nora has provided eatables suited to the occasion, all, in laughter and in jeers, offer sentence after sentence of unrelated anecdote, history retold in ribald nonsense, anecdotes about others – it is all there, pages after brilliant page of utter nonsense; all the mores, the myths; the daily round; the beginnings of radio, of telephony, of T.V.; ___ the old songs; Auld Lang Syne; John Brown; John Peel with his coat so graye. Its all there. Even Charlie Chaplin! 

And so thru those cold nights thru, the icy winters of Paris or Pola or wherever in those hectic days, the warm fire, friends, and talk.

A wild hilarious romp of words; who cares who uttered them, or what any of the others may think.

So P171 offers, amongst other goodies,
 

“Once when amongst those rebels in a state of hopelessly helpless intoxication _ _ _ _ oh the lowness of him was beneath all up to that sunk to.”

Now, no hard facts can be extracted from these pages. The entire section, some twenty pages, is choked with words; to ‘cherry pick’ in support of an hypothesis is a doubtful process, but, such a track can be traced thru the forest of word. It is interesting, that part III is also rich in this talking down of his own work. Possibly, the work of more expert commentators will confirm that which Joyce himself suggests.

It seems possible.

  “Why not,” as JJ mutters somewhere in his book.
 
 

 
 

Odds And Ends

 
Joyce introduces the Keys in the Aeolus Episode of Ulysses. Bloom is in the newspaper office, arranging an advert for a customer.

He wants the compositor to cross two Keys. Can it be done?

“Yes, leave it to me,” is the reply. So Bloom leaves, content that the customer will have his keys.

He returns, apparently randomly, to the Keys through Ulysses; In Eumeaus, he has forgotten the keys to the house, and they climb the fence, and enter the house thru the rear door.

This is the secret of the way of access to the hidden story in the Wake; over the fence; which will be the maze of invented words; and enter the house by the back door; this surely, the sifting of real words; his valediction from the waste of word.

The search can be richly rewarding, for Joyce, though hiding his words in the forest of words, speaks of illness, blindness, depression, and of a growing realization that he must finish this Work, for his time is running out.

There will be a little sleep, then;
 

“Your turn again Mr Finnegan.”

His last words are;
 

“The Key to Given.”

Offered to all with understanding; so, learn to read the Wake with this understanding.

Do not try to read the invented words, these will upset your established use of word; bring on a mental confusion, interfere with your ability to comprehend; so, do as the speed readers do, to simply scan the words; never attempt to verbalize them, but simply let the eyes run over them, until you light on a sentence or a paragraph with clearly written phrase, often sentences in plain English.

Note these, follow thru; you will soon be in the jungle again.

Then go over these clear writ words, discard the obvious padding, the digressions and the Joycean idiom, and you will arrive at the gist, the wheat in the chaff, be able at last to see the tree in the woods. As he says somewhere;
 

“Get the hang of it, son.”

The treasures thus revealed are the ideas and the brief notes revealed here.

Fuller excavation will be the privilege of the professors.

The search is not too difficult.

The first clue is offered us on the first page of the book; is repeated in the last pages. 

This is the theme, the hope of Finnegan in reincarnation; the hope – an ancient hope of mankind, and the master hope of Eastern religion, that we will, as Kahlil Gibran tells, “Be born again of another woman.”

This hope expressed many times through the Wake.

Joyce however, is no research student; he has little or no knowledge of the deeper beliefs of the ages. This may appear to be a harsh comment, but there is little to be found in the Wake other than a casual depth; little beyond BA level.

He seems unaware that Mr Finnegan might return in an animal form, or as a Woman, as an African or Nepalese woman, or any of the highly imaginative constructs of the Upanishads. 

He, simple soul just hopes he, himself, will be granted another run at the game.

He knows nothing of the strong belief that only fully mature humans, return.

The rest of us are as dust, as the flowers of the field, that wither and die.

There are astonishing aspects of reincarnation, of which Joyce seems to know nothing; so the talk throughout the Wake is that only of hope; and hope, as the old Greeks knew, is the sister of desire; and both, weak reeds upon which to lean.

There is however another story and a deeper story told in the Wake. He tells us of the people who assisted in the writing of the Wake.

Not only in the physical recording of the manuscript but there are very strong suggestions that others, and they are named, probably these names a pseudonym of the real identity, but there they are, Nolan and Browne from Kings Avenue, faithfully recorded. Faithfully mentioned at work throughout the Book.

It is probable that the experts will deny such; Joyce is his own man; but read his own words! 

Sufficient to silence all experts, however faithful to the literary image of J A Joyce.

A determined examination of the Wake may well reveal other important sub themes. This paper, but a superficial search by an ordinary reader; one of the world, who still buys books, enjoys the reading thereof, and always interested in the theme.

There are so many good books written. Such a pity theres not time to read more of them; but of those that we may, the Gods be praised; for its quite impossible to take that damn computer to bed, and though Google plans to record ALL that has ever been; a good book is ever the good companion. Ever the stimulus of thought, solace and power to the spirit. 
 
 

 
 

More On The Book

 
There are pages in the Wake which leave no doubt about the authorship.

Instance after instance refer to others assisting with the work.

It is the same story in respect of the jesting, jeering at the work itself.

Almost – yes, almost as if he might be saying, “Only parts of this Eyrewyggle are mine, the rest speaks for itself. Some of it “goes bumpily along”; some is “gasped between kicksheets,” ie, “pillow talk”; the intimacies of the sexual conflict.
 

“There were three men in him.”

“Why Kate takes charge of the waxworks.”

 Kate, Katie and Kaya appears to be a nickname for Nora.
 

“All she wants (schwrites) is to tell the troot bout him.”

And a truly subtle one for the experts; 

Then P112
 

“Those gloompourers who grouse that letters have never been their old selves again since that weird weakday in its cold Janiveer – when Biddy Doran looked at literature.”

In plain English – When the wife started to give a hand with the work.

Over the following pages, to the end of the chapter, there is a cleverly obscure discussion on the writing of the book; the styles, the personal quirks of the writers.
He mentions P122
 

“The unmistaken identity of the persons in the Tibercast duplex.”

He warns us to beware of the “Pees and Kews” the p’ and q’s ---  the small detail; warns us that the third person, darkly spoken of “was wrote with a tongue in his (or perhaps her) cheek; of “the fatal _ _ slope of the blamed scrawl” the “fartoomanyness of the four legged ems” and “why spell dear god with a big thick dhee, why, O why O why – and why include an Ogham colophon?

Then, one of those shadowy others uses the old fashioned Greek E.

This Joyce does not approve.

The usage clearly indicates another hand; more properly other hands!
 

 “You can spot the other fellow by his style.”

So we have here, a dozen pages in which he talks of differing styles of writing, each with its personal traits; then toward the end, writes of the Journey as a sea voyage, and tells us that the ship has been; P123
 

“Cleverly capsized and saucily republished as a dodecanesian baedecker, of the every-tale-u-treat-in-itself variety.”

But H.C.E. is editor. Exercising strict control over the work!

These clues are offered in more than one chapter of the book and this selection by no means exhaustive. There is too much altogether; but careful recording discloses the artfully crafted story.

And to the shock of both, Biddy Doran looked at literature! Is Biddy Doran an Irish idiom for Nora, “The Missus?” Now this group of quotes is vindicated by Joyce as being important by the use of the hundred lettered word on P113.

Then after much of the same double speak, he writes
 

 “_ _ Its importance in establishing the identities in the writer complexes (for if the hand was one, the minds of active and agitated were more than so.” 

So Biddy Doran wrote it all down as the three “jokers creaked it.”

Then to further aggravate an already delicate situation he offers a rather ancient analogy of his writing and his work. He pulls out the old chestnut 

P115
 

“The father is not always that undemonstrative relative (often held up to our contumacy) who settles our hashbill _ _ _.”

Now this thought, this suggestion, is so often present in his work.

The plain statement, tho sometimes thinly, sometimes heavily disguised; and sometimes, it seems, deliberately obscure to confound the experts.

What greater confusion can he offer? Much of this work is not James Joyce. 
 

“Who dunnit? Find out if you can!”

This work of genius is not the work of this genius!!
 

“Anyhow, someone wrote it, wrote it down and there you are, full stop.”

P118 
 

“But, one who deeper thinks will bear in the baccbusses of his mind that this downright there you are and there it is only all in his eye, why?”

P118 

“_ _ _ dormewindow gossip will cry it out from the housetops no surelier than the writing on the wall will hue it to the mod of the men_ _ _ every person, place and thing in the chaosmos of all anyway connected with the gobblydumped turkey was moving and changing every part of the time; the traveling inkborn (possibly pot) the hare and turtle, pen and paper, the continually more and less intermisunderstanding minds of the anticollaborators _ _ _.”

One can hardly imagine that one of the “anticollaborators” wrote these revealing words.

These pages offer a rather sad picture of Joyce. The constant changes of address creating, for any writer, a background of unrest, of insecurity, a cruel imposition on any mans creative activity. Every move a distraction. He must find a new spot in which to work; settle into a new mode; rest the mind; sort out the papers; a spot for the haunted inkbottle, a place for everything, and for himself.

Then, because he was a good man, to help with the children, rearrange their tiny possessions, set up the kitchen.

All this; time and time again in his short life. Someone, no doubt an expert has traced over one hundred and twenty moves in his working life!

Ms Rowlings was a clever lady. A comfortable place in an understanding coffee shop; and lo! Harry Potter. 

Tolken in his University rooms, and, behold, “The Hobbit” and all that followed after.

With this man Joyce, the Work, in a way, thus reflects the terribly disjointed life style. 

It would drive a man to drink; and possibly did!

Little wonder that we find phrases such as, “Pushed, and pushed hard.”

 “Kicked from behind,” to produce “A word a week.” 

He might have said, a “Word a weak.”

We may also at such times spare a thought for Nora, the good companion, with two children; and, being Nora, with setting the house to order, and settling her Jim into a quiet corner with his books and tools of trade.

She, he tells us, “Had plenty on her plate.”

It was a sadly disturbed home, a sadly disturbed wife and family; a sadly disturbed writer, compiling his sadly disturbed Orange Book of Kells.

But there were compensations; the good days; the days we remember; the days of good companionship; of friends well met, the day surely, when his daughter with a look of “adorable amusement” noticed that Daddy was now growing a moustache.

Then there were “The three men in him.” The two associates who helped out with the story when his many infirmities were pressing hard upon him, and he was “Kicked from behind, to do a word a week”

  Imagine the scene; there is a fire blazing; he is in his big warming chair, wine on the table; Nora in the kitchen, and one of the friends suggests that they help him with the work, and Nora from the kitchen calls, “Yes, and I could write it down for him,” and ye gods, his friends agree! Joyce too, with the realization that he could not finish it alone.

And so began a beautiful literary association, and Joyce admits it freely, to the point of talking plainly of the association in the pages on the work.
 
 

 
 

Insights

 
There is a puzzling uncertainty about many of the revelations in this chapter of the Wake.

So many sentences; and words, cut close to the bone. The language often extravagant, the meaning grim indeed.

A reader is forced to ask; is this as it was; or it this but another burst of exotic word play.

True, Joyce presents us with a dream, and a dreamworld, tho all know that never was a dream so wordy; never a dream of eight page paragraphs, nigh on 3,000 words, Oh, no.

The dream is a fleeting thing; powerful indeed, and this one clearly a literary dream; possibly a little like Alice In Wonderland or Gulliver In Lilliput, but the theme here ever deeply concealed in Word, and ye gods, words change meaning with the passing time and then what of the new words?

So to read the theme; to unveil the purpose, the reader must discard the Word; dismantle the elaborate scaffolding.

P112, he openly sneers at his reader!
 

“You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says, it is pulling sample jungle of wood so be content with any tasty morsels you may find.”

We may indeed, when the morsels are rare, be compelled to take a bit of flour, just a pinch of salt, a mere sprinkle of raisins, a little water, and mixing all together, bake a tasty damper.

Or in Joyces idiom, keep an eye open for some Murphies; a carrot; a turnip, an onion and some good Irish beef, and you’ll make a good meal of it; and being in France, you may even find a truffle!

And so it is. Some of these gleanings are tainted with bathos. Hundreds of instances.
 

“God bless your ginger wigglewaggle.”

Irish idiom off the leash.

But what of P55 
 

“The house of Atreox is fallen indeedust Hyam Hyum Maeromor mournomotes. R is for Rubretta, A is for Areania, Y is for Yilla and N is for greenerin. B is for Boyblue with odalisque O, while the Waters the fleurettes of novembrance.”

So it is a touch of poetry? Green Erin, the little flowers of November remembered, and the RAINBOW over all, this rainbow a recurring motif.

Areania? Arcania? The tarot cards, the upper and lower arcana! Yilla? Simply yellow; but the proto vowel offered as y; Green Erin understood; as the O; then W is clearly, cool clear water!

The flowers of November, remembered completes the poetic touch.

But Rubretta? Did he mean Rubella? Or Rubellite? Rubiginous too far out for serious consideration.

It is an interesting exercise to note Joyces frequent laps into the first person. This in both his major books, ‘Ulysses’ and the ‘Wake’.

I, I am, I was, I did, I will etc is common enough in the books we read – but is often an intrusion, or a simple lapse, in any serious work, other than autobiography, or quotes, when a writer speaks of himself.

Joyce however, often uses the perpendicular pronoun, even in instances where he must supplant his own created character.

This he does, quite successfully in the Cyclops episode of Ulysses. When his main character, Stephen, suddenly becomes, first J.J, then I. thus referring the reader directly to the author. 

This Irish joke creaks a moment of interest for the reader.

There is a very revealing, almost apologetic episode in the Oxen of the Sun segment of Ulysses.

The seven drunken medicals are together in the nursing home, where Mina Purefoy has been in labour for three days.

Francis, a convivial friend asks; 
 

 “What then of Glaucon, Alcibiades Pisistratus; where are they now?”

Steven replies,
 

“If I call them into life across the waters of Lethe, will not the poor ghosts troop to my call?”

“Who supposes it? I Bous Stephenoumenous, bullock befriending bard, am lord and giver of their life.” 

And he encircled his head with a circlet of vine leaves; Vincent however, rebuked his pride saying,
 

 “A capful of Odes is not enough for genius to call you father.”

At this stage a handful of reviews and other ephemera and ‘Chamber Music’ the capful of odes, was his very lean output.

Chapter III of Part II of the Wake is not only an epic in the first person; it is all about ‘girlies’, and the frisson between boys and girls. It is also a plain statement that this chapter is written by one, James Joyce, “And I have made a great job of it!” Despite his disabilities and the iron fist of circumstance, bookworms will argue and write about this, and all my work for centuries. This his certain belief.

Good on ya, Mate!
 

“Shoot up on that, bright Bennu bird - - - work your progress! Hold to! Now! Win out, ye devil ye!_ _ _”

There’s no doubt about it, he has enjoyed writing this chapter enjoyed making it plain, that it indeed his own work; and to make the point more clear, more poignant, does it all in his own name.

A note of triumph, tinged with a strong hint of pride! But how deeply revealing of the subconscious internal monologue of James Joyce.

This episode plainly from the same hand and mind composed Molly Blooms reverie; the final segment of Ulysses; an older hand; a more experienced mind; a little wiser; and, heaven now lost to him, he is in hope of reincarnation; and yet another round of life with his girlies.

The words flow; as a streaming flood; just another vast paragraph, all about J.J., and the girlies, six full pages; all in the first person.

Neither Browne nor Nolan have a finger in this pie! The pages end with another paragraph, self congratulation on a job well done!

P473
 

“But boy, you did your nine furlong mile in slick and slapstick record time, and a farfetched deed it was in troth - - your feat will be contested with you - - for centuries to come.”

We so hope, with you, James!
 
 

 
 

Unanswered Questions

 
Einstein offered us, “There is no problem which cannot be resolved by considered thought.” But theres no doubt but that Joyce presented us with many difficult little problems, and some appear to be insoluble.

They are plentiful in the Wake!

The dreamtalk of internal monologue; or the infernal musings of a sadly dysfunctional writer? Or the considered work of a great talent?

In the Wake, the progressive surrender of control – the work of a mind slowly surrendering to the ravages of dysphasia; a disease in which there is a severe dislocation of word from thought.

It is plainly seen that the best work of mankind, in art; music, architecture literature; the skills developed in the reticulation of water; drainage; the growing and distribution of our food supplies; the rail and shipping systems, satellites in space; Man on the Moon; mobile phones, credit cards; all the giddy gadgets graced by God to use a phrase from the Wake, all, the product of considered thought. It is a sobering thought that the budget of the Pentagon and NASA could transform this planet in less than a generation. The prodigal misuse of money a synonym for this prodigal waste of word. The prodigal folly of our kind.

So we who take an interest in such aspects of Life and Literature, must surely be aware that Joyce also composed his work in considered thought; such produced Ulysses; the work displayed in the Wake; both books from the dark stream of internal monologue.

We must accept that which is. The thought processes of a great talent, designed to engage our minds for a thousand years!

But such thought process conditioned by dysphasia. The concept original, the work completed, but the content displaying the ravages of a disturbed mind, not ever out of control, but severely conditioned; the problem taken in hand and made to serve the master concept.

A strong and courageous man, never the victim of his infirmities.

The Authorised Version, King James Bible, tells us that Nimrod, grandson of Noah, built the city of Babel, in which city he started to build a tower to reach into heaven. Joyce mentions Babel several times.

We are still attempting this hubristic goal, but to date, only a thousand or so feet high.

Joyces hundred lettered word is thought by many commentators to be a Tower of Babel, the “wall” which, in collapse, created a confusion not only of men, but of their speech, so that they understood not each other.

But there is a dichotomy; a separation; a divide; a confusion in the story, for there is clear evidence of a diversity of tongues, long years before they started on the Tower. Amongst men long years before Babel, for we are told, in the same book, that the children of God were living in the “Isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, everyone after his tongue” and; “These are the families of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries and in their nations.”

So whatever the commentators say, “After their tongues”; Joyce may well have had other thoughts in mind with these constructions of one hundred letters.

Really! It was Humpty Dumpty who fell off the wall.

But there is, in the old story of the early exploits of men, another phrase of such portent, of such promise that it should be inscribed in bold letters upon the wall of every school room in the world. The Gods, (plural, mark you), said;
 

 “Nothing will be restrained of them which they have imagined to do.”

This the first, brilliant perception of the latent creative capacity of man.

This simple profound teaching imparted to our children could save millions from the defeated life.

That this truth was spoken plain and simple, in the very beginning of the long journey is, in itself an encouragement; and, despite the terrible history of the church, this still one of the insights which the congregations, the people, have kept alive thru time, and the results lie about us today.

There is little evidence in the Wake that Joyce attached any significance to the HLW.

True, he once referred to it as 
 

“The last word in perfect language.”

But, on another HLW; 
 

“He creaked a jest.”

Perfect? Indeed! And used without apparent purpose in so many places.

The word does sometimes indicate the beginning or the end of a paragraph, as in P414 where it introduces the Ondt and the Gracehoper, but both word and purpose seem lost as the tale is tolled.

The fabled tower of Babel, and that perception of the Gods seem of much greater importance to mankind than the invention of the HLW.

We, mankind, are capable of individually, or collectively; anything we imagine to do.

As another of out great ones noted;
 

  “There is no problem which will not yield to considered thought.”

Strangely, as Hitler and Stalin and other despots have shown us, this awesome power of thought can be used, for terrible imaginings; whether good or bad always the choice, and so we have the life which millions enjoy, with all its technology; or we have the war machine, and weapons of mass destruction and the suicide bomber.

Whatever the future; there is nothing they imagine that they will not perform.

So, it is in this spirit that James has given us the Wake laughing and chucking along the way. He “creaks” many a jest; the book is brother to “The Thousand Best Australian Jokes”; for he makes fun of writers, scribblers, and everything they have ever written; all the names tossed into this salmagundi of word; but little of the ‘considered thought’ of those historic names.

True in one page, 167, he gives us; 
 

“My unchanging Word is sacred. The word is my Wife to expense and expound, to vend and to vilnerate, and may the curlews crown our nuptials. Till Breath us depart! Women! Beware would you change with my years _ _ _.”

So often this way; a good thought flattened by a jest; but as we read, the thought is confirmed. King Solomon was right, “Of the making of many books there is no end, but all are vanity.” And Finnegans Wake makes this simple truth ring clear.

The thing is a vanity! The hundred letter word; a jest; that he saw the Word as his Wife, the compliment to Nora, his wife; and his last sad hope of reincarnation nothing at all, but a hope.
 

However the Wake speaks still for James Joyce, and is still in print; and men and women search still; scrabble amongst the words for wisdom.

This brief paper will be read as an heresy by some; they write of Joyces historical experiences; of his philosophy; his interest in Dr Berkeley and his philosophy; of his knowledge of mythology and a range of more arcane understanding, of his ideas on theology and the church musings on original sin; retribution; transubstantiation and other mysteries; readers quickly come to the understanding that such opinions belong to the commentators; ever mentioned by Joyce in jest, in mimicry; in derisive Irish idiom.

When he gave us 
 

“The Word is my Wife to have and to hold.”

This, as told again and again through the Wake in his adoration of Anna Livia – Plurabelle – Nora; most beautiful; this the main theme; the river running thru his Work; all the rest, a few words on the writing of the book. A thought or so on reincarnation, the rest but words!
 
 

 
 

Jest And Joke

 
It, the work is a “collideorscope” this the plain answer to 

P143 
 

“Then, what would that forgazer seem to seemself to seem seaming of, dimm it all?”

But such wisdoms all congealed in pages of purple patches, the disdainful contempt of all editors – and readers; and how in Gods name did the printers and their compositors translate the Wake into words, and how correct are they or did they have an open hand; is the entire thing a fabrication a hellwhole of printers devils?

Who checked the proofs? Did any editor read the manuscript; or just hand it to the printer; “Hey mate, this is your pigeon!”

And what is womens lib to make of this?

P112 
 

“ _ _ _ Thank Maurice, lastly when all is sed and done, the penelopean patience of its last paraphe, _ _ _ thus at all this marvelling but will press on hotly to see the vaulting feminine libido, of those interbranching ogham sex upsandinsweeps sternly controlled and easily repersuaded by the uniform matteroffactness of a meandering male fist?”

Did our James, Mrs Joyces little boy Jimmy sadly offer this choice piece of Irish melodrama to the world, wrapped as it is in word he hoped might last a thousand years and if one thousand, why not another?

And James a peaceful man!

No, madam, there is a kinder more reasonable explanation for those few words. They betray a different man; they will be found to relate to the helping hand of woman, rather than the meandering male fist; but of this, more anon.

But, in this page, and in this context they are challenging words.

And, done deliberate!

But the deliberation is a tease; another Irish jest; rather like his jibes at the Amelicans as the Amorocans; 
 

“The unites starved on tripes.”

The jestful joker.
 
 

 
 

Another Fantasy

 
“Curiousier and Curiousier” said Alice. She was standing in a bookstore, a copy of the Wake in hand.

Very curious indeed.

There are simple English words, richly interlarded with a score of other languages but the bulk of the damn thing is a salmagundi of bits and pieces of words, grossly abused vowels, gutted paragraphs, both subject and object brutally ill-treated; reams of sheer nonsense - - - and so on.

She might well turn to the colophon, who on earth would publish such a thing –. 

Faber and Faber – a reputable company – Ye Gods, Why?

The poor girl was rather shocked; she has seen nothing like this ever before: absolutely nothing.

I assume my Mad Hatter disguise and presume to address the young lady – no introduction for she knows about The Mad Hatter.

“I say,” I said “I see that you are somewhat shocked. May I assist you?” and offered to take her for a coffee.

The bookshop was that big one, the one with strong historical associations for Australians. They also support a pleasant coffee bar on a mezzanine floor.

Alice replaced the Wake on the shelf. I wondered, how many, in a shop like this, all over the Empire, have replaced the book; turned down, dismissed as a printers folly, ten thousand times; not much paid on royalties for this one; I wonder; determined I would look in the bargain bins, some bookseller may want the shelf space for a sellable book; never yet found a copy in an op shop.

No, not much to be found in Vinnies or in the Sallies shops simply because they never sell in the bookshops.

So she agreed – came with me – surely confident that this old fellow was safe; Alice, as most of you oldies will know, was a little charmer, and also a very competent, capable and confident young lady from a wonder filled book!

Alice in Wonderland, and I felt a surge of regret, of sorrow for this generation, reared on T.V, on cheap violence and felt a deep nostalgia for a day long gone. But all was not lost, Alice is still in print, we had coffee, and yes, why not a delicious chocolate éclair.

Conversation was, but naturally about the Wake which cannot be read, but I said, may be steadily thought about; then Ulysses, then Joyce, James Joyce; born 2-2-1882, married, two children, a writer of note. Has a high opinion of his own work, including Finnegans Wake; expect the experts to be arguing still about his work in a thousand years.

“A thousand years?” asks Alice, “A thousand years?” 

“Why not?” I ask “Plenty of thousand year stuff around, two thousand year stuff too. All those Romans; Seneca was my favoured Roman, perhaps Seutonius; and Pliny, all good reading.

“Surely not.” said Alice.

So I said, “What about your own book over 100 years old 1865 if I recall it rightly. They have made a film of it; its on T.V. Alice is still in print, there another hundred years at least. People just love fantasy and Alice In Wonderland is fantastic.”

“Thank you.” she said primly, “That very kind of you. Its rather like that now, I go into a bookshop, and before I have brought a book, I’m having a coffee with a stranger who reminds me of The Mad Hatter.”

“And there’s the Dormouse.” I whispered, “There.” Pointing to a little old lady who has lifted the lid of her teapot – sadly empty I suppose, and is peering anxiously into it.

“So it is.” she said, “I always thought that Mr Dodgson found all his characters in life.”

“Of course he did – theres the March Hare  - look over there.”

She looks, nods, “Yes, so hoppity, that’s him all right.” 

I don’t know what he had to eat, but he was running his finger over his plate, then licking his finger.

“And theres the Cheshire Cat I said – indicating a portly Chinese man; truly the look of the inscrutable, but benign upon a delightfully round face the faint smile of the Buddha on his lips.

“How strange.” She whispered, “Goodness, they’re all here.”

And they were; modern ghosts; spirits – a dowager Queen, a meek King beside her – all the motley of that most alarming croquet game – here, in Sydney – and a bookshop, of all places.

A small quiet voice inside me said; “Why not. Alices book is on the shelf, and in any case, thats not the Queen, its Bella Cohen, and the fellow with her is one of her customers.”

“That other fellow – good Lord, that’s Bloom, and that supercilious fellow down there is not the White Rabbit, his name is Stephen, and the idiot thinks hes a cut about the rest of us.” 

At that, they all threw their cards into the air and there was a shouting and shrill cries from the ladies and the men straightening their ties and that insignificant fellow Stephen grew tall; then taller, and grew until he filled the room and the bookseller came out from behind the till and cried in a loud voice, “Mr James Joyce, the noted author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.” At that they all fell quiet - most respectful. 

Alice said to me, “Well its been lovely having coffee with you, but I really must get back to reality. Duty calls and I have work to do.”

“Me too.” I said ruefully. “And I did want to ask you about that Mr Dodgson. Did he really _ _ _ _.” But the delightful young thing was gone.

So I went downstairs and that’s when and where and how and why I bought my copy of Finnegans Wake.

The beginning of all that is written herein.
 
 

 
 

Jimmy Joyce And The Girlies

 
That James women seem to be rather immature; is bespoken throughout the Word.
 

“_ _She’s flirty, with her sunburnt streams, and her coy cajoleries, and her dabbles  drolleries, for to rouse his ruddership, or to drench his dreams _ _ _.”

Or, but another few words from thousands of such in this book;
 

 “They war loving, they love laughing, they laugh weeping, they weep smelling, they smell smiling, they smile hating, they hate thinking, they think feeling, they feel tempting, they tempt daring, they dare waiting, they wait asking, they take thanking, they thank seeking, - as born for lorn in love to live and wive by wile and ride by rule of ruse reathed of rose and hose hold lome, yeth cometh elope year, coach and poar, Sweet Peck- at-my-heart picks one man more.”

These are the women of countless men; they are the creation of immaturity; born of poverty and of ignorance.

Many progressive thinkers are warning of this cancer in the social body.

They warn us of a growing imbalance in society; a flaw, a fault, which deprives children of normal natural care denying them the opportunity to develop into a confident maturity, and the flaw is all to evident. It lies in faulted parents.

In Ulysses Joyce used internal monologue to expose this sub social mindset; and the dreamworld of the Wake tells, even more intimately of the same subconscious thoughts; but has nothing definite to say of the cause of such poverty of spirit.

But the problem is a huge social problem, with threat and warning far beyond the individual. 

We offer here P208, one of his many tributes to his beloved Anna Livia. This little piece of inspired writing is rather like the body line bowler, too much effort for the desired end!

It just isn’t cricket. It’s the fieldmans skill takes the wicket. This the magic of Shane Warne. He aims at the wicket – and gets it.

So with Joyce – he seems entranced with girlies; wasting word, wisdom and energy on his imaginary creatures, page after page exploring every aspect but it all seems talk.

So many great writers have given us better pictures of the good companion, our better half.

And so to but one of hundreds of the images flowing thru the subconscious of James.
 

“She wore a ploughboys nailstudded clogs, a pair of ploughfields in themselves; a sugarloaf hat with a gaudy wirey peak and a band of gorse for an armorment and a hundred streamers dancing off it and a guildered pin to pierce it; owlglassy bicycles boggled her eyes; and a fishnetzeveil for the sun not to spoil the wrinklings of her hydeaspects; potatorings bouched the loose laeebes of her laudsnarers; her nude cuba stckings salmospotspeckled; she sported a galligo shimmy of hazeviapar tinto that never was fast till it ran into the washing; stout stays, the rivals, lined her length; her bloodorange bockknickers, a two-in-one garment showed natural niggerboggers, fancy fastened, free to undo; her blackstripe _ _ _.”

There are another couple of hundred words describing in these poetic phrases, her beauty.

This paean of praise differs considerably in tone from that on P206
 

“First she let her hair fal and down it flusssed to her feet its teviots winding coils. Then mothernaked she shampooded herself with gaiawater and fragruant pistania mud, wupper and lauer from crown to sole. Next she greased the groove of her keel, wathed and wears and mole an itches, with antifouling butterscotch and turpentide and serpentyme _ _ _.”

Thus and thus for yet another four – six hundred words.

So it is through all the long hours of this dreamdory. Girlies, pippettes, and his ever adolescent musings on them, their ways, their wiles, their wilful wanton.

But it is all a rather sad imagery. Not the real world; not by a long mile.

Readers may ask, “What has such to do with Joyce and the Wake?”

Plenty. Joyces concept of Woman, and of Life, as expressed in both Ulysses and the Wake, is very different from his personal life.

As a married man, Nora, his wife, could say of him, “Oh, my dear Jim, he was such a good man.”

This is high praise of any man.

But Ulysses has Gerty MacDowell; Bella Cohen and her bevy of prostitutes and Molly Bloom!

The Wake, for female character, has only the mythic Anna Livia; the book is peopled by males; its thought patterns, conscious and subconscious all lined out in the words quoted at the beginning of this comment; paragraphs, huge multipaged paragraphs of flighty immature adolescent imagery. But written with a rich invective Irish wit and idiom. A complex man indeed.
 
 

 
 
 
 

“You lost in the bush, boy?”

Yes, indeed we are.

Joyce hurt beyond healing by the descent into poverty of his family; challenged by the poverty of Ireland; he would save its Soul; defeated by the poverty of Dublin; he deserted the place. He was well aware that poverty is the economics of prostitution; that poverty is exploited all over the world by pimp and pandar; the hunting ground of millions of equally impoverished young men.

Pages of his book given over to the girlies; giddy graced; laughter and teasing; their clothes; their limbs; their gay abandon; and never a word for the mature woman, the good companion, the Keeper of the house, the Mothers of the worlds millions.

Oh No! But surely the attitude, in all its weakness, also born of that poverty which so blighted his adolescence?
 

 “As the twig is broken so the tree is bent.”

And so we have, from the deeps of his maturity such gems as;
 

“Then a pretty thing happened of pure diversion mayhap – the vived girl, deaf with love, oh, sure you know her, our angel being, one of romances fadeless wonderwomen, and, sure now, we all know you dote on her, even unto date _ _ _ with ripey lepes to rosy lopes (the dear o’dears) _ _ _.”

“And now, upright and add em and plays the honest. _ _ _ There was this wellyoumaycallher, a strapping modern old ancient Irish princess, so and so hands high, such and such paddockweight, in her madapolam smock, nothing under her hat but red hair and solid ivory (now you know its true in your hardup hearts) and a firstclass pair of bedroom eyes of most unhomy blue (how weak we are, one and all!) The charm of favours fond consent. Could you blame her, we’re saying for one psychological moment. What would Eve do? _ _ _.”

For another four hundred words!
 
 

 
 

On Souls

 
For the souls of those who dabble in the forbidden arts, he has a word.

Brief indeed, of the quarter million words of this Waking, he grants space for but 56 words for the Art, but none of such 56 will solace the soul of the devotees who scan with such eager anticipation the Mystic Mediums of the magazines, the newspaper columns and these days, the old Gods be with us, the Airways.'

Thus, and thus: P494
 

 “Ophiuchus being visible above thorizon, muliercula occluded by Saturns serpent ring system, the piscolinnies Nova Ardronis and Prisca Parthenopea, are a bonnies feature in the northen sky. Ers, Mores and Markery are surgents below the rim of the Zenith Part while Arctura, Anatolia, Hesper and Mesembria weep in their mansions over Noth, Haste, Soot and Waste.”

Mystic indeed!

It is of some interest that he mentions Ophiuchus, for he was included in the astrological calendar for many years; years in which men acknowledged that many years had thirteen full moons, and cast horoscopes accordingly.

Opinions differ as to just when and by whom Ophiuchus was cast out of the Zodiac but many think, that being the smallest of the constellations, just a tiny line, as compared with the others, some are vast constructions, he would not be missed. Others equate him with Judas Iscariot, and he is thus excluded from the canon for reasons known to all wise men, and others because of the difficulty in fitting thirteen months into the year.

It seems odd, that knowing the existence of Ophiuchus, he did not comment on its rather obvious exclusion from the Zodiac; a fellow feeling as an outcast from his homeland and deserving a better deal.

To add a trace of veracity to this scant story, there was in Saxon England a member of the Zodiac known then as “The Dog of Langport.”

There is in Devon, and probably in many other places, a Zodiac, marked out on the ground by natural features: a clump of trees, a village, a copse of hazelnuts, a hill, a stream, a bridge, another village, and so on; the twelve or thirteen signs; these selected to form a circular track, usually between twenty to thirty miles.

These stations embracing the signs of the Zodiac; and making the opportunity for a one day pilgrimage; the great circle returning the pilgrims home again.

A group of congenial souls, with the day’s walk, good conversation, fellowship, and possibly a purpose, for little is known of this pilgrimage.

Plenty of opportunity for some bright entrepreneur in setting up such a pilgrimage today. The walk do us much good, food for the soul, and Australia, now two hundred years into civilization, could well do with such a pilgrimage; food and purpose for the soul.

Perhaps our magistrates make it a pleasurable punishment for social offenders; good for their souls. 
 
 

 
 

The Fair Go

 
There is no irrefutable evidence of our not too distant past life, but some declare it in the melodramatic; I was Cleopatra; Anastasia; Marie of Troves; Buffalo Bill; Don Juan; these tragic relics of history often in multiple incarnations in New Age literature.

Today it is Purple People or Indigo Kids; these the bright children of bright parents; they who control the keyboard at five; run a website at six, or with one special example, achieve a PhD at 21.

These are the ‘naturals’. There is such a family nearby, and the children, three under five, oft give ample evidence that they came into this life with well developed skills from that earlier life span.

Today; there are shrill screams; a dainty, beautifully sculpted girl child, not yet three; protests, justice and privilege denied, “It’s mine; it’s mine; he took it - it’s mine.”

The immature male, he is not yet five, not yet achieved the age of money, protests; justice and common sense, “No, it’s mine, I saw it first; it’s mine!” 

But the three year old, justice denied, screams, “No, it’s mine; you tooked it!”

Dignity, feminine certainty and a fair go, all outraged.

Now, who taught these basic principles, these rigid ethics? They are not yet subject to the ideologies of social workers; belong to no Trade Union; are twenty years from a University; have had no instruction from priest or politician; no acquaintance with the Law in all its ancient mockery of mans natural rights; nor of women’s natural defenses. They are but beautiful and innocent children.

So the argument is irrefutably simple. These innocents have brought with them, from some other place, some other life, a deep understanding of justice, some vision of personal identity and, in many, a distinctly strong personality, an inbuilt integrity of spirit.

 “Trailing clouds of glory do we come - -.”

All too soon this early vision fades; the walls close in around the child; we, may the Gods forgive us; cause the child to conform; he is molded in school to conform; so is the world imposed upon them at High School through adolescence, and in the University. The bright clarity of that other place is darkened by ideology, by theory and by bad habits – some atrocious.

So, the Mr Finnegans have dim memory of that other place, where justice is natural; is not denied to either contestant, where desire leads ever to possession, and where everyone, of all times; under every circumstance is granted a transparent, honest to goodness just and equitable “FAIR GO.”

Is it possible that the two innocents under observation, both of them, in their last incarnation were Australians?  This strongly indicated by the inborn demand for a ‘fair go’; this endemic amongst Australians, the trait transmitted and conserved thru space and time, and possible, eternity, and no doubt, a bye word in our convict beginnings.

So in this present instance still alive and well, instinctively asserted in the matrix of innocent childhood. What further evidence do we require?
Those children a more acceptable argument than Joyces, 
 

“Mr Finnegan you’re too Beginnagain.”
 
 

 
 

Dreams

 
As author of the Wake, Joyce was an older man than the young fellow who did Ulysses.

In that, vigorous young James dreamed of being a man of property; he was, he imagined, a singer; something akin to John Sullivan, the Irish tenor, whom he admired as a personal friend, sometimes sang with him but at home; never in public.

He was, in imagination, popular; well heeled as they used to say; “Down at heel,” the other end of the social scale; cash to spare; pleasant evenings in lovely surroundings, and, he said it himself, put it down in black and white, in Ulysses,
 

 “Writing when he felt like it.”

He, as did other young men, had such dreams of success; he also dreamed of property; for the Joyce family in the early years, had property, money and social standing; the father, however converted the assets into strong drink, made the publican more wealthy, but dragged his family into ruin. This the sad fate of far too many!

A sorry story, the sad end of so many families. So, the maturing James dreams of property, of wealth, of the social graces; all denied to him by the father, whom, as an innocent child, he loved.

Strangely, he also shared his hard earned wages with the winemakers. And he dreamed of property.

In the Ithica section of Ulysses he offers.
 

“_ _ _ to posess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of sufficient number of acres _ _ _ _ _ surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage drive;  _ or a two story dwellinghouse of southerly aspect, _ _ _ _ a porch covered by ivy or Virginia creeper, _ _ _ with an agreeable prospect from balcony _ _.”

Now he is going to use several hundred words, pages of them, to describe this haven, including 
 

“The buttery, larder, refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage, with winebin (still and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests _ _ _.”

Then there are the outhouses; the garden shed, with every tool listed; these include an eeltrap! And lobster pots (crayfish or crab to we in Australia).
He later needs a rabbitry and fowlrun, and a conservatory; and he might become a gentleman farmer, and gain social status!

Then follow several hundred more words – yes, more words, on the possible means of obtaining money to support the new status; rapid means, including a new use of the Law of Probability, and “Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo,” the dream of millions; here in the Antipodes, we dream of Lotto, and millions in the bank.

He also imagines a win at the races; he has a 50 to 1 bet on an outsider! He dreams of the finding of a Spanish treasure hoard; of a book full of rare postage stamps, these itemised; of a forgotten bank deposit, of great worth, and solvent still after 100 years at 5% compound interest.

This splendid farce is followed by more words; more words?

Yes many more words 

He surveys many of the great scams of history; this included the oldest scam in the world; the payment of a debt by the geometrical progression of doubling, __, ½; 1; 2; 4; 8; 16; 32; 64 - - -. This payment first appears in ancient Egypt; it has many variations, the old English version has the horse shod at a farthing for the first nail, and doubling for each of the 32 nails.

He mentions another scheme which should be adopted by every Local Body in the country, even every city council in the world; the recovery of human waste through the purification of the water, at present wasted in sewage systems, the recovery of mineral content, and the reduction of the remainder to fertilizer, in this particular instance to the reforestation of Germany.

In fact, pouring of this valuable waste into the sea is folly; folly of immense proportion, this specially so here in Australia where we allow million of hectares of land to be idle for want of water, and suffer drought years in which we want water; desperately.

The recirculated water, purified to 100% is more pure than any supplied in any city. It is pure, clear cool water, pure. The residue used to fertilize plantations of specifically modified hard woods; and thus ensure valuable timber stocks for the future. Timber already a scarce and dwindling resource. This is the method of nature; nothing wasted; everything is used again and again, as has been since the beginning.

We can do the job more quickly than Nature, and deliver the precious product where required.

The Dutch people have been using nothing but recycled water for one hundred years.

We here in Australia need never; not ever; be defeated again by drought. We too, can have an endless flow of cool, pure water, and have, if we will be wise, a future secure in its water supply and supported by a new forestry, conscious participants in the natural cycle of renewal. Sadly, such infinite supply denied us by a reckless stupidity.

But this is a digression; please forgive.

The interest was, the dream house of Joyce, as imagined in Ulysses; infinity better than any such thing in the Wake.

The Blue Book, anterior and superior to this challenging Orange Book.

His Orange Book hath also its dreams, these even more visionary!

P559 thus describes a bedroom;
 

“Ordinary bedroom set, salmonpapered walls; black empty Irish grate - and the scene depressing; we look for other.”

This no dream; a real life comment!

So, P249, the house of breathings,
 

“The walls are rubinen and the glittergates of elfinbone; the roof hereof is massicious Jasper and a canopy of Tyrean awning and still descends to it, a grape cluster of lights hangs beneath and all the house is filled with the breathings of her fairness, the fairness of Fondance, and the fairness of milk and rhubarb and the fairness of roasted meats and the uniomargrits and the fairness of promise with constants and avowels.”

“There lies her word, you reader!”

“_ _ _ A window, a hedge, a prong, a hand, an eye, a sign, a head, and keep your other auger on her paypaypay, and you have it, old Sem, pat as ah be seated _ _ _ _.”

Not a patch on the house in his Blue Book.
 
 

 
 

Book, Book, Book

 
Scanning thru the pages, the most intriguing sentences may be found. Always, as ever buried in the weird word.

There are pages of the dreamtime wandering from one name, one thing, to another. No resolution, paragraphs of hundred of words without subject or object; the internal monologue.

It is difficult even for astute minds to follow the broken threads of thought. 

If this be the history of Ireland, even in a dream, it is certain that God and Reason deserted the Irish, left them to their own indecisions on the day that Cromwell trod on that green dress trailing the sea.

A thread; there are words, tho obscure, that attract attention

P374 
 

“Note the notes of admiration! See the signs of suspicion! Count the hemisemidemicolons!  Screamer caps and invented gommas, quoted puntlost forced to farce. _ _ _ _”

Then another hundred confusions but, there is a clue; keep your eye open for here is the HCE.
 

  “Hence counsels Ecclesiast.”

Here speaks HCE about the book of Eccles – Ekells, – Kells.
 

“Theres every resumption. The forgein offils is on the shove to lay out your dossier Darbys in the yard planting it on you _ _ _ the whispering peeler after cooks wearing an illformation. The find of his kind. _ _ _ _ _  you know who was wrote about in the Orange Book of Estchapel. Basil and the two other men from Kings Avenance _ _ _ _ _  Hung Chung Eggyfella mumptywumpty _ _ _ _. Secret things other persons place there covered not. How you fell from story to story like a sagasand to lie. Enfilming infirmity on the because alleging to having a finger a fuddling in pudding and pie. And heres the witnesses _ _ _ _.”

So the experienced reader in this Eyrewyggle, these words speak for HCE himself and thereby, his words speak for themselves.

For others, the opening indicator is H.C.E. - Here Comes Everybody in this instance, 
 

  “Horcus chiefest ebblynincies!” 

Surely he is warning the reader to study the text?
 

“_ _ _ Tis good cause we have to remember it, going through summersultyings of snow and sleet with the widow Nolans goats and the Brownes girls neats anyhow, wait till I tell you _ _ .”

Or, 
 

“We went thru summer heat and winter snow and sleet, with widow Nolans goats (Nolans words?) and the Browne girls neats, (Browns words?) _ _ I’ll tell you the full story later.”

Something along these lines
 
 

 
 

That Thousand Years

 
In his lifetime Joyce expressed the belief that his books would still be read in a thousand years. 

Well, that’s possible!

In the Wake, it is ‘generations, more generations and still more generations’.

Quite possible.

We are, some of us, and all of us could, if we wished to be, still reading Plato – back from three thousand years, give and take a century or so, and there are a host of others Herodotus, the historian; Homer the poet, still in print from these ancient days, a swift step – just a thousand years and there are a dozen and more of the Roman poets historians and writers.

As a young man, and browsing the secondhand bookshops, dear old Mr Smith the owner of one such, warmly recommended to this writer, an English translation of “The Maxims of Seneca” and “The lives of the Caesars”, by one Seutonius, saying that one could learn more about life and the living of it from Seneca, than any other writer.

Years later and reading the Proverbs of Solomon, Seneca was clearly the better observer of the two, King Soloman very firm on wicked women and the red wine of his day.

There is a vast wealth of human experience in the Roman writers of two thousand years ago; many modern writers see a great similarity in the life and doings of today with the day of Rome in its glory.

The main difference some say is simply that we have motorcars and credit cards and mobile phones and a few other gadgets.

But there are other things, happenings, which may defeat his hopes.

Secular and excellent education is already producing more books than any man can read.

Australian publishers print about 8000 books a year! America, England and other English speaking people produce about half a million books yearly; the European and Russian possible half of that number; the Asian countries possibly one or two less.

So dear James, there will be enormous competition. As education becomes more available, even more books will be produced.

But theres more. The computer makes it more easy to write a book.

Publishers here in Australia must maintain a “slush heap” into which ‘unsolicited’ work is consigned. If you wish to have an unwanted manuscript returned to you, it must have in the package, return postage! Which is but fair play.

This a sad fact of life in the publishing world; and when you send material to one of the universal presses you may never know what has happened to it, return postage or not!

There is still more, James, to hinder your expectations.

“Brewers’ Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” records The Library of the United Stated Congress holds some 20,000,000 books and these just the classified books; the unclassified numbers an amazing 90,000,000 “ordinary” books.

These are the largest world collections! There are other American libraries of considerable importance.

The British Museum Library holds about 20,000,000, then there is the Bodleian Library of Oxford Uni. With about 6,000,000 books.

Strangely, one can earn letters after ones name by reading only a few of these enormous anthills of paper.

Millions - many millions of them will never, not ever, be read of men again; this prophesy already invalid; Google aims to access EVERY  BOOK ever written and available; about 100,000,000 of them. Why clog the web with rubbish? Why indeed. 

As King Solomon said “Of the making of many books, there is no end, but all are vanity.”

Why do they hoard such?

Here in Australia with less than one hundred years of civilized living; the first hundred or so, plain bread and dripping, with a rabbit now and then, occupied all our time; current library stocks run into millions; with public libraries ever running out of shelf space for the everlasting flow of new work.

Ulysses might well survive but only on the shelf.

If ever we have a moratorium on the printing of books, for say one hundred years, there are still plenty to read.

Finnegans Wake is however, a different matter. Someone said of it, “It is a puzzle wrapped in a mystery, hidden in a paradox concealed in a enigma,” or words to that effect.

Churchill used the same sentence to describe Russia.

Who said it first?

Because the human mind loves myth, magic and mystery the Wake may well survive where Ulysses stays, unread on the shelf. 

Someone, possibly Nora, his wife said, 
 

“She has read only nineteen pages of Ulysses and that included title pages.”

Many have started Ulysses. Few ever finish.

A newer literary myth tells us that it is not necessary to read Ulysses. Ownership of a copy is sufficient to grant status amongst the literate

There is a dim recall of a terrible Australian story on books. A new city University starting life; a senior University made a gift of 10,000 books to start them.

Men were still working on the ground; so the books were buried under what was to be the central lawn – the traditional “quad” of the University. Now this may well be a suburban or rather a University myth, but it is, and was told on good authority.

Alexander the Great set up a magnificent library in the city which he established on the conquest of Egypt.

He ordered copies made of every known manuscript; the heritage of the world of the day; a copy, of every new work was to be sent to Alexander from all the known world; the library featured a Museum, as large and as important as the library; both supported by a college of scribes; busy on translating and copying the flood of work sent in by Alexander in the course of his many conquests.

These magnificent works were destroyed by a fanatic Muslim warlord, “If these books are false they are against the Koran; if they are true, there is no need of them, the Koran is for all things.”

Hitler and other fanatical warlords have also held book burnings.

Who knows? Perhaps in the thousand years that Joyce dreams of, there will be other book burnings; if not the accumulation of books, the useful and the useless will be little more than a vast monument to human folly; for we all know, with absolute certainty that the world and the “Word” belongs to tomorrow – the future.

What are our grandchildren to do with the millions of books which will be produced over the next 50 years?

Already over one thousand books exist on or about Joyce and his work. Be interesting to know if it goes into the “classified” collections of the USA, or the other.

The writer has had a very interesting experience with books.

A garage sale featured some interesting books; are there any others? “Yes, come inside”; inside was a room, a suburban library, perhaps five hundred books.

 “My Father collected them. He is gone now, and we need the room.” 

This I could understand there were four lovely grandchildren!

 “What do you want for them?”

“A hundred dollars, just to get rid of them.”

 “They are worth more than that; I will give you two hundred.”

So, in three or four loads of the station wagon the books were transferred.

Many were library copies – probably stolen.

Discreet enquiries at the local city library were interesting.

“Yes, we knew; we suspected the books were going but unable to prove or apprehend him.”

“No, we are no longer interested in them, do what you will with them.”

So they provided a new interest in my library.

A couple of hundred to the district jail. 

Others given away, and the rest to the tip.

The tipman said, “Books; put ‘em over here mate. We have several fellows always looking for books.”

Twelve months later, took some more books to the tip.

The man said, “Thanks, mate; sold most of them others – rest went in the tip.”

So that was that. One never knows with garage sales. A friend also brought 2-3 hundred books at such a sale.

Set up a stall at the monthly market place, sold all of them at 2 dollars each, over a month or so. That was a very interesting collection; Ion Idriess and other early Australian and Pacific work. A copy, good condition of Johnny Wrays ‘Cruise of the  Ngataki’, worth 200 dollars, a bargain for someone, at two dollars. 

James would, no doubt, suffer a paroxism of letters, words, oaths & displaced vowels if he but knew the price which a first edition of ‘Ulysses’ fetches in the rare book market; the Wake of little value in the same market.
 
 

 
 

That Hundred Lettered Word

 
Through the Wake, we encounter, at random intervals, the ‘hundred lettered word’.

We discover also, that the Word belies its promise.

The first, on P3, which in the book is where the story begins, pages 1 and 2 being blank, so, on P3, in the first paragraph, is the hundred lettered word.

It is unpronounceable; it is strange; it interrupts the flow; it announces, in the very grand manner, Mr Finnegan; with a thousand or so words of mad invention we are then told that he hopes to become Mr Finnegan yet again, and so, the theme of reincarnation which bounces merrily thru the Book until, on the last page it surfaces again as the last hope, and in the last words, of the said Mr Finnegan.

So, there is sorrow, no fears on his passing; its just back to the beginning, and the waste of words again!

Part I of the Wake contains possible six of the HLW’s. These are on pages 3; 23; 44; 90; 113; 195. The last one a puzzle. The signs are there; a noise; the suggestion, but a question, a doubt!

So, P195 The letters make one hundred 
 

“Giddy gaddy, grannyma, gossipaceous Anna Livia.”

“He lifts the lifewand and the dumb speak.”
 

“Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq.” 

This is Quoi seven times with an extra ‘q’. Quaint!

This is a doubtful example, but it is to be noted that on several occasions he resorts to such constructions. All with strong indication of the HLW.

These ‘concealed’ words occur on P195; P283; P571; P589.

The last HLW is the most curious, the most cunningly crafted. The simple sentence in which it occurs contains three HLWs and without benefit of comma, or full stop or new paragraph; using only the conjunction, ‘and’, launches into a thousand word tale of the total destruction of a well established man.

Who and why, continue to perplex.

Strangely there is no HLW at the end, nothing to note the passing of Finnegan; nothing at all like the big bang at his entry into the story.

This use of the HLW is random. Sometimes indicated by a noise “Horsham coughs”; there is a reference to the ‘thunder of the falling word’; talks of the “fall” into word; the suggestion that the original ‘sin’ was the very beginning of the language!; talk of our “secret parts” being betrayed by Word! In Ulysses, this “fall” appears in the last words of the testament to be, ‘YES.’ Womens Lib laughs at that construction! “Of course! Yes is positive, assertive; strong; whilst Mans “word” is negative, supplicant, weak, “Will you?”

There are, of course, infinite variations on the universal theme. 

Romance tragedy; the stuff of Opera and the detective novel.

But none of these tantalizing theories are closely examined; nor are they plainly stated; ever the thought becomes submerged into broken words, fractured grammar; perverse spellings, mistreated vowels, wicked punctuation and, Joycean wit.
 

“So that’s it”; 

“Get it straight”; 

“Its all yo’ur getting”; 

“Been a rough road”; 

“None but a madhouse would believe it!” 

Clearly James enjoyed ‘creaking this jest’; or as the prim and proper might say, ‘writheing this wurde’; and tweaking and teasing his readers.

Well, James, it is also interesting, in parts; challenging, and only possibly unreadable.

Such findings arouse the suspicion – almost a certainty that many other HLW’s remain to be discovered. Those discussed in these notes occur only in the pages which have been read; there is much that is as yet unread!

It is also sensible to keep in mind that Joyce would be well aware of the “natural uncertainties” which would be inescapable in the use of the HLW.

First, there is the man himself, a mere man, and as capable of making a mistake as any other mere mortal. There is the count; ninety eight – nine; one hundred and one or two; then there is the typing, and the editor; the compositor, the linotype operator, and as ever the printers devil; the typo, the error that slips thru the net!

A thorough search of the Book will, almost certainly uncover other HLW’s; and perhaps a definite purpose or pattern behind them.

Sadly, there is little suggestion of purpose; as with the sub theme of reincarnation, its just there; something to add a touch of mystery to the enigma; a pinch of spice to the paradox.

As he notes on P613

“Yet there is no body present here which was not there before. Only in order offered. Naught is nulled.”

So with the Wake “Naught is nulled”; all is for a purpose. 

Purpose defined, and otherwise nothing wasted, naught is nulled.

The opening phrases of Part 3 P403, appear to be those of a HLW. 
 

“Hark” this a warning of the Noise! 

“Foly two elf kater ten (it cant be) sax."

“Hork-“ that noise again.

“Pedwar pemp foity tray (it must be) twelve”

“And low stole oer the stillness, the heartbeats of sleep.”

Now, this simply looks like a HLW. “Hark and Hork” the indicators.

It is quoted here, as Joyce wrote it there, to tempt the reader into converting the words into a hundred letters. As he might say, as he said on P.479, 
 

“Dood and I dood. The wolves of Fochlut! Whydoyoucallme? Do not flingamejig to the wolves!”

As to the ‘why’ of the HLW, there is no explanation; no apparent purpose; no reason; no intent; other than to tease and confound his readers.

Did he think that noone; not anyone, would ever read the thing and was merely and simply writing to amuse himself, annoy Nora, and just pass the time away, fill in the darksome day when the Black Dog was snapping at his heels.

Was it desperation wrote the Wake; sheer despair over the vissicitudes of Life, adrift in Europe; cheap French wines corroding the bright mind?

Who knows! Whose nose as he might say!
 
 

 
 

The Shadows On The Wall

 
No, James will not give way in the fell clutch of circumstance.

It is suggested by some that the little expatriate family moved from apartment to rooms and more rooms again and yet again, simply because of failure to pay the rent. But this is unkind – perhaps the fellow in the next room had one of those new fangled radio sets, and the noise intolerable; loud noises warrant a move! Perhaps a neighbor with a piano, and misusing the thing.

But, whatever happens, he is a survivor, with a lively sense of humor.

P.190. 
 

“ Oh _ _ Oh hell, here comes my funeral. O pest, I’ll miss the post.”

Then follows a really mischievous paragraph. .P.190 
 

“The more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit the more murphies you peel, the more onions you cry over the more bull beef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound the fiercer the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel with more grease to your elbow the merrier fumes your new Irish stew.”

Or, in plain English; “It doesn’t matter what you do, the plot is going to thicken.”

There is another page – that’s about 400 words of this, then one of his several sly jokes at the expense of the Americans, for whom, he is reputed, to have composed the Wake. P.190 – 
 

“ _ _ An Irish emigrant on the wrong way out, (he went East; not West) sitting on your crooked sixpenny stile, an unfrillfrocked quack friar, you (will you, for the laugh of Scheekspair just help me with the epithet?) semi-semetic serendipist, you (thanks, I think that describes you) Europasianised Afferyank?”

Had he been writing today, whoever would think that the writer of this, could possible have written the “Portrait of the Artist.”

One can surely see “Ulysses” in the shadows of these paragraphs, but hardly the Portrait, the author of that adolescent parade entirely without a sense of humor.

Europe, Asia, Africa, all lovely parts of Amorica; but no Irish? Why, there are said to be 40 million “Irish” in Amelica; and the Jewish contingent? A powerful tribe, and fifteen million Mexicans, a strong Hispanic voice in the Union.
 

  “Thanks, I think that describes you.”

Jesting and joking, James is ever cheerful even when 
 

“Haunted by a convulsionary sense of not being all that I might have been,” 

or being 
 

“One black mass of jigs and jimjams.”

One can sympathize, have pity, even, for such a talent beset by such fate, jags and jinjams indeed!
 
 

 
 

Our Better Half

 
It is quite impossible to look thru the Wake, and not be shocked, slightly, at Joyce; his persistent attitude toward women; the women in his work; the women in his life; the women of the world.

They are not forgotten in this dream world; it is the way he writes of them that recreates for the reader, the mind of the writer. It is a fact of life that men dream of women; in the immature man the dreams are of fear, negative and weak; in the mature man the dream is positive; she is ever the companion. Modern women will be even less approving of Joyces women than were the post Victorian women of his day, when Ulysses had the censors very busy, searching for porn, of which there is very little indeed in Ulysses.

In reality, the women of the Twenties, the early Twenties of the last century; in a breathless reaction to the brutalities of World War I, flocked out of the Church in their thousands; embraced Womens Lib with open arms; threw away ‘stays’; that terrible steel body basket; discarded lace up boots and those incredible hats, the ‘bun’ of coiled hair and the hat pins’. They adopted short skirts, ‘bobbed’ their hair; painted their lips, discovered silk stockings, the bra, which they will burn in the 60’s, and spontaneously adopted a thousand or so other badges of liberty, the new freedom and became the Mothers of the men who died by the hundred thousand in W. War II.

This War, The War which, following on the Great Depression, taught us that God does not care; we learned, with a savage realism, that we must care for ourselves; so we left the church, joined Womens Lib, started with the Flower People to shape the New Age; and the world became wealthy again; bounty flowed, and we have not yet settled down to the quiet life.

Still much to learn in the new liberal way of life, spending billions on the exploration of the planets, billions on War, not yet awake to the need to rebuild earth; defeat drought and poverty. Remake the Garden first; there is nothing for humanity in the planets. The exploration of the planets merely scientific curiosity.

So the women were liberated; business and commerce welcomed them with open arms, and politics slow as ever, is also awakening to the promise of a wiser management, a strong efficiency and a better vision for the world. There is a strong certainty that when women are admitted to the ministry, the Church will double its numbers; bring the great middle class back into the fold. For despite the centuries of folly, warfare and oppression in the hands of the priesthoods, it is the women of the world who have preserved the heart of the faith thru the centuries. The TV series, ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ confirms the trend.

Faith without theology is the name of the game, for it is the ancient archaic theology of the church, the old tribal laws, the patriarchal parochialism of the early Hebrew priesthood which turns liberal hearts away from the church. “God gave us ten laws; the priests have added six hundred.” An old Hebrew saying; and we are wise to remember.

But none of this in the Wake though Joyce lived thru these turbulent changes, saw the beginning of a new age for mankind.

In his oblique, cynical way Joyce makes only trivial note of change.

P452
 

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

P486
 

 “The old order changeth and lasts like the first.”

Or P 613
 

“Yet is no body present here which was not there before. Only in order othered. Nought is nulled.”

He seems to have noticed that the Vector of evolution points ever upward.
P222 
 

“A Magnificent Transformation Scene showing the Radium Wedding of Neid and Moorning and the Dawn of Peace, Pure and Perfect in Perpetual; waking the Weary of the World.”

This a side thought; never explored.

But a later paragraph begins; 
 

“Amongst that nombre of evelings, but how pierceful in their sojestiveness were those first girly stirs _ _ _.”

This his usual, oh, how usual, treatment of the other half of humanity. It is ever girlies girlies, eyes twinkling; head solid ivory; her “impermanent waves” lounge lizards of the pump room; warwomen, their prank queen kilts her kertles up; Bee Peep Pupette; pick them in their pink panties, vamp vamp vamp the girls are merchand; there are pages; too many pages of immature sexual reference; oblique, sensual, suggestive, explicit only in the language of Joyce, as expressed in the Wake.

Thus, presumably Joyce dreamed of women. Strangely, in the Portrait, he saw the gleam; just a few words, a glimpse; his Bird Women; here a hint of fragrance; the sweet promise of a new life; but never such in Ulysses, nor in the Wake. He speaks often of Anna Livia, the River of Life; creates some paragraphs of riverine beauty; all, perhaps his perception of his life companion, Nora.

But of women; even of Iseult, of tragic story, he writes only lightly, slightingly; a faintly offensive familiarity. There is love and companionship only with Anna. Having made her a strong player in his operetta, he gives her a good speaking part. Occasionally, she escapes the dream world, and takes on a living part.

So it was in Ulysses. Bella Cohen and her bevy of girls in Mabbot St; Molly Bloom and her adultery; Gerty Macdowell on the beach, and a few words for Mina Purefoy three days in labour and six drunken doctors in the house. A few words for Mrs Dignam on the funeral of her husband; another women with a mad husband.

Not a normal happy woman as either protagonist or partner in his books!

As he said somewhere in the Wake, 
 

“Not on your life, not me.”

The creatures of his imagination!

But come to think on it, all his characters, in one way or another, ever victims. The Irish slant on life? The long shadow of his own early life; the darkness in the soul?

Yet it was four or five women who made his success possible. Without whose help his output would have been only Dubliners – Chamber Music and perhaps Pomes Pennyeach. Of Dubliners it took ten years to find a publisher, only about three hundred sold, of which he bought over one hundred to give to friends and others who would never have brought a copy for themselves.

But Harriet Shaw Weaver published Work in Progress for him in England, and supported him most generously with money; even after death she helped Nora. 
Sylvia Beach, of Shakespeare and Coy, Paris, doyen of the Anglo Saxon expatriates in Paris, who made him sit down and write; bullied him all through, finishing Ulysses,
 

“Over a third added during the printing process.” 

And then paid for the printing; and, of great importance, in introducing Joyce to the American literary world. Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson in their literary magazine in America.

The two literary Magazines the Egoist in England and “Little Review” in America, were both convicted of publishing “obscene” work, tho Joyce could never be considered seriously obscene; but the publicity made the immediate success of Ulysses possible. The Wake, clearly published solely on Joyces now established reputation, and ably assisted by Eugene and Maria Jolas of Paris, who printed episodes of Finnegans Wake as ‘Work in Progress’ in their literary magazine ‘transition’ thus establishing a strong base in France.

The other stalwart woman in his life, Nora Barnacle, mother of his children, an Irish beauty; red hair and intelligent, who beside washing his sox & shirts, cared for him in all his troubles and assisted him with his writing. There seems evidence of this only for the Wake but it seems evident that in flurry of getting Ulysses to the printer, Nora, as well as the others, all pleading ‘deadlines’ for publication, all were pressuring him, all thus notable contributors to the work.

There is ample evidence of such pressure within the Wake!

Sadly, there is no obvious acknowledgement of the help these woman in his work; this a notable omission, he drops hundred of names historical and contemporary, but the reader will find no mention of these women, all so important – so vitally important arbiters of his success.

General Jinglesome ever in charge, and the omission clear enough evidence that all his work is dominated by fundamental thought patterns learned in early youth. Women are girlies, objects of pleasure and this not only a reflection of the ancient theology of the Church, but of his youth in Dublin, this, a sadly misguided and immature youth, and this reflected in both of his epic books.
 
 

 
 

A Surfeit Of Words

 
Part II of the Wake, is at first skimming, for such scanning is the most simple way to sample the goodies. Surely the most difficult segment of the Wake.

There is, to be true, a reasonable opening paragraph,

P219. 
 

“Every evening at lighting up o’clock sharp and until further notice in Feenichts Playhouse. (Bar and conveniences always open Diddlem Club douncstears.) Entransings gads, a scarab, the quality, one large shilling _ _ _.”

There is little more, despite the long paragraph;

Noted P221 that
 

“The Pageant of Past History is worked up with animal variations amid everglaning mangrovemazes and beorbtractors by Messrs. Thud and Blunder_ _ _.”

This sets the tone for the rest of Part II. Thud & Blunder presumably Nolan & Browne. There are hundreds of names, thousands of words, but so little of objectivity; all is but a confusion of phrase; only sometimes a lucid sentence; 

P222
 

“An after enactment of Magnificent Transformation Scene showing the Radium Wedding of Need an Moorning and The Dawn of Peace, Pure, Perfect and Perpetual, Waking The Weary of the World. _ _ _ Needless to say, an argument follows _ _.”

On the following page, James himself seems concerned at the way his book is going, 
 

“But what is that which one is going to prehend? Seeks, buzzling is brains, the feinder.”

We note 
 

“Van Diemans coral pearl.”

But this gem of the Southern Seas, a voice from the past indeed, is, as with the hundreds of other names tossed oft and out, is but mentioned in passing. Nothing more. Amongst such Broken Hill; Old Zealand; there are scores, hundreds of such casual references.

But P229; we glimpse the author; he is in the depth of depression, the curse of humanity; the Black Dog of Churchill and of all highly intelligent people; the blind spur of excellence.
 

“_ _ _ He would jused sit all write down just as he would have jused set it all up writhefullly note in blotch and void yielding to no man in hymns ignorance seeing how heartsilly sorey he was owning to the condrition of his bikestool. And reading off his fleshskin and writing with his quillbone, sill fill ninequires with it for his auditors, Caxton and Pollock, a most moraculous jeremyhead singbook for all the peoples _ _ _.”

Pity it is not written so that “All the people” could read it. This from the heart; the paragraph tells the whole story.
The wife assisting 
 

“So they fished in the kettle, and is she bit his taibout, all had teffin for tea.”

Yes, she helped with the work despite his objections but afterward had tea, all forgiven.

And the furious pace of the writing. It would pour out of him, this the dyslexia, words beyond control of the mind, flowing faster than hand can readily record. 

Nine quires of it! That’s about one hundred and eighty pages!!!

But how sick – how sorry he is “owning to the condition of his bikestool.” But he is with friends. Nora will make a cuppa, Caxton and Pollock, his “auditors” listening to the word play; they are no other than the two men Coccolanius or Gallotaurus, in another place; or the same two men from Kings Avenue.

P374 as “schurites” there are three men in him. Nolan and Browne the other two! It is by such obscure hints, suggestions, throw-away phrases all concealed in the Word, that he reveals the “troot” about his Orange Book of Estchapel, or Eccles, or Kells, for every significant feature of the work is so treated.

His irritation with his ‘anticollaborator’ one of whom uses the Greek E; and the other who has a flair for words containing M – the three legged M, is crossly mentioned at least twice; and possibly, in this erewiggle more than twice.

There are no singularities!

One suspects that Mutt and Jute, Shem and Shaun, the Mooksee and the Gripes, Burris and Caseous, Glug and Chuff, Tristan and Iseult; the Ondt and the Gracehoper; St Patrick and the Archdruid, all these but Joycean jesting about those “two other men”; all and ever mixing word and metaphor in the riot of word.

There several words on Australia; as with most of the inhabitants, the Australians, he seemed to have some difficulty in pronunciation, offering, in one place Austrelea; mentions some place between Sydney and Albany; having now to write letters to Nolan who has gone to Austrelea; mentions Broken Hill, Captain Moonlight, Thunderbolt; the Apple Isle – and throws in Old Zealand. Enough for an essay on Joyce and Australia.
 
 

 
 

The Girls, Yet Again

 
The deeper we become entangled in this book, the stronger the conviction that, subconsciously, Joyce is afraid of dying.
He will, but naturally, never admit to such.

The thought, the feeling, the fear ever shielded by the Words, and, despite the Irish wit, the banal words, the bold face, the thought is a raw wound to the mind.
The river of words has strong undercurrents of emotion; and with the unspoken fear is a strong sense of his attempts, his strong endeavor to overcome that fear.

He filled his intellectual and social life with something; anything; words, women, wine; to keep the subconscious thought and flow at bay; and when control deserted the troubled mind, filled his thoughts with troubled distorted word; every name he has heard, every incident, every association recalled, repeated in broken and invented word. Just poured out, as recalled in the dark streaming flow of monologue; the random recollections of names places; history, the days and years of his lifes experiences; nine reams a day sometimes; and all dominated by the thought the sure knowledge of Finnegans passing; the poor hope of Finnegans reincarnation as Finnegan, Finnegan born again, the grim spectre of death; the darkness; the dreadful thought of extinction, of the black oblivion utterly unacceptable to him.

So it is women and wine: and the women!

P226, but one pretty picture of many scores in his Book
 

“So and so, toe by toe, to and fro they go round for they are the angelles, scattering nods as girls who may, for they are an angels garland. Catchmire stockings, libertyed garters, shoddy shoes, quicked out with silver. Pennifair caps on pinnyfore frocks _ _ _ and they leap so loopy _ _ and they look so lovely loovelit noosed in a nuptious night _ _ _ So, the many wiles of Winsure.”

There is more praise of girlies; then,
 

“All runaway sheep bound back bopeep, trailing their teens behind them. And those ways the wend they. _ _ _ Winnie, Olive and Beatrice, Nellie and Ida, Amy and Rue. Here they come back; all the gay pack for they are the florals, _ _ _  all the flovers of the ancells garden.”

And Winne back to Rue, but spell out backward! Rainbow a constructed word from the beginning of this long paragraph; this the third version of Rainbow.

But of what significance?

But after the girlies; the doubt! After the Rainbow; the rain!
 

“_ _ _  What tournaments of complishmentary rages rocked the divlin _ _ to his schantre _ _  displayed all the oathword _ of his _ _ disgrace. He was feeling so funny and floored, _ _ all over girls as he dont know whos hue.”

Then follows a paragraph of witness, the man confused; words here to tell only half the story.
 
 

 
 

Worry, Worry And Worry

 
 
 

P228
 

“Allwhile, moush missules  _ _ preying his mind,  _ _ _.” 

Word after word, all hidden in six hundred words, until, at last, after declaring himself again; yes again; to be 
 

“General Jinglesome, make no mistake it is he _ _ _.”

He reveals, P229 that 
 

“He would just sit it all write down _ _ _ in blotch and void _ _ _  owning to the condition of his bikestool, _ _ _  a most moraculous jeeremy – head sind book for all the peoples _ _ _ and why he was off colour, _ _ _ embothed upon by the very spit of himself, _ _ _ and she _ including science of sonorous silence while he, being brungh up on soul butter. With tears _ _ _ such as engines weep.  Was liffe worth leaving? Ney!”

We all know that when a man waffles on, using hundred of words when one or two or three would give an honest answer, he is either telling lies, or is making heavy work of telling the truth.

So it is with the Wake; 

What is revealed in the first segment of Part II of this book could well be said in a sentence.

So he tells us, P231
 

“But by jove _ _ _ after he laid bare his breast plates  _ _ _ _ it was soon that he  _ _ had rehad himself. By a prayer? No that comes later. By contrite attrition? Nay that we passed. Mis excercizism? So is richt!”

So we have here a plain statement that the Wake is, simply an exorcism of the soul, in more modern words, a clearing of the mind; getting rid of the baggage. So be it.

So the segment wanders on simply, amid the welter of woods, telling of the moment when decision was made to accept help from the Good Companion  - and friends in the compilation of the Wake.
 

“_ _ _ And heres B. Rohan meets N. Ohlan for the plunge of a thou.”

Did he pay them?
 
 

 
 

The HLW Again

 
Part II of the Wake holds only five HLW’s, these on pages 257; 258; 283,314 and 323.

These all fairly obvious; there may well be others; for one at least of the above is concealed in the small print. So we have on P283;
 

“Twelve buttles man, twenty eight bows of curls, forty bonnets woman and ever youthfully yours makes all even add the hundred.”

So once again, 
 

“An unruly person creaked a jest.”

So there is no thunder either in the clouds or of hoof to give warning. No Hark, no Hork; but deviously hidded; typically Joycean, and may well be debated by the exegetists. A curly one and included because, in spite of the concealment it qualifies for the count.

There are other such.

The HLW on P257, on the other hand announces itself. With the certain reference to sound, but it has nothing of the rumble of thunder. What are we to make of;
 

“Found of the hound of the sound of the lound _ _ _ byfall, upploud _ _.”

Playing with words and the sound of words, onomatopoeia, the professors would say; a skill sadly ignored by modern poets.

We have a similar play on words with the HLW on P214. In this instance the HLW, can be broken down to read a couple of lines of nonsense; but this is followed by
 

“_ Did do a dive, aped one.” 

“_ Propellopalombarouter based.” 

“_ Two.” 

“_ Rutshc is for rutterman ramping his roe, seed three when the muddies scrim ball Bimbim bimbim. And the maidies scream all Himhim himhim.”

Are we to think Bimbim bimbim Himhim himhim is to mean four? Or eight? Or twenty four?

And there is yet another HLW. P258; here there are plenty of words about noise.
 

“Uplouderamainagain! The Cleaner of the Air has spoken in tumbuldum,  tambaldam _ _ _ _ and from tweedledeedumno down to twiddledeedoes.” 

“Loud hear us!”

“Loud graciously hear us.”

This little beauty makes a HLW to be a three hundred lettered word; or perhaps three separate HLW’s. Is this allowable – is it James “creaking a jest” again?
It seems that way, particularly, when, in the preceding paragraph we read.
 

“Go to, let us excel, Makal, let us exceedingly excel.”

There can be little doubt, he is excelling himself, and thoroughly enjoying the joke, and so to that on P332. This one almost normal; the letters import neither wit nor wisdom, but the last letters read
 

“Daddydooded and unruly person creaked a joke.”

So he has his little joke; on P332; but no big thing; the Wake if full of them.

Part II, however must be laid aside for another day, the close attention to the zany word has a noticeable effect on normal reading, so the challenge of Pt II is deferred.

Part II of the Wake is the least readable section; or perhaps it should be said, ‘the most unreadable section’.

The paragraphs are both longer and darker; the piece reeks of pessimism; doubt, uncertainty; a spiritual enmity that almost defeats perception.

Perhaps Joyce, in writing it, hoped or even believed, that it would not be read!

After a few pages, one needs to rest; put the damn thing down; this to restore ones normal word patterns in the mind; to be able to find sense and purpose in normal written work.

So, for such reasons Part II of the Wake is, by and large, ignored in this essay.

So to continue the decoding of the HLW!

To compound the mystery, as we leaf thru the pages, checking entries we note on P282, yet another hidden H.L.W.

The noise, in this instance is a whisper
 

“That’s his whisper waltz I like from _ _ _ .”

The HLW begins P282
 

“Caius counting in the scale of pin puff, pive piff _ _ _ .”

This yet the Irishman ‘Creaking a joke.’

There are possibilities! A few letters too few; a few too many – or should one write two short; two many? But please remember; such may be the fault of composer or printer; in either case Joyce would not be offended; what are a few letters between friends?
 
 

 
 

The HLW - - - Again

 
The opening words of Part III P403 appear to be one of the terrible HLW’s. There is the warning to listen, wait for the thunder of the falling word “HARK.”
Then 
 

“Toly two elf Kater ten (it cant be) sax.”

“HORK.”

“Pedwar pemp foity tray (it must be) twelve.”

“And low stole o’er the stillness the heatbeats of sleep”

This last line a poetic rendering of a distant thunder?

This little enigma comprises ninety six letters, and therefore deserves consideration as a HLW. But all the elements, are present. The warning of the coming words “HARK”, and repeated “HORK” the vowel substituted; the word count – four short and again the poetic analogy of a distant rumbling. “The heartbeats of sleep.”

But the joke is set out in just four lines! Thus the hundred!

And clearly, introducing a new exercise in Word for the patient reader. 

There is the real possibility that the words of this puzzle may lie translated into numbers to total one hundred. But the key to the puzzle eludes this writer.

In a now familiar episodic style, we are introduced to Shaun. We have met him before, but, as it might be, unofficially; these paragraphs bring him to notice; formally!

There are four hundred words on his dress, and, he is, “dressed to kill!”

Blazes Boylan, or Mr Denis J. Maginnis of Ulysses are but boys round town compared with Shaun in his country best! Then this descriptive passage is followed by a gourmets delight; the wild dream of millions of Irishmen; those who lived thru the famines; in short, Shauns daily diet. A feast for the Gods, but these the wild Northern Gods, rather than those more cultivated Greek wantons, who managed very well on the rich scents rising to them from sacrificial altars. 

P405. Shaun we are told, is 
 

“The Bel of Beaux, Shaun in proper person nudged along by holy messenger angels. There is no mistaking that beamish brow.”

On P419 we read the intriguing, 
 

“How good are you in explosition, how farflung you folkloire, and how veiltingeling you volupkabulary?”

These literary skills essential for the reading of the Wake.

These paragraphs an open challenge to the reader to continue the search for purpose amid;
 

“The strange wrote anaglyptics of these shemletters patent for His Christians Ears?”

Read what you will from these words, but ever, in all reasonable minds, there is awakened the doubt, the question, the reason why. Why did Joyce write them?

Why so cryptic? 

Why so damned Joycean? But there it is.

Few writers would so scoff at their own work. One feels tempted to use the word writher, as an alternative to writer! The man believed firmly in his own genius; so it is to be assumed that there is something hidden in these words. Why writhe them if it is not so?

Perhaps, in the grip of some mental aberration, a feature of deep depression, he feels that all his work; the poems; Dubliners; the Portrait of the Artist; Useless Ulysses; (his own anagram), all are nothing, thus Finnegans Wake is his real life story, and it shall be read only by those who love me, and read clearly that which I have written,

So this segment ends with the HLW, and this qualified by his own word.
 

“Last word in perfect language.”
 
 

 
 
 
 

Of Part III of the Wake only four HLWs have noted.

Two of these the conventional hundred letters.

The first appears on P414. Shaun uses it to introduce the fable of the Ondt and the Gracehoper. 

But this fable has nothing of the simple wisdom of Aesop. 

Oh, No; as the Ondt says
 

“Grouscious me and scarab my sahul! What a bagateller it is. . Libebilous! Inzanzarity! Pou! Pechla! Ptuh! _ _ _ _.”

But full of double meaning and deceit.

The second on P424 has Joyce laughing at the word 
 

“Footinmouther, (what the thickuns else?)”

Then The Word.

Then, 
 

“The hundredlettered name again, last word of perfect language.”

From the ridiculous to the sublime. 

But think nothing of it. That which follows demands out faith, hope and clarity!

The next HLW is one of the compound approximations. Some will dispute the inclusion, but he gives us fair warning,
 

“Listen, listen! I am doing it. Hear more to those voices!_ _ _  Horshem coughs enough. Anshee lisps privily _ _.”

These words warn us of the rumble of thunder – “Horshem coughs enough” a HLW is on the way. So the HLW is a compound, and is rich with meaning.
 
 

“He is quieter now.”	So, listen!
“Legal-entitled.”	Legal words. I write them!
“Access-to-partneizz.”	These words are partners.
“Not-wilde-bestoch.”	Not wild words!
“By-right-of-oaptz.”	By my right!
“Twain-be-of-one-flesh.”	Both are HLW’s
“Have-and-hold-up.”	One supports the other.

Then,
 

“S-Let us go. Make a noise. Slee.”	This warning of yet another HLW.
“Oui _ _ _ The Gir.”	The girdle binding the words?
“Hues-of-rich-unfolding-morn.”	Lovely
“Waken-uprise-and-prove.”	Put all together.
“Provide-for-sacrifice.”	Good. Have a drink
“Wait! List! Let us list!”	Here comes the thunder of two HLWs

Joyce had fun encoding these little puzzlers; we too may have fun decoding them. As he says, somewhere
 

 “What can be encoded may be discoded.”

Now this is a well crafted handful of words, another Joycean puzzle; spelled out clearly for your convenience!

Good on yer, mate!

But there are a few too many letters – does this disqualify the words. Joyces reference to sound seem clear enough, “Horsehem coughs enough” is pretty clear!

One could hear him cough from quite a distance. Or is it the compositor? The printer?

It is not clear as to the purpose of these magic words. The long paragraphs preceding them begins with a statement on love, or something like that, a subject always close to Joyces heart; but the words become a devastating attack upon the Law as practiced in the courts; a protest against long years of tears, and oceans of legalese producing only rich reward for lawyers; sheer luck or unlucky for the litigants.

Readers who have the pleasure of knowing Rabelais will recognize echoes of the defense by Panurge of his friend, and the skilful resolution of an age old claim, long years in the hands of the lawyers.

Lawyers have had a long and lucrative innings.

The paragraph which follows this HLW’s is a dreadful fabrication of a complex relationship between a group of very strangely oriented men & women. Gutsy reading, worthy of the HLW. Which appears, very clearly indicated on P571.

These couple of pages are in no way remarkable; just another of the scenes which created the faint odour of indecency; first noted, (how could one avoid it?) in Ulysses, and a theme perhaps utterly unconscious, to Joyce as he wrote, also in Finnegans Wake.

There is another, the last in the Wake, equally complex on P589; this a triple construction, three HLWs in one small sentence! And, followed, as was the last HLW, by yet another great paragraph, this on the total destruction of a well known man, named perhaps; a possible victim of the Great Depression of the Twentieth Century. 

So read with care, the HLWs discussed here may be but a few of many.

In the search for unity, it is noted that the first introduces, Finnegan, Here Comes Everybody; ManKind in person; Finnegan; and, important, his hopes of reincarnation.

The last HLW is an enigma – it is based on children, a second HLW out of ‘fifty fifty’, and he then presents a third! The hope of the parents, the hope of the world; on retirement; makes him launch into more than a thousand words, in the story of the total destruction of a once powerful man.

This last HLW, an enigma, indeed, even if the page is offered for the convienience of readers, it is on P589.

What and why and who are unanswered questions in this saga. 

Is this an allegory of the end of the human race, a Joycean view of our extinction; Probably not, but then it may be! Or perhaps hint of his own departure, but the hope of the world, our continually renewed survival thru our children.

The first HLW is of interest, because it introduces the subject of reincarnation.

Reincarnation has a history much older than the Christian promise of heaven and hell!

Thankfully, gratefully, the late Pope has declared heaven and hell to be only constructs of the human minds, but their influence has moulded behavior for two thousand year.

Attila, Hitler and Stalin to say little of Napoleon, none of these influenced by promise of glory or the threat of everlasting fire.

Neither did they have any concerns about reincarnation, though for a year or so many tried to equate Hitler with Napoleon; mainly it seems because both were once corporals. Reincarnation may have been a new thought to Joyce, for the matter is not raised in Ulysses; neither at the funeral of Paddy Dignain, in “Hades” nor in the reflections on birth and life in the “Oxen of the Sun.” It is however, a strong theme in the “Wake.” Who sowed such seed in Joyce?

Reincarnation has also been a theme in English literature, memorably, Edgar Wallace with his ‘Captain of Souls’; but many other writers have made use of the possibility. New age writing has revived interest, and there are some very interesting serious studies, which appear to support; even build on, the popular anecdotal experience.

A tantalizing emerging thought is that reincarnation does occur, but only as some human becomes sufficiently mature; the rest of us “as flowers of the field.”

Something like this happens in a very visible way, in the vegetable world: millions of seed, but most falls by the wayside, few indeed on fertile ground; but from these, we have, by deliberate fertilization produced the beautiful fruits and the other plant life in out gardens. The potential for genetic selection for the human race is fantastic, we may quite deliberately breed a better race of real men and women. There must surely be books written on this? Men like Burpee transformed our vegetable gardens; Dickson and others our rose beds; and probably more importantly men like Confucius, Buddah, Christ and Muhammed and other, our minds. Our scientists take up the work.

Perhaps reincarnation is governed by some enormous sinewave in our affairs?

Joyces treatment of reincarnation is but a hope. Finnegans recollection of a past life, P627 but the muttered hopes of a dying man. There is no real development of the theme. Indeed reincarnation is treated no better than history, or anything else, for that matter, in these pages.

King Solomon circa 1000BC, and reputed to be the wisest man of his day, as was Socrates, in his day, wrote it out in but a few words. “All is vanity. That which is, has been, and shall be yet again.” Joyce saw the whole history of man as just such vanity. 
 
 

 
 

The Last Hundred Lettered Word

 
Thus to the HLW of P589, and the last in the book.

The warning of the thunder is an artistic fragment.
 

“Them! All the trees in the wood the trembold, humbild, when they heard the stoppress from doomsday’s erewold.”

In more plain English, when they heard the thunder of the falling word.

We are further warned; there is a “tricksome couple”; and surprising, there is a possible third HLW in this tiny sentence.

Ignoring the first phrase, and counting from the conjunction “and”; we have;
 

“Dotted our green with tricksome couples, fiftyfifty, their chilterns hundred. So childish pence took care of parents pounds.” 

So there are thee hundred letter words, or perhaps the ‘hunted little worms.’

The first surely, the “fiftyfifty.” Fifty fifty makes one hundred. Then there are one hundred and two letters.

Then the chilterns hundred for the third. 

Now Joyce has made a gentle play with the last letter of chilterns.

The letter “s”

The correct spelling is, “Chiltern Hundreds”; he has transposed the “S” to obtain another “hundred.”

Cunning! Devious! 

The ‘Chiltern Hundreds’ is as many know, a quango of the English Parliamentary System.

It, or they, are a non existent electorate to which elected members who resign their seats during the term of office, are consigned until the next election.

The subtlety of this HLW is a darkness, almost hidden in the light of his great talent as displayed in the writing of the Wake. There is here surely, the deliberate hint of the end; his retirement, his giving up of the work. “The end is nigh.” He is off to the Chiltern Hundreds.

A further note of dark mystery, hidden in the sentence noted, is, the immediate lead, without benefit of a new sentence or paragraph; only the use of a conjunctive “and”, into a terrible story of the total destruction of a once powerful and respected man. Does he mean his own passing? Every significant word in his Work has meaning, so why this terrible story. 

The grim story parallels the story of the old Hebrew poet, Job; sons, daughters, lands, herds, wealth, home, reputation all stript from him, all torn down.

So Job bowed his head and said, 
 

“The Lord gave; the Lord has taken away; blessed the name of the Lord.”

Joyce mentions names in this grim story. Sir Joe Meade; Lloyds of London, the very heart of the great insurance industry of the world; Lloyds stung! It would be a big crash. Surely known to many of the day. Perhaps during the Great Depression. Which crushed millions, destroyed the gold standard and made clear the way for modern capitalism.

Truly Joycean to the end, this tragic story of destruction of a man, is rounded off with a further reference to his fascination with our sexuality.
P590
 

 “Two er see. Males and female unmask we him _ _ _ .”
 
 

 
 

A Passing Thought

 
All is but words, the words not understood; life to be lived with a laugh. We need, as the Upanishad tell us, a million lives in which to understand, to “Know as we are Known”; and nothing, nothing at all, matters, except that understanding.

Perhaps reincarnation is a developing feature of the human personality; a new tool in the experiment of Mother Nature or Evolution, or of God!

So with due humility and an amused understanding, however imperfect, we know that this essay but adds to the babble of words.

So, the space ship Mir; Voyager sailing still the deeps of space; computers, the motor car, credit cards, fashion, entertainment, the Universities, and the pubs; all simple ways, means and gadgets to keep ourselves busy; a tiny comfort against the unknown reality; while all around us an intelligent creative universe is evolving! Our best hope lies in the prayer which King Solomon made; “Give us understanding Lord.”

Well, as our scientists are steadily gaining some understating of the incredible natural laws which govern the atom, the base of all matter, we should perhaps recall the comment of Socrates; nearly three thousand years ago; “The proper study of Mankind, is Man.” Wars, our prisons, our hospitals, our poverty, all weeping sores of humanity.

Of Joyces characters in the Wake, Finnegan possibly speaks for mankind, as did Bloom in Ulysses, others are Matt, Luke, Marc, and John, also Mercicus and Justicus; perhaps a close study of the words of these characters will reveal a yet deeper understanding of the vision of Joyce; but such seems a vain hope.

His comments on, and interest in reincarnation should perhaps encourage in us a deeper interest in this subject. One of the unstated laws of Evolution or but another human vanity?
 
 

 
 

Browne And Nolan

 
It is interesting that Brown and Nolan; are clearly one; as Bruno the Nolan. He was an Italian philosopher, teaching that God was Unity reconciling spirit with dense matter; he lived at Nola; and was burned by the Spanish Inquisition for heresy.

So Joyces use of the names becomes even more enigmatic. We must presume that he used the words in an Irish twist on the names of the two ‘rascals’ encountered in Paris, one of whom was an old college acquaintance, Browne, at one time leader of his church sorority.

That Joyce had a passing knowledge of some of the Italian writers there is no doubt. As to whether his knowledge was but superficial, there is no doubt. There is little evidence of any deeper understanding of the work of any of them.

However Bruno most certainly influenced Joyce, but this by the courage and determination with which he persisted, even in the face of strong opposition of the church.

This can be said of all that Joyce read. He is never interested in the detail; but he could ever sense the spirit; the passion of the writer; this he absorbed and transmitted or augmented by his own experience of life.

Bruno was known in his day as “The Nolan”; Nola being his city.

The relationship within the Wake, an intriguing puzzle; but the relationship is clear. Browne and Nolan mean, not only two persons but a very definite influence throughout the Wake.

They appear and disappear in one way or another through each segment, are mentioned in all of the many ‘pairs’; each of which contributes a segment to the whole.

Joyce ever, clever, creative, mischievous, a true Irishman of Literature; equal with Sterne, Swift, Shaw - - any of them; and very much at home in Finnegans Wake.
 
 

 
 

P33 Bears first mention of H.C. Earwicker and Browne and Nolan.

 
P38 seems a neat physical introduction.

Browne an associate of Joyce at college, the sodality director, and Joyce possible the secretary.

P42 brings them all together
 

“_ _ _ After which stag luncheon, and a few ones more to celebrate – flushed with friendship, - the rascals came out of the licensed premises – Browne first.”

The pages expanded with dreamword.

P50 is devoted to this couple of old friends, and there is further mention,
 

“ _ _ _ Encountered by the General on that redletter morning or maynoon jovesday _ _ _.”

So it was an encounter, not an arranged meeting; it was a cold day in Januwar, but transformed into an oasis in the desert of his life in Paris, and, blessed by the Gods, an oasis rich with date palms.

It is thus that Browne and Nolan become partners with Joyce in the writing of the Wake.

After the convivial encounter, there is the walk home to Joyces flat. The ‘weirdweekday’ the weather forgotten; in front of a warm fire in the little brown study, Joyce in his ‘warming chair’, the two friends becoming informed of his rheumatic fever, his developing glaucoma; his difficulty with the writing – all the indignities afflicting this man of talent; and so the plan developed; the offers made – even Nora more than willing to help, and he, at last, agreeing, P251
 

“_ _ _ Longerous book of the dark. Look it this passage about Galilleatto, I know it is difficult - - this patch upon Smachiavelluti _ _ _.”

Could she manage?
 

 “But she, waxen in his hands.”

But we are ever confronted with the quandary that;
 

 “Mr Browne - - - was overheard in his secondary personality as a Nolan?”

What does he mean?

The double talk persists thru the book. Whatever the truth, we shall never know. But there seems no doubt that the encounter changed the future for James.

Yet, a few more fragments of the mystery of Browne and Nolan as be tossed through the pages of his Orange Book.

Some of the references are only possible; or as Joyce says, somewhere, 
 

“Where the possible was the improbable, and the improbable become the possible”

P48 
 

“Bigany Bob and his old Shanvooht are possibles.”

And P48, 
 

“Therewith was released in the Kingsrick of Humedia, a poisoning barrage of cloud barrage indeed.”

What else can such a sentence mean other than when his two friends called they worded out a few more pages of ‘poisonous barrage’; of ‘word play to deceive?’

From this he gives us, still on P48
 

“Of the persins in the Eyrawyggle saga (which, thorough readable to ent from and is from tubb to buttom all falsetissues – antilibellous and nonactionable and this applies to its whole wholume _ _ _.”

The simple question here is, which persons?

There is, or are, earlier references; such as, in passing P41 Pumiever Glasstone; and a sparse;
 

“Brownes first, the small p s, the exexexecutive capahand _ _ _ like a ladys post script, I want money, please send.” 

Joyce critical of even Brownes handwriting; this because he must read it, to approve it!

This last phrase the plea of woman all over this sad and beautiful world.

It has long been the opinion of some, possibly many, that Nora helped.

These essays amply supported by quotation from the text, develop this belief.

“Confirmation” is hardly required; Joyces own word boldly – clearly in Joycean terms, state the fact; discuss the circumstances; and to clinch the matter; tell us that the collaborative effort began on a cold day; 
 

“That weird weekday in bleak Janawar.”

There is however a very personal issue of some interest.

P157 tells of a tinge of annoyance; or perhaps amusement, in General Jinglesome; this caused by the frisson between Nola, and the other two men. This entire episode, which takes in the interlude, with Mooksie and the Gripes supports the duality, the personal identities of Nolan and Browne.

Nola, becomes, for this segment, Nuvoletta,
 

“She tried to make Mooksie look up at her (but he was fore too far addeptotously farseeing) and to make the Gripes hear how coy che can be, _ _ _ but it was all milds vapour moist _ _ _.”

“She could make no impression, _ _ _ because of their damprouch of papyrs _ _ _.”

“ _ _ _ She tried all the winsome wonsome ways _ _ _ and she rounded her mignons arms _ _ _ and she smiled all over herself _ _ _ but she might fair as well have _ _ _ to Florida _ _ _.”

“For the Mooksie, a dogmad Accanite, were not amoosed, and the Gripes, a dublinosed Catalick was pinefully obliviscent.”

“I see,” she sighed, “These are mennen.”

But that Nora thus attempted to win a word from Browne and Nolan is not at all doubtful, she was woman! She would but be the good hostess. The intrigue, Joyce up to his usual tricks with words.

Then
 

“Oh, how it was dousk _ _ _ Oh, dew, Oh dew. It was so dousk _ _ _that the tears of night began to fall _ _ _ for the tired ones were weeking, as we weep now with them. O. O. O.”

“Then there came down to the thither bank a woman _ _ _ and she gathered up the Mooksie motamourfully where he was spread, and she carried him away _ _ _ and there came down to the hither bank a woman to all important _ _ _ she plucked down the Gripes _ _ _ and carried away _ _ _ to her unseen sheiling _ _ _.”

This rather lyrical end of the Mooksie and the Gripes, or Nolan and Browne, a nice replay of the gathering of Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, with all its mystery and beauty.

There is little doubt but that N&B would have enjoyed this enigmatic tribute to their involvement in the construction of the Wake; this despite his severe criticism of their literary skills.

He ends the saga of the Mooksie and Gripes with a boast. He knows he has given of his best, in this very interesting segment.

P159 rounds off the piece with;
 

 “No applause, please.”

Literary typical!

So, to P159;
 

“I feel a symbathos for my friend _ _ _ I could love that man for being so bailycleaver, tho he is an nawful careless, and I must slave to methodiousness. I want him to go and live in _ _ _ Tristan Da Chuna.”

This surely, ‘I must work to edit his work’.

P334-6 There is a page or so, too much to translate which tells of other trouble in the camp, but nothing clearly told – all is dreamtalk.

P374 
 

“See the signofsuspicion! Count the hemisamidemicolons! Screamer caps and inverted gommas – quotes puntlost forced to force _ _ _.”

So much for their contributions. 

So to P336, 
 

“All to which not a lot snapped. The Nolan of the Calabashes at his whilom eweheart photonomist _ _ _  was as much incensed by Saint Bruno _ _ _.”

Did they disagree on some point?

There is talk of a reunion, and a party to celebrate. P372
 

“_ _ _ And are now met by Brownaboy Funnniniunns former, for a lyncheon partying _ _ _.”

Surely this indicates Brownaboy as a real acquaintance?
P374-5, however continues the duel,
 

“_ _ _ You know who was wrote about in the Orange Book.”

Yes we know; it was the two men from Kings Avenue.
Then P375
 

 “Youll have loss of fame from Finnegans Fake.”

If ever our little game is discovered; the literary pundits will have your reputation!
P334 offers;
 

“This is the time for my tubble, reflected Mr Gladstone Browne in the toll hut (it was characteristic from that man of Delgany) Dip. This is my vulcanite smoking, profused Mr Bonaparte Nolan under the notecup _ _ _ Dip.”

P385 offers the four of them again!
 

“When they were all four collegians on the nod. _ _ _  with mixum members _ _ _ along with another fellow a prime number Totius Quotius and paying a pot of tributes to Boris OBrien the buttler of Clumpthump.”

P412 also speaks of the pair in positive terms,
 

“The makings of a savings book _ _ _ this matter of the Wellfused mascateers _ _ _ that saved a city for my publishers _ _ _ Nolaner and Browno _ _ _.”

Then P488, there is a full and frank denial of the physical existence of these men. This presumably a deliberate attempt to cloud the issue?

The man is impossible! In the same paragraph every indication that Nolan went to Australia.
 

“I never dramped of being a postman, but in Ostralian someplace, most deeply beloved allaboy brother _ _ _ my fond foster E. Obit Nolans, (New South Wales) _ _ _ I am most beholden to him _ _ _ but I loved that man _ _ _ I call you my half brother _ _ _ S.H. Devitt, the benighted Irishman now between Sydney and Albany.”

Was S.H. Devitt ever traced as an early aquaintance, a friend of Joyce?

Surely a real tribute to an old friend, Now in Australia and to whom he is obliged to write letters.

It continues, P490,
 

“Madonagh and Chiel, idealist leading a double life! But who, for the brilliance of brothers, is the Nolan as appearant nominally? Mr Nolan is pronominally Mr Gottgab.”

So is Gottgab, but Browne; or does he mean Nolan is but Joyce?

P514 
 

“They were simple scandalmongers, that familiar, (Nora?) _ _ Normand, Desmond, Osmund and Kenneth. Making mejical history all over the show!”

Or, in good word; Nora, Nolan, Browne and Kevin, this latter a familiar of H.C.E aka J.J. 

And all making magical history!

As usual, so much implied, too many words; too little tolled!

Browne and Nolan an intriguing pair.

Then, the last mention of B&N; P599
 

 “Tip, Take Tamotimos topical. Tip Browne yet Noland! Tip Advert.”

Just what that means, is his business, and hes not telling!

Yet it was,
 

“A palmy day in a wastes oasis, encountered by the general on that redletter morning; that bitterly cold morning in January.” 

These pages, talk, in occasional whispers of Brown and Nolan; but such pages must be read carefully to yield their story; amongst the chaff, the wheat! And the complexity!

This is where it all began, and step by step he talks plainly enough despite the wordy nonsense; of Browne and Nolan and their place in the work.

He talks of their styles of writing – knows that keen eyes will detect the differences, imagines the literary establishment getting at him for accepting such help, tells of his correcting their work – he is always in charge.

Simply, there is no doubt about the matter, and, who wrote what, becomes an intriguing aspect of this unreadable religions tract, this epic journey, this Irishmans dream of a book, its words rivaling the art of the Book of Kells; to be argued and debated for a thousand years.

The manuscript of the Wake surely survives.

So it is that cold day in Janawar, the cosy fire; Nora triumphant, he grudgingly acquiescent; the friends in agreement; Nora keeping the glasses full; canapes, or hot croissants; darning his intellectual sox; and “Letters will never be the same.” And Brown and Nolan the visitors, and now active ‘anticollaborators’.

The screen has its “stand-ins.” Politicians their “spokesmen”, and these days their “spokeswomen”, Balzac his team of scribblers; experts of every persuasion have their researchers; the stage its understudy; artists their finishers; and writers the amanuensis.

Perhaps Nora, who knew him better even than himself, realized his need, and womanwise had a word or two with B & N beforehand, and they presented a united front, and so won the day.

Browne and Nolan, key figures in the Eyrewyggle appear early in the story, all in double dutch as James wrote it. A fascinating pair to detect as one scans the text; they appear and disappear thru the Wake; every effort made to mystify their presence, even their identities, but ever present; despite the deliberate mystique in which they appear.
 
 

 
 
 
 

The Orange Book is full of Browne and Nolan.

Sometimes just a few words – a sentence or so, then a paragraph; but as the book goes on, the pages unfold. What seemed clear and simple in the beginning, becomes less so. Contradictions are suggested; often the pair are said to be one; and the reader never wholly informed, simple, confused.

Early, they seem clearly to be real people, assisting with the work; their work is ever criticized, the faults revealed, their styles of writing taken to pieces, letter by letter. One uses the Geek E; this clearly an affectation in Joyces book; Joyce often appreciative.

Equally clearly they are identified and known to Joyce before that cold day in Janawar, where it all began. 

On P114 he writes of,
 

  “The importance of establishing the identities of the writers.”

And launches into an interesting discussion on the ethics of such help, the main topic of this chapter.
 

“So why pray, sign anything as long as every word, letter  _ _ _ is a perfect signature of its owner.” 

The discussion wanders over many pages, thus confirming an early comment on P113
 

“There were three men in him, Schwrites.”

And again on P118 an acerbic note; 
 

“Anyhow, somehow and somewhere _ _ _ somebody  _ _ _ wrote it, and there you are, full stop.

 But; and this but is important, throughout the text he speaks of them as personal friends – never as evanescent creatures of imagination.

This meanders off in the dream, near a thousand words to the end of chapter III of Part 2, of his Book; 

Or perhaps in the dream he was back, P38, 
 

“That cold day in Januwar, the cosy fire; the warm croissants, Noras warm welcome, a pot of scalding hot Sou Shong tea and that overspoiled priest, Mr Browne _ _ _ his secondary personality as a Nolan, and underreard, poul soul, by accident _ _ _.”

There are a score of incidents, any of which may have been in his mind, but, as an ancient wisdom tells us, “Enough is enough.”

Having extracted so much of N & B from the text, one should probably, do something with the information, but that is a task for the professors; the people who know in great detail the facts and circumstance of Joyces life.

This writer has a son who is a chessplayer – an AM – which means that he plays at high levels of this ancient game.

It is told, in the chess mythos, that a King of India sent a message, and a chess problem to a King of Persia; ‘Resolve this chess problem or; WAR.’

The King of Persia could not resolve the problem, so sent it to a great King of China who solved the problem, and taking a great army with him, presented the solution to the King of India thus beginning the great Mongol conquest of the East.

Chess so much a part of Life. The matter is mentioned, the story told, because the son, whilst at home, had no other players of quality to play chess with, so worked at the game, right hand playing the left and no tricks, and thus replayed the classic game of the great masters.

Now, further, the best of Joyce is or are, his conversation pieces. In Ulysses, the bouts are with Buck Mulligan; the Citizen in Cyclops, Stephen arguing Shakespeare in Scylla & Charybdis; the sailor in Eumaeus, and Bloom throughout. It is possible, that, talking things over with Nora he devised the technique of, imagined, Browne and Nolan to give him characters engaging in conversation with him?

But he the General Begob, and no mistake.

Or, a variation on this theme for, there are Shem and Shaun, Mutt and Jake; Burrous and Cassous; Mercius and Justicus.

The two washerwomen, Mick and Nick; the Ondt and the Gracehoper; Glugg and Chuff; Butt and Taff; Jaun and Issy; then the couple of groups of four; the four old men, still talking; and, helping to keep the party clean, Matt, Mark, Luke and John, with variations.

Thus, the cast – all the cast and the whole cast, inventions to speed the work; to give the author scope for imagination; different voices, different styles; different characters; and this rogues gallery includes Browne & Nolan, but ever, only in passing.

Only Nora, the good companion is real – she who makes the fire, bakes the cakes, boils the kettle, darns his sox, and is the beloved.

Nora on the cold day in Januwar, who settles him in the ‘little brown study’ in his big armchair, and offered help with the writing –.

Could she spell Galileo? Or Schmackavilli? He could teach her; she transcribe the dream.

Lucky man. Little wonder that he loved her; devoted pages of his Orange book to extol her; dreamed of her as the very River of Life; Anna Livia, Plurabella!

So it was Nora, hot tea on hand scalding hot; pen in hand patient and listening, the hard words spelled out of course, she; in his own dreamable way, the answer.
Yes we know; yes; P380
 

“_ _ Tis good cause we have to remember it, going throught summersultryings of snow and sleet, with the widow Nolans goats and the Brownes girls neats anyhow, wait till I tell you, what did he do, poor old Roderick O’Connor Rex _ _ _.”

What could he do? Indeed!

But of all the couples he has created as conversation puppets, none are as deeply enshrined in mystery than the ‘two men from Kings Avenue’; Browne and Nolan.

There are no set discussions between them, as with the others, but they appear as personal and intimate friends; men not of his invention, but known and trusted friends, but there is absolutely no clue as to any part, paragraph, or phrase of the Wake to which they made any known contribution. But, they may well be equated with Mutt and Jute, and the rest of the talkative pairs, these talkers making a notable contribution to the volume of the Wake.

Yet they appear, wraithwise thru the Wake; ever shrouded in mystery; such as the enigmatic last entry; P599
 

 “Tip. Take Tamotimos tropical.
 Tip. Brown yet Noland.
 Tip. Avert.”

The ‘Tip’ is ever just that; a Tip. This is important!

Their story starts about P38 – is verified on P251 and repeated.
 

“Those vain would convert the to be hers in the word. Gosh. They’re the fair ripeberry _ _ _. Which is why trumpers are mixed up in duels, and heres B Rohan meets N Ollan for the prize of a thou. But listen to the mocking birde to micking barde making bared.”

So they were altogether B&N, Nora and General Jinglesome; a cosy fire, scalding hot Soushong tea, scones and some grudging agreement on Work in Progress.
P503
 

“_ _ _ And the grawndet crowndest consecrated maypole in all the reignladen history of Wilds. Brown’s Thesaurus Plantarum from Nolan’s, the Prittlewell Press has nothing like it. For we are fed of its forest, clad in its wood _ _ and our lecture is in its leaves. The cram, the cram and the king of all cram _ _.”

And words later, ‘Solve it!’

There are a couple of pages of such double speak about B&N here.

Tis ever thus that they appear and reappear throughout the dreamdoory.

But Joyce is a master of conversation; such set pieces in all his work are the best pieces. The three brilliant segments of Ulysses; the Citizen, in the Cyclops segment; the sailor in Eumaeus, and Stephen and associates in Scylla & Charybdis; all stand out, all superior to the boredom of the internal monologue.

Bloom and associates in Hades, and in a slightly different key. Bloom and his wife in the opening segment of Part II; Calypso.

But, here in the Wake, the cast are cast in pairs. As Joyce says; Tip! They begin with Mutt and Jute. Jarl van and the Prank queen. The Mooksie and the Gripes; The Gracehoper and the Ondt. Justius and Mercius. There are two Washerwomen!

Nick and Mick

Glugg and Chuff

Dolph and Kev

Kerse the Tailor and the Norwegian Sea Captain

Butt and Tuff

Jaun, who is Shaun, and Issy.

Then, in a burst of confusion Shaun is paraded as, Dave, Jaun, Yawn and Haun. Then Mutt and Juva, and St Patrick and the Archdruid.

He makes a variation on the theme with a couple of groups of four; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; with a quartet of elders. But, we have good cause to wonder if all are but Brown and Nolan in different clothes!

The four apostles are graced with several sets of names; all in a kind of Irish idiom.

Sadly, these conversational duels fail to achieve the expertise developed in Ulysses.

It is said by some experts that the language used by Joyce seeks to “free itself from repression and the oppression.” This is a hard one to swallow. If ever word has been “repressed and oppressed” it is here, in his own book.

He would laugh – and laugh, and laugh again at some of the philosophical nonsense the experts attribute to him. Not even Shaun of the silver tongue would have a word of it.

But, of his cast of characters, there are the main actors; H.C.E, with his many names; the love of his life, richly disguised as the A.L.P. or Anna Livia Plurabella, and chief protagonist Finnegan and the mysterious Brown and Nolan.

There is also an early disco hall of characters. They are names only; a long streaming cavalcade from the earliest recorded; names of poets, writers, generals, tradesmen; actors and a mixed host of others. But they are names only; only names.

He offers – or throws at us, quips and quotations from two score or more other languages.

Never with any translation; that is another task for experts and something of an affront to his readers.
 
 

 
 
 
 

Strangely there is mention of Brown and Nolan in Part IV  P599 and the first mention of Finnegans Wake on P607. And please note Finnegan’s spelled with the apostrophe!

This chapter the first segment to be written.

The words are introduced with “Tip”.
 

 “Tip, Take Tamotimos topical. Tip. Brown yet Noland Tip. Advert.”

The last paragraph of P601 tells us two things. The waking from his dreamdoory, his dream story; and that Tolan (Nolan) 
 

 “Has farslook our showrs for Wallaby Newer Land.”

This comment surely confirms, or does it introduce the storyon Pages 488-490? These a very wordy praise of Nolan for his work, a baffling sentence or so showing Browne and Nolan to be the same person -- ; P488 a typical Joycean mystery in an enigma!.

But P488-90 doesn’t fit in with P38 and the events of that cold day in Januwar, and all that followed.

There is also the faint suggestion that Nolan was but visiting Paris when he ran into Browne and the pair of them then met Joyce, and so began the work on the Wake.

The clues are to be found – well, hardly found – but very skillfully concealed on pages 488-89 and will not yield their secret message easily.

Truly a question for the exegetists.