There is some suggestion, to be inferred from his work, that the grim secret of the Wake, slowly developing in his brain, was a form of dyslexia, growing into an acute dysphasia, a slow loss of coordination of meaning and speech, and thus his writing.

We read the beginning of such in his first book, Dubliners. Here almost all of his characters are failures; the weather ever wet and cold, all damned by uncertainties!

The sting of failure and defeat; in nearly every story. Whilst such stories may be true of Dublin, the choice and treatment of the character of the stories is essentially dictated by the writer.
 

“_ _ _ It was useless. He couldn’t read _ _ he couldn’t do any thing _ _ It was useless, useless. He was a prisoner for life _ _ _.”

“_ _ Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity and my eyes burned with anguish and anger _ _ _.”

These are people who have little faith in life, “driven by vanity & ego” this a sure indication of failure, and, is surely, the “Black Dog,” the state of mind of James’ life in the early years of his exile in Europe.

Another line from Dubliners speaks yet again for him,
 

“There was no doubt about it, if you wanted to succeed you had to go away.”

It is not too difficult to imagine the infernal internal conflict between his failure to find a publisher for Dubliners. Ten years elapsed before publication.
The Portrait offered much of the same adolescent morbid outlook.
 

“The figure of the dark avenger stood forth in his mind for whatever he had heard or divined in childhood of the strange and terrible.”

“_ _ As he brooded on her image, a strange unrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever gathered within and led him to rove alone in the evenings_ _.”

Such melancholia surely dictating his talent; a later maturity clearing the stream of the dark subconscious terror within him. This from the last pages of the Portrait,
 

“_ _ _ I fear many things; dogs horses, firearms, the sea, thunderstorms, machinery, the country roads at night.”

“But I will also tell you what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone; or to be spurned for another, or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”

Now this is much better; one of the few but positive statements of the Portrait; but still a statement of the outsider, the singular man, the hero of all the great writers, emerging perhaps a little late, but now on the way, embryo of the latent genius of that uncertain ego.

So many of our greats, and our intellectuals, have to fight this early melancholy – perhaps it is simple a fear, or a deep sympathy of the human condition as seen in ones early years; and seen before the growth of ones maturity; before learning that one may overcome all obstacles; grow beyond the sordid things of life, and achieve our own good; and our own ambitions; for once we achieve a confident maturity all things are possible to us. Such learning of self confidence is essential to our maturity.

The maturing of confidence must ever be with a knowledge of that darker self; and all too often that deep understanding of the dark, however the brightness of enlightenment, means the life of a great soul is ever tinged with a sadness so deep as to become a depression, and Churchill’s ‘Black Dog’ a constant companion.
The mature spirit can ever keep that dog in his proper place, but, “oft in the stilly night,” the dog seeks companionship!

It is with such companionship that great works are accomplished by mortals.

So it is with the Wake.

His success with Ulysses countered by the schizophrenia of his daughter; his own glaucoma; and, as this essay will attempt to discover, the suggestion of a growing disorder with words; all such overlaid on the unhappy destructive experiences of his childhood, his rejection of the Church; his deep “fears”; all are to be found in the Wake.

It is essentially a singularity; even as is its Author; one of “Them”; amongst we ordinary mortals.

His Book offered, that we also, may understand.
 
 

 
 

Wayward Words

Yet another aggravating – or perhaps, entrancing – mystery of the Wake.

Through the Book are included lists, big, long lists of names.

The first on P71 is 
 

“A long list (now feared in part lost) to be kept on file of all abusive names he was called _ _ _.”

There are over one hundred of such names as, 
 

“A D Grace; Artist; Unworthy of the Homely Protestant Religion; Lysanthrope; Awant Yuke; Edornite; Woolworths Worst.”

This song of songs is downgraded somewhat with the comment following;
 

“But anarchestically respectful of the libeties of the noninvasive individual, did not respond a solitary wedgeword _ _ _.”

Then P104, a most terrible list – about 1000 names of possibly potential books; by himself, or others is not revealed;
 

“In the name of Annah the Almaziful the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her till be run, unhemmed as it is uneven. Here untitled mamafesta memorialising the Mosthighest has gone by many names at disjointed times. Thus we hear of; Groans of a Britoness; Ought we to Visit Mim; For Ark, see Zoo; My old Dansh; Lapps of Finns for Fannycoons Week; Zoo steps Back; Captain Thunderdolt also mentioned in passing – .”

His comment on this list is,
 

“The protoform graph itself is a polyhedron of scripture.”

But only a rich imagination and an intimate Knowledge of Scripture, presumably the Hebrew scripture, will find any relativities.

His next, P.176; is a list of childrens games,
 

“Thom, Thom the Thonderman; Humbel Bumble.”

But only a couple of hundred this round.

On this occasion, 
 

“He KuskyKorked himself up tight in his inkbattle house, badly the worse for boozegas there to stay.”

Was he tipsy when he approved the draft? Assuredly so!

This drifts off into several pages, all of interest to the student searching out the story of the writing of the Book.

But as he asks, plaintively, 
 

“But would anyone, short of a madhouse, believe it?”

The next bout of italics is on P338 where for the usual inscrutable reason, the dialogue between Taff and Butt, breaks down into italics; unless, and if, the last words of this segment hold the torch of truth; the light that lightens.

P341 
 

“I seen him acting surgent. What betwinks the scimitar star and the ashen moon. By, their lights shalthou throw him. Piff Paff for puffpuff and my pife for his cigar. The malachy way for gambling.”

Now follows a truly delightful piece of nonsense, in italics for emphasis.

It is a description of an Irish race meeting! It is a must! Read this, for the good of your soul. His comment on this choice piece,
 

“Yes, we’ve conned thon print in its gloss so gay, how it came from Finlanders Yule and its Hey Falloght Hoe, An the kings lighway with his hounds on th home at a turning.” 

We will encounter many references to, “John Peel, with his coat so grey,” in the Wake.

The next extravaganza marks the end of Pt II of the Wake.

It is a troublesome mix of word; folly and flow and faith; it opens with a prayer, 
 

 “Anno dominie nostra Jesu Christi.”

And launches into a rather ribald song.
 

“Oh come all you sweet nymphs of Dingle beach to cheer Brimbride queen from Sybih surfriding”

And returns to the gospel opening lines in the final line
 

“Matheehew; Markheehew; Lukeehew, Johnheehewheehew. Haw!”

The last of the small essays in italics is the lament of the gracehoper, for the Ondt.

It opens with the usual salutation, P418 
 

“So be it! Thou-who-thou-art – the fleet as spindrift, impfang thee of mine wideheight. Haru.”

The endpiece
 

“In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen.”

There are no other such explanations of the word.
 
 

 
 

Genius

That Joyce enjoyed an innocent delusion of genius is no secret. Many men suffer from the complaint. This belief often expressed in his work, and was ever apparent in his personal stance.

In Ulysses, his friends mocked his claims to genius.
 

 “He encircled his gadding hair in a circlet of vine leaves; smiling at Vincent.”

“That answer and those leaves,” said Vincent, “will adorn you more fitly, when something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius Father, all who wish you well hope this for you.”

The ‘capful’ of light odes was ‘Chamber Music.’

At that time some of his companions were already building reputation and the respect of their peers; his ‘genius’ was but a by product of his internal monologue.

His grand statement on genius is probably found in the Portrait 
 

“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

A bold thought for any young man; most of whom seem more interested in practical matters, such as sport, rowing across the Atlantic; no one has yet tried the Tasman; climbing mountains, getting a car, a girl, a mortgage a home and hopefully a family. This the real aim of Mother Nature, evolution, or the will of God, for those who believe.

There is little of genius in the soft options. Good books in plenty; many splendid; some few just wonderful, but none to equal the sewing machine; the motor car; electricity; the host of pharmaceuticals or the infrastructure of the modern city.

Make your own list of todays marvels.

Strangely, despite the argument of the atheists, the only books able to be compared with the marvels of human creativity are those which deal with the spiritual qualities of the human mind. The Bible, The Koran, The Upanishads; and one or two others.

Science and Health, on the way. Few if any to meet the status of these few. Even the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” now but a text book, with Plato and the Romans.

Quite a reasonable number of these early writers kept alive in the Universities; the humble paperback now creating a wider readership.

It is refreshing to note that that humble paperback, the cheap reprints, are bringing such old survivors to a wider world; translation and editing making the difficult texts more accessible.

There can be little doubt but the Joyces work will be granted some years of life by such means; may even achieve the thousand years for which he hoped.

A further note of interest in respect of the paperback. Why?

Why should a book be more popular because of its format?

There is no doubt about the reality; the paperback is immensely popular; they are cheaper to buy; for some strange reason, as yet not understood, easier to read, and, some cynic has said, “can be stuffed into one’s pocket.” But read they are, even if understanding may be slow in its flowering.

A welcome change would be a firmer cover’ but don’t whatever you do, push the price too high. The price is a major attraction; it makes the book accessible to millions.

Reverting to ‘genius’ it is worth mention that 99% of that claimed to be genius is nothing more than publishers blurbs, or some book reviewer hoping to be noticed.

On Books

One is entitled to wonder, how much laughter and was the laughter shared? – as he wrote the Wake? So much hilarious; so often fun poked at the reader P108, 
 

“Now patience, and remember patience is the great thing,  _ _ _ _ and we must avoid becoming out of patience”

So please forgive the digression; and back to the writing of a book; he mentions “Murphies” the Irish word for the white potato, a popular foodstock, grown now world wide.  Some call them spuds, or bog oranges. He mentions them often; may be a favoured item in his diet.

Its possible to pick several murphies; in a few pages of the Wake, enough to make a good pot full of mashed spuds, well beaten with a tasteful walnut of golden butter, a pinch of salt, half a cup of cream, the crushed juice of four cloves of garlic, just a touch, mind you, and all beaten together with tender loving passion. Place this aside for a few moments. It will meld into a dish for Kings.

Now put into a pan a couple of sausages, bangers, or snarlers to some, with only a few drops of pure virgin olive, these when firm, neatly sliced lengthwise into two, the now exposed parts returned to pan and fried to a delicious crisp; these supported by, say, a tomato halved; or pumpkin slices an inch thick, these cooked to a crisp, or a fresh mushroom diced to bite size; and – or – an onion finely sliced, all these in the pan with the bangers, when all is perfect, a glorious mound of mashed spud upon a hot plate, and ranged around, those other gifts of the high Gods, all these one delicious dish of rich and generous goodness, a dish fit for any King. And available to we ordinary subjects for the cost of only a few cents per serving.

As noted in our first words such should be the essence of a good book; alas such it is not to be found in this, tho it be an Irishmans book.

Here a weed filled field of words. So by this simple analogy of a decent Irish meal, we are alas, forced to conclude that the Wake is not a good book.

There is little sense of security in this book; no certainty; no personality (which in men is where security is the personal strength); only a strange and vexing fixation, a mental aberration with words. As one reviewer said of Ulysses, “A good bad book.”

There is a little of our own fixation with eating; this though all life, every life form must eat to survive. Some Irishmen have gone thirty six days, without food, and died, for what they call the cause – but that cause is sadly often the cause of death, not life, a much better cause.

Sex on the other hand pervades his pages but it is only suggestive, sly, often poetically erotic, never ever, not once, granted its rightful status as the mechanism for the mothering of children.

He is clearly immature; adolescent. The talk always of girlies’ and their clothing, even the iconic love story of Tristan and Iseult reduced to a melange of word.

If he meant to show us that all history is a mere babblement of words, a verbal analogy of the Tower of Babel, he is wrong, for out of the ring of words men are creating a society in which we will be enabled to terraform the planet, and if it is in the minds of the High Gods, those who manage the galaxies; these far beyond the powers of the Gods we have made here on Earth, we may indeed reach the stars. This is seems, well beyond any physical technology, but most certainly within the reach of our thought.

We have a most interesting history before us, and, if his thoughts on transmigration of souls be of any worth, in a million years it will be very experienced men and women back for another run of Finnegans Luck in Irelands hills and lakes, and other places round the globe.

Hopefully, not only experience, but wiser men and women; perhaps men & women without the need for either a well baked roast for Sundays dinner; without the need to read books like Finnegans Wake, men who have defeated both war and warmakers; law and lawmakers; the reality of such men & women a real matter of speculation; even their Gods so very different with a million years behind them. Oh me!
 
 

 
 

The Heart Of The Work

Whilst giving thought to Joyces health, his glaucoma and his dysphasia, it is hardly possible to pass by other indications of imbalance in the man.

The dark terrors of depression invariably have a cause. This the analyst knows and endeavours to isolate in the intricacies of the disturbed mind.

There are strong indications in the “confessional” of the Wake that he was well aware of the difficulties caused by his alienation from the Church.

This breakaway occurred at a critical and impressionable age. Much later in life such separations are accomplished with an adult and experienced cynicism and cause little harm to the psyche.

Even long serving priests can desert church and teaching with little harm, but in the separations made in our formative years, the wound can be deep and never heal.

That terrible encounter – his intellectual pride refusing his dying mother a prayer, remained with him all his life.

P534 
 

“Dear gone mummeries, _ _ _ tell the world I have lived true thousand hells. Pity, please lady, for poor QW in this profoundest snobbing I have caught. Nine dirty years mine age, hairs hoar, mummery failend _ _ _”

So, he is thirty nine years old now, seventeen years since he failed his mother and he is still distressed

P536 
 

“Someday I may tell you of his second story. Mood. Mood. It looks like someone other bearing my burdens_ _. This profoundest snobbings.” 

This his regretful admission of the intellectual pride, this false but how powerful impulse of immature youth, deprived his mother of the few words which would have been a blessing and a glory of her departure. How could he possible ever forget such a folly?

Then there is the separation from the Church. That must have hurt. Reared in the precepts as a child, at the knee of a devout mother; educated by the Church to B.A. levels; in his apostasy, threw away the faith of his childhood, with the yolk of the Church. Which is folly.

Tens of thousands reach that point. The realization of the Church as but the caretaker of Cathedral and Church; priesthood an ancient theology; equally ancient vestments; an archaic ritual.

So they leave the Church; but with an instinctive wisdom, preserve the faith which, despite its terrible history, the Church has nurtured thru the two millennia.
The women; the mothers and the wives of the millions killed in that sad history, the survivors; have kept the faith. They believe still in that intangible ‘something’ which bridges time and space and gives humanity its first understanding of infinity.

Though we embed many false hopes and ideas in that infinity, it remain rich and powerful within us, is the author of all of our creativity; the power and vigour of the exuberant life of the world; the source, rich and wonderful of all our ideals, our art, our literature, our science; all the marvelous output of the human spirit; our ever excellence.

That he had glimpses of such dream, such realities in his youth, there is no doubt. They allowed him to create the Portrait of a Young man and Ulysses; gave him his exalted dream of genius, and in the end, made the Wake a reality in the world; an agate; polished and bright on the shore of that infinite sea from whence Newton picked his fine shells.

But tho the fire it still burning, he knows the flaws; the weaknesses; the follies, 

P190 
 

“He hopes the chimney of the lamp is cleaned; he knows!”

P427 
 

“And the lamp went out as it couldn’t glow on burning, yep, the lamp went out for it couldn’t stay alight.”

But read the preceding sentence; on this page; this tells a different story:
 

“And the stellas were shinings. And the earthlight strewed aromatose. His pibtook crept among the donkness. A reak was waft in the luftstream. He was ours, all fragrance. And we were his for a lifetime. O dulcid dreamings languidous. Tabacco. It was charming! But sharming!”

So here is evidence of those erratic ‘up and downs’ the good and the bad in the life of the depressed.

And 
 

“Sure he was the soft semplgawn slob of the world with a heart like Montgomeries in his showchest and larvey loads of feeling in him and as innocent and undesignful as the freshfallen calf. Still grossly unselfish in sickness, he dished allarmes away and laughed it off with a wipe at his pudgies and a gulp apologetic _ _ _.”

But the psychologist and a multitude of wise mothers will know that tho he has seen the gleam, he has not yet achieved the light. This man has some way to go before he catches that glimpse of infinity within himself, the light which lightens all our greats – whatever their field of existence, the light, the essence of infinity within ourselves which we call upon in every emergency – is the soul, or spirit; life; chi; nous; ‘A rose by any name at all was just as sweet’; that which drives the human to say ‘Of course you can’; keeps the marathon runner on course. Fired the Greek runner Phidippides in his run – two days – 260 miles over mountain ranges: Kathy Freeman – Dawn Fraser to bring home the golds; Hilary and Tensing to top Everest – in short allow us to think ‘Big’, well beyond hope – and have created the world we live in.

That world, just like Joyce, full of ups and downs, but ever onward, believe it or not, ever upward. For, there is no doubt about it; if we keep the faith, believe in that deep infinity which the church has for centuries cherished, somewhere within its foolish vestments its archaic theology, there is that which most mothers know and confer upon their children.

Tho women deserted the church in their millions in the dreadful twentieth century, they have never deserted the faith. In the twentyfirst century that faith has transferred to the New Age teaching; a positive acceptance of Gaia; the vital energy of Earth, now personified as Gaia; daughter of Chronos the first of the Old Gods; brother of Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods and gave life to humanity.

We should teach that faith in our schools, reinforce Mothers confidence, faith in oneself; faith in Life; when we do so, we shall be enabled to reach the stars.
 
 

 
 

So?

James was aware of that quiet desperation which tempers the life of so many of us.
 

“Our social something goes bumpily along, with prearranged disappointments, generations more generations, still more generations.”

So his Book is perhaps, more aptly; a literary puzzle, a singularity; a literary joke?

Perhaps something much deeper than that; a valediction; a statement!

Perhaps; or
 

 “A Irishman Abroad.”

Or

 “Thoughts of an Irish gentleman of Leisure.”

Or

 “An Essay on Irish Morality; or better, an Essay on Irish Mortality!”

Or

 “An Irish Battler at Large.”

 Or

  “An Irishmans Dreamdoory”

Or

 “A Brief History of Brown and Nolan.”

Or

 “D.I.Y. How to Defeat Poverty and Sickness.”

 Or

  “The Apostate Irishman.”

Or

 “The True Faith Revealed.”

 Or

  “The Testament Fragile.”

 
 

 
 

Joyce On The Wake

We use the phrase; “The suburban myth” to describe, very loosely, commonly talked of pieces of delicious gossip about people or event or things.

For instance; of things, “Chocolate is bad for you.” This myth now exposed.

Of events, “That things will be better tomorrow.”

“Life without hope is hopeless.”

Or that, “Any Holden is better than any other car. Well?”

Of people, “That pop stars are better people than we are.”

In these social somethings, few of us have firm convictions, only a rather lazy, rather indifferent opinion,
 

“What does it matter, anyway.”

Things are much the same in the literary world.

The Joycean literary myth is that Ulysses is too difficult; and that Finnegans Wake is unreadable.

So much so that Dr Seamus Deane, writing an introduction to the Penguin 1992 edition starts his essay with the words 

“The first thing to say about Finnegans Wake is that it is, in an important sense, unreadable.”

However he qualifies this judgment in his eminently readable essay which confirms the secondary literary opinion that the Wake was written by Joyce for the experts, and probably the American experts.

So as Joyce might say 
 

“This statement is true, begob, but its only as true as it seems to be to you and notinany way astue to me.”

This would be followed by a thousand words about the proper education of young Hottentot warriors; or something like it.

And so on for yet another 1000 words.

It seems, indeed, on mature reflection, that Joyce was steadily formulating ideas for the Wake whilst writing Ulysses.

It is in the very beginnings of Ulysses that we are offered the first vision of ‘The Key’. Stephen leaves the key of the Martello Tower with Buck Mulligan; and Bloom muses on the power of the key as he leaves home. 

Thus the esoteric, subliminal power of the Key; it signifies the very yin and yang of life – the opening and the closing of the door; and of the heart; the possession of the Keys, the physical and spiritual symbolism; indicator of command in the person of the mistress of the house. The Keeper of the Keys. The theme continues in the Aeolus segment: Bloom designs the Key in a logo: and with Joyce this a significant movement, for the logogram, could well be to show the unity between the Wake and Ulysses.

The theme surfaces again in Eumaeus; and in Ithica episodes in Ulysses and again as Joyce might say the logogram becomes, for his purposes, hidden in the matrix of the maze; or on the point of the puzzle, a logograph, which as we all realize, is distantly related to the hippogryph.

The tracing of these relativities an enriching experience, as we move thru Ulysses into Finnegans Wake.

In the subtlety of design, shaping the dreamtime of the Wake, the “Key is given” in the last words of the Work; but these last words lead us by a commodius vicus of recirculation, back to the very beginning.

Thus we are told, should we but read the writing, that the Key must be applied to this beginning; which is proper and in order, for we surely usually enter by the front door of Howth Castle. But not with Joyce; we surmount the “wall” the dreaded HLW, and, enter by the back door; the servants quarters! 

In short, the wise ones may read the hidden story from its beginning.

As in our dreams, the events of the real world, the daily grind, usually trigger the phantasmagoria of our dream world, so in Joyces dream world, words will indicate and reveal the events underlying in the real world; as he says somewhere, “It’s a systomy and dystomy” and “S’help me”, he has imagined this very essay, this work, this understanding of his work. 

So we read, P482 of the Wake;
 

“_ _ _ He is cured by faith who is sick of fate. The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poets, still more learned, who discovered the raiding there originally. That’s the point of eschatology our book of kills reached for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What cant be coded can be decorded if an ear aye siezs what no eye ere grieved for.”

He is offering a real insight in this! It is the poetic vision comes closer to the reality. Careful analysis reveals the heart of the mystery; but as ever the mystery yields more readily to the poetic vision.

So we offer an interpretation of the above paragraph. It will engage the critics.
 

“He is cured by faith who is sick of fate.”

This the mature man; no longer dogged by the thought of fear or fate but secure, strong in confidence in self!

The prouts who invent writing - ! thousands of words! The poetic vision – all said in a simple, beautiful few words – “The more learned.” Those whose understanding is deeper.
 

“That’s the point eschatology reaches in our book of Kells_ _.”

“The intimate truths we tell are hidden in counterpoint words.”

“What can’t be coded.”

Can be discovered by acute use of senses, but we must use the creative imagination.

We must be equally sensitive to such dreamlike diversions, such arcane half said, half hidden truths, often hidden, which may be scratched up from the littered floor of the henyard, but it is there, search it out if you can.
 

“Tell me without dismay! Leap Pard!”

So it is, throughout. Every now and then, ever in a different style, but these confessional pieces are ever revealing,. In this example, he says, you need a poets eye. But its not the end of the world. That which your eye cannot see, your ear might clearly hear.

Here, to help is yet another Key. Meaning oft drifts thru the wash and surge of word, when they are repeated softly, gently; so read them thuswise to a partner, evoke the dream state, and the ear might well tell what the eye could not see.
 

“Hork quiquiquiquit! List.”

 
 

 
 

A Glance At Theology

Our nearest and clearest idea of God, was Life itself, the life and vitality which sustains every living thing on Earth, so they tried to teach us how best to live that Life, to have faith in God and a strong confidence in our self, for we humans alone have the capacity to chose the way our life shall go!

A simple, clear message, but for millions of us these simple arts are beyond us, and life becomes a continual struggle against the adversities of fate, which is nothing other than the daily flow of Life.

But it is Joyces treatment of the teaching which interests us now.

So to ensure that we Know that which he Knows, right at the beginning of belief in the reincarnation of the spirit, he offers P4
 

“What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishygods Brekkkk Kekkek Kekkek Kekkek Koax Koax Koax Ulau Ulau Ulau Quaouauh.”

This refers, one supposes to the everlasting clash between will and won’t; good and bad perhaps the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths.

But in some way, in Joyces agile mind, related to the issue, for in the next paragraph he tosses in P4 
 

“Bygmester Finnegan of the Stuttering Hand, lives in the bradest way immarginable in his rushlit too far back for messuages before.”

Wait for it
 

“Joshian Judges had given us numbers of Helveticus committed Deuteronomy  _ _ _ _ and all the guenneses had met met theur exodisu, that ought to show you what a pentachanyeuchy chap he was.”

This little piece of creative imagination to tell us that he knows his bible. Well, perhaps and perhaps, by grace, by name only!

Any suggestion that this makes him a theologician is immediately destroyed for in the same paragraph he goes on to make an indelicate comment on his wife,
 

 “The addle liddle phifie Annie _ _ .” 

Then swoops back to Finnegan

P5 
 

“Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you’re going to be Mister Finnagain _ _ _ _ Hahahaha Mister Finn, you’re going to fined again_ _ _.”

This theme runs thru the book and treated ever with a mocking inventory of word.

P6. 
 

“_ _ Stay us wherefore in our search for righteouness, O Sustainer _ _ _.”

“__ There extand by now one thousand and one stories all told, of the same_ _.”

And on P36 we read 
 

“_ _ _ To make my loath to my sinnfinners, even if I get life for it, upon the Open Bible and before the Great Taskmasters (I lift my hat) and in the presence of the Deity Itself _ _ _ _ that there is not one tittle of truth, allow me to tell you, in that purest of fibful fabrications.”

P12 he mentions 
 

“The Abundant mercy of Him Which Thundereth From On High.”

But the words obscure any possible message from on high. Many a parson has made a better story of it; and sadly many a parson obscures the truth and the beauty and the power of the Word, with too many words. And so does J. Joyce.

Then, P104 
 

“In the name of Annah the Allmazeful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities _ _ _.”

But only a further wave of words; then on P112 breaks into poesy,
 

“Let us auspice it! Yes, before all this has time to end the golden age must return with its vengeance. Man will become dirigible, Auge will become rejuvenated, _ _ _ _.” 

But only more words.

On P222 he tells of 
 

“An enactment by a Magnificent Transformation Scene showing the Radium Wedding of Neid and Moorning and The Dawn of Peace, Pure, Perfect and Perpetual, Waking the Weary of the World.”

Hows that?

Then P258-9 a prayer; an invocation, the last words of which,
 

“Loud, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low, “Ha he hu ho hu Mummum.”

But on P331 he invokes the Name again 
 

“So in the names of the balder and of the sol and of the hollichrost _ _ _.”

These, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, he remembers from his years with the church, and note please the ancient Jewish refusal to acknowledge the Mother in the Holy Trinity.

And a page or so of the same, ending with the HLW and that Irish jibe, aimed at the reader,
 

 “And unruly person creaked a jest!”

But, we are only at the beginnings. There will surely be more to follow. So, on P51___, these words but the introduction to a long discussion between these disciples; they are;
 

“Mattahah! Marahah; Luahah; Joahanhanahana.”

Or, being interpreted, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, the four evangels; making a brave stand for civilization. Now, none of this is to show Joyce as pagan or sacrilegious. Nothing like this in Joyce. True he was no practicing Christian; millions of us have achieved such status – even George Bush says he believes in God; but his practice of the compassionate life is, as we observe, a fiction!

Joyce has a clear concept of the three ages of man; the divine; the heroic; the civilized; and he was well aware that only a few of us have achieved civilization. 
Sadly, the Wake offers little to advance such happy state of being.

Other themes in this remarkable book show us a very human Joyce, a man cleverly concealed and cunningly revealed in this strangely worded Book. 

It seems clear from the above quotes that he has little time for the primitive tribal Jehovah of the Hebrews. He is however a true believer in the God whom modern people call “She” or Gaia, that vital feminine and creative spirit which animates all living things.

It comes to us from some place beyond the atom, the building block of all matter.

The scientists have taken the atom to its furtherest boundary, but only the magnetic yin and yang there. There is no life in the atom. The atom is but a tool of life.

It is Life animates the atom. In some of us Life stimulates creative powers which all people recognize, quite instinctively, as being “Divine”; The touch of that angelic influence.

Such was Joyce, a creative human being. That he chose to make his creations difficult even enigmatic, possibly to stimulate us to search and discovery, is but part of the man. With all the rest of the world, confronted by heart rending terror, or a great awe; or some ecstasy beyond endurance he would; as we all do, say in a deep instinctive reverence “My God”, but it would be neither Zeus, not Jupiter nor Jehovah nor Allah in his mind.

That other, the “Unknown God,” sensed only, not yet defined, the vital energy we call Life.

As his wife said, and certainly entitled to the last word,
 

“My Dear Jim. He was such a good man.”

And some would add to this beautiful declaration, 
 

“Despite the Wake.”

 
 

 
 

Joyce In Pain

There are occasions when one feels strongly for this man.

Thought disguised, there is a dark side hidden beneath the flight of fancy, the deliberate obscuring of word and meaning.

This darkness, increasing in its oppression; settling on him for longer periods; invasive in its intensity, ever intruding on the Work.

Often he is impatient with it, as in P251
 

“If he spice east, he seethers in sooth and if he pierce north he wilts in the waist. And what wonder with the murkery viceheld in the shade? The specs on his lapspan are his foul deed thoughts, wishmarks of mad imagination. Take they off! Make the off. But Funnylegs are leanly. _ _ They vain would convert the to be hers in the Word. Gush they woood _ _ _. As for she, could shake him. An oaf, no more. Still he’d be good tutor two in his big armchair learningstool, and she be waxen in his hands. Turning up and fingering over the most tantellising peaches in the lingerous longerous book of the dark. Look at this passage about Gaililleotto. I know it is difficult, but when you gosche I go dead. Turn now to this patch upon Smacahiavelluti. Soot allours, hes sure to spot it.”

Now this is hardly writ plain but is simple,
 

“Im having a bad patch just now. To hell with it; and they want me to let Nora takeover. Impossible! But, on second thoughts I can tutor her, from my armchair, she would be wax in my hands; touching up patches in my book of the dark. But look at this passage about Galilleo, and about Machiavelli. God help me, the experts will spot them if she lays a finger to it.”

Well, did the experts spot them?

That’s a good question. And if they did, what did they make of it?

This but another good question.

But still a paragraph, culled from pages of paragraphs but writ in a superb blend of pidgin and plain English to tell us something essential to a decent understanding of the trials and tribulations of the author, of his acceptance of help in the scripting of a most difficult text, and a concern for any possible future criticism of the work.

In short an agile mind in a difficult spot; honest in the telling, and probably a trifle apprehensive about his ability to finish the work unaided.

Yes, Nora can help.

Bless the woman, for it is clear now that his problem is very real, well beyond dyslexia; well advanced into dysphasia, compounded with glaucoma, and the whole oppressed and overlain with depression.
 
 

 
 

The Wake

Curiosity they say, killed the cat. 

During the writing of this essay, it was thought interesting, to hear what others might think of the HLW; so took some notes and a copy of Wake to a regular meeting of local people all interested in writing. 

This, because of a simple curiosity as to how others might react to the Word.

Reading the opening paragraphs, was a revelation to most of our people, one lady, who has read ‘Voss’ said, “Sounds rather like Patrick White.”

No other comment.

The next paragraph featured the H.L.W.

This, printed out on the blackboard, literally stunned them.

The first question was; “Is it true?”

Laughter! Then a babel of voices _ _ .

One man, a published poet attempted to utter the Word. 

Then a couple of attempts to place possible vowels.

But all failed.

One asked, “Is it all like that?”

So the book is passed round, heads over shoulders, 3-4 reading at once – where they could.

One said, “He did it to be noticed.”

Another, well known for his views on modern art, said, “Just like modern art. Shock them into noticing you.”

Another said, the book in her hands, “Good God, theres over 600 pages of it.”

When told – “Yes there is a purpose. Clearly written out in it.”

One said, tartly, from P335
 

“Au! Ay! Aye! Ha! Heish!”

And 
 

“A lala.”

“No its not clear, not to me, or to us.” Thus including all the others.

So the matter was dropped; they went on to Modern Poetry, which to many is worse – even than the Wake.
 
 

 
 

On The Writing Of The Book

We have met with Shem and Shaun elsewhere in this book. 

Part III. However, brings us a little closer to the brothers.

Some readers may wonder why this close description does not appear at the first introduction to the fellow – but such inconsistencies are of little importance to Joyce; they simply confirm that the episodes may have been dreamed up at any time during the seventeen years of creation, merely stapled together, in a hurry, for the printers.

Part III however, is worth reading. The diction is clearer, there is less of the calculated obscurity; this, alone tending strongly to support the conviction that some parts are written by others; Part II for instance seems more deliberately obscure than Part III. Somewhat the same flow but a different inventory of word.

Bluntly, and only possible rather than probable, Part III written by Joyce, Part II by another – the Amenuensis.

P404 Part III begins with a thousand words on Shaun, and a possible, or even probable HLW, and moves on.
 

“The perfect picture. First of his garb, his apparel; those glad rags can scarce be described as clothing; oh, Shaun, would you really, Shaun, you Bel of Beaux; what a picture primitive.”

The next thousand or so, are of Shaun at breakfast; an arresting picture indeed, but James tells us, this is only 
 

“Overtures and beginners.”

There is more to “comb”, so comb thru it we must.

Easy reading, simple to understand, for James is frank and fearless in this pen portrait of himself, his family relationships, and his work. But, as he says,
 

 “I am at the heart of it.”

But it is, for all Shauns frankness, a deep heart, and yet another comment is equally true, and even more appropriate.
 

 “Well, Im liberally dished, seeing myself in this trim.”

So this dialogue rolls on, page after page, until at P419 we again find words with meaning. Shaun asks,
 

“How good are you in explosition! How farfeeling is your folklore _ _.”

This little paradox is treated elsewhere in this essay; but these words a revealing moment.

One wonders, such the art of concealment in the revealment, of the list of addresses on P420-1, are not in fact or fancy, but those of some or all of his many addresses in so many places?

Then P424 – another HLW; ever used as marker for a statement. This time he refers to the HLW as 
 

“Last word in perfect language.”

“The lowquacity of him! With his threestar monothong _ _ _.”

Threestar? Two helpers with the Work, of course, Shem and Shaun; and in these lines,
 

“The last word in stoletelling!”

Once more Joyce teasing; telling all in conundrums; hidden in paradox; concealed in the maze of word.

Twenty five solid pages of Shaun, of the silver tongue, Shaun thrice truthful teller.
 

“And the lamp went out, as it couldn’t glow on burning _ _ _.”

“Grouscious me and scrab my sahul! What a bagateller it is!
Libelulous! Inzanzanity!
Pou! Pschla! Ptuh!
What a zent for the Goths!”

 Little wonder that the lamp went out!
 

 “Oh moy Bog, be contrited with melancholy meblizzered, him sluggered! I am heartily hungry.”

 
 

 
 

A Bad Day

Herewith, in his own words, an engaging picture of himself; somewhat disturbing; a dark cloud with a silver lining; the ups and downs; the good with the bad.
Thus P179
 

“The suddersome spectacle of this semidemented zany amid the inspiceated grime of his glaucous den making believe to read his usulyssesy unreadable Blue Book of Eccles; turning over three sheets to a wind, telling himself delightedly, no espeller more so, that ever splurge on the vellum he blundered over was an aisling vision more gorgeous than the one before _ _ _.”

But then. P180
 

“_ _ _ But with the murky light, the botchy print, the tattered cover, the jigjagged page, the fumbling fingers, the foxtrotting fleas, the lieabed lice, the scum on his tongue, the drop in his eye, the lumps in his throat, the drink is his pottle, the itch in his palm, the wail of his wind, the grief from his breath, the fog of his mindfag, the buzz of his Braintree, the tic of his conscience, _ _ _ _ _  he was hardest to mumorise more than a word a week _ _ _  can you beat it? _ _ _ Positively it wollies one to think over it.”

This is the ‘Black Dog’ in full cry, snapping at his very heart; reducing the man to a dark shadow of himself, but the man refusing to give up the struggle.
As we say; ‘Good on ya, Mate.’

It seems that Cesar Abin, the artist responsible for the cover of the 92 Penguin edition of the Wake, saw the man more deeply than the experts, his sketch the essence of our James.

So to cap this rather sad picture of James, P184 offers,
 

“The whirling dervish, Tumult, Son of Thunder, self exiled in upon its ego, a nightlong a shaking betwixtween, white on reddr, noondayterrorised to skin and bone by an inelectable phantom (may the Shaper have mercery upon him) writing the history of himself in furniture.”

What can one say, but?

But, these pen portraits are those of Shem, not only Penman but pessimist, and teller of untruths. All his thought patterns are ugly; sadistic almost. He is gloom and doom personified, and Joyce is his begetter and his victim. 

Better by far to read Shaun, Shaun of the silver tongue, thrice truthful Shaun. A better brighter and hopefully more honest picture.

But both are penned by Joyce, and clearly both for a purpose. 

Such are all men; a light side and a dark side; a little of good and a little of bad.

So the old Hebrews created a Jehovah to help them in battle and a Satan to blame for their dark side.
As a dear woman was heard to murmur;
 

“Just like you men.”

But we must be just and fair in this small matter.

Satan is mentioned only a few times in the Old Testament, no more than three or perhaps four times.

It was the Christian community dragged him out of the O.T.; dusted him off, added the horns, the hoofs, the barbed tail and that terrible quality of undisguised evil, and used him, without mercy, to punish sinners and frighten the wits out of the congregation.

John Milton gave him great substance in his ‘Paradise Lost’ in England; this work confirming the ‘Divine Comedy’ of Dante, in Italy. Both these great works owe more to the thinking of their times, than to the Scriptures, for their picturing of Satan.
 
 

 
 

Noted In Passing

So much of his writing is the extrapolated paragraph. Five hundred words used to exhaust a phrase or sentence of only a few words.

It is the main body of the Wake. The same technique used throughout Ulysses; it is also evident in the Portrait, though in that work, the language is used in its traditional and late Victorian mode, and highly, deeply romantic, at that!

Rabelais had a similar fixation. Shaw also, writing quite fearsome Prefaces to his plays.

The two vols of the Prefaces utterly defeating – and now forgotten.

It is the same in the Wake; but in the Wake, it is the ‘Portrait’ that is forgotten; never mentioned.

Two thousand words fractured, meaningless, unknown, the vowels misplaced, the consonants inverted amid a score of other displacements and the average reader gives up.

It doesn’t matter, for Mutt & Jeff, or Glugg and Gosh, or St Patrick and the Druid are no further forward at the ent of those fearsome paragraphs.

The plot has not advanced; no decisions, no new announcements and the Book at is unremorseful end, with quiet deliberation, returns to its own beginning. All has been in vain. 

The words of Solomon ring in the mind.
 

  “Of the writing of many books there is no end; and all are vanity”

Ah, men!

The same folly a common thing in the Art Galleries; a picture which demands two hundred words of explanation from some respectable art critic, has missed the point.

Art must speak for itself. And literature! As noted earlier, Ahmen.
 
 

 
 

Flowers In The Field

There well may be, among the readers of this book, some who have neither seen nor read in the Pages of Finnegans Wick; the following few extracts, mere phrases, randomly perpetrated from the thousand word paragraphs – but will give some inkling of the content of the Wake. 

None selected for either wit, wisdom or poetic license. 
 

“Have you here? (Some ha). Have we where? (Some rant). Have you Herod? Others do. Have we whered? (Others don’t). Its cumming, its brumming. The clip, the clop (All cla). Glass crash. The _ _ “

Then the Hundred Letter Word.
 

“I can telesmeel him H2CE2 that would take a townships breath away.”

“Naw, yer maggers, aw war just a cotchin on thon bluggy erarwaggers.”

“Come the question are all these facts of his nominigentilisation as rescorded and accolated in both or either of the collateral andrewpaulmurphye narratives.”

“But Funnylegs are leanly. A bimbama bum! They vain would convert the to be hero in the word. Gush the wooed! Gash, theyre fair nipicherry!”

Note. The above cryptic is not so bad. It has meaning!!
 

“Let us propel us for the frey of the frey! Us, us, beraddy.”

“It tellyhows its story of their six of hearts, a twelve eyed man for whom has madjestby who since is dyed drown reign before the izba.”

“Da! Au! Aue! Ha! Heish!”

“Mallomeetim, alltomaletam, when a tale tarries shome shunter above on. Fore auld they would to pree. Pray.”

“So the truce, the old truce and nattonbuff the truce, boys. Drouth is stronger than faction. Slant. Shinshin. Shinshin.”

“Mind your pughs and Keoghs, if you piggots, marsh! Do the nut, dingbut! Be a dag! For.”

“Blondmans blaff. Like a skib leaked lintel the arbour leidend with? Pamelas, peggylees pollywollies questuants, quaintaquilties, quickamerries.”

“_ _ _ The cluckclock lucklock quamquam camcam potapot pampam kickakickkack. Hairhorehounds, sheake up pfortner. Fuddling fun for Fullacans sake.”

“He got a berth. And she got a manage. And wohls gorse mundom ganna wedst.”

This one clearly means, that both found work; or he got a girl and she got a man child, and whats worse neither is going to wed. Surely?
 

“Knock Knock. Wars where! Which war? The Twwins. Knock knock. Woos without! Without what? An apple. Knock knock.”

“Feefee!
Phopho!! Foorchtha!!!
Aggala!!!! Jeeshee!!!!!
Paloola!!!!!!
Arridiminy!!!!!!!”

This little treasure, repeated in the following paragraph.
 

“Fuddling fun for Fullacans sake.”

“OOOOOOOO”  (oh)!

The are some six hundred pages; all with something like these few random samples.

Some respected critic observed, “Literature will never be the same.”

Thanks to the Gods, he was wrong. Literature has remained much the same – a slight twist by some publishers toward meeting the new educated of the world with the humble but so useful paperback – this the biggest and best change.

They are so untidy on the book shelf. Perhaps an issue of “one for all” transferable hard covers to be slipped on to the paperback to enhance both book and bookcase. Will the entrepreneur who takes up this suggestion please remember where he read it, and do the decent thing!

But literature survived!

This book,, with many others salvaged from the wordfest.

There is indeed wheat amongst the chaff.

P473 offers a hint of self revelation but with a hint of sadness which touches the heart.
 

“But boy you did your strong nine furlong mile _ _ _ in record time! _ _ _ your feat of passage will be contested with you _ _ _ for centuries to come _ _ _.”

This – centuries to come – his thousand years.

High praise, and for benefit of those youngsters whose minds have been corrupted by Metrics, there were, in the old days but eight furlongs to the mile. Nine furlongs but an Irish mile begob!

These few words of self praise in respect of some forty pages of Joyce; a lecture to the girls of St Brides on the delights, dangers and duties awaiting them as young women at loose in the world.

But don’t tell your daughters about this. It is an example of a literature, which, thank God, will never be the same again.

The last paragraph of this segment tells us clearly enough that the chapter is written by Joyce – and he is lavish in his praise of it.
 

 “Boy, you did your nine furlong mile in record time.”

This rather powerful last paragraph strongly supports the suggestion of “other writers”, here Joyce is saying
 

 “I wrote this! Kod Knows! Anything ruind! Meetingless!”

 
 

 
 

James, Again

Sympathy – yes we must have sympathy with the man, despite the soulless dictates of Post Modernism.

He was indeed a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

True, he was reasonably cared for, Nora ever the good companion; the shoulder ever there for comfort; white arms enfolding.

Ms Weaver, ever at hand with good honest Money, to pay the rent, or some of it sometimes; buy some decent food; some cheap French wine; this the best possible use for money, in his disturbed and broken world.

Sylvia Beach on whose slender shoulders fell not only the task of mentor but the task and the costs of producing Ulysses; Marie Jolas of ‘translation’. Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson, his publishers in America; the editors of the ‘Egoist’ in England; the mysterious “Others” in his circle of friends and supporters; Stanilaus the younger brother who knew him as a man, rather than as the writer, the fragmentary creature known to the world.

It is known that the little family lived hard, despite the cash available. Constantly moving home, and this often with great difficulty. Affordable rooms, for a family, two young children always tough. This in Europe, where families live in apartments rather than homes.

Then there is the work – a stack of completed work – pages in progress, room for a quiet corner hopefully, “a little brown study”, room for his armchair, a table – paper, reference books, the haunted inkbottle; room to think; room to work; work for his Orange Book; for Work in Progress; work for the daily lessons he gives as a teacher; tho these would cease, one supposes, after the publication of Ulysses.

But the Gods gave little help in the matter of rooms in which to live and write.

In Dublin, the Irish Tourist Board would not dare, ever, to put on show some of the places the family lived in during the years of poverty.
Not on your life!

They have, nicely furnished, in Regency style, the room occupied in 1904. by Mr Denis J Maginnis, gaily appareled; and limned out in Ulysses. 
 

“In silk hat, slate frockcoat, with silk facings, white kerchief, tie, tight lavender trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots.”

This room supposedly once “associated with” Joyce! Ah, me!

Thus Maginnis, as Joyce, and other Dublin citizens saw him on June 16, 1904.

In his self inflicted ‘exile’ – which was hardly ‘exile’ in the real sense of the word; the decision was a choice, of his own choosing; and a bad choice; London, as the heart of English literature, would have been a better choice. Shaw and Wilde – and other Irishmen and women were there; and their more congenial company; and better opportunities for a skilled reviewer and journalist.

So it was Pola and Trieste and Rome and Paris and Zurich, and too many moves within, for any writer, so we have thru the Wake the rather sad tale of life as lived by this benighted man.

But as with all humanity he has his dreams!

P249
 

“In the house of breathing lies that word, all fairness. The walls are of rubinen and the glittergates of elfenbone. The roof here of is of massisious jasper and a canopy of Tyrian awning rises and still descends to it. A grape cluster of lights hangs there beneath and the house is filled with the breathings of her fairness, the fairness of fondance and avowels _ _.”

But this is but a gleam, a light in the eye; a passing glimpse of maybe; not even a hope, for he lapses into the usual waste of word – too ill, too tired, too worn out even in dream; he is too much aware of reality; too deeply hurt with life for such illusions.

So its back to the tiny 3 room apartment, afflicted, as ever with the need to write, and the ever pressing demand for even more words; and the bathroom to be shared with strangers.

So over the page, on P251, its Nora helping him; 
 

“She is an oaf, no more, still he’d be good tutor in his big armchair.”

And so life goes on!
 
 

 
 

In Faith

The exegetists place great faith in Joyces spiritual perception. True, he mentions the first five books of the Old Testament; and the four apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; but that hardly makes him an expert, though in the ‘Portrait’ he offers pen pictures in plenty of the Church at work in Dublin; and a word for word sermon on Hellfire.

We know that he rejected the priesthood; but that does not make him an atheist; and we can, without quibbling accept on P419 that Shaun is 
 

“As nobly Roman as pope and water could christian me.” 

This is fair comment, for neither pope nor water nor priest or parson can make much difference to any man.
 

 “A man convinced against his will retains the same conviction still.”

True, there have been long years in our history when a change of belief could save your life; this power of conviction enjoyed by dictators as well as by the Church.

Real conversion to any faith is rare; our strongest beliefs and convictions are implanted, or should be implanted at Mothers Knee, and when so established grant the faith that sustains the human spirit; the integrity and maturity which makes the man.

This the true source of the “Faith that moves mountains,” and enables our young to tackle the world.

The Church, has historically attempted to dominate this natural energy; but as the race is growing and developing in its maturing, the Church must follow; its priests become converted to the new Law; “Love one another, as I have loved you!”

Nothing sentimental about such Love. It is commanding, impersonal, will change life for millions; and in the long years before us such a principle will dominate and direct human affairs, even as it can dominate the life of individuals.

Now, in case some reader is becoming impatient at the direction of these few paragraphs, be at peace; as Joyce might say
 

 “Hork; ppssittea; Hark;List!”

For such teaching can be detected in the Wake; instilled at Mothers Knee, the simple truth which underlies all human endeavour, has not left him.

So forgive the digression; back to Howth Castle and Environs.

We have been reading in Part III. 

This is possibly the most significant section of his work. It is written in almost plain English; Shaun the protagonist, is polite; a good lad, in true country style; hearty; gruff; plain, but honest.

The most enjoyable section of the Wake.

Moving on to Chapter II of Part III is an entirely different matter; the observant will note the style; it is different.

If Part I was the kernel, Part II is the hard obdurate shell. It is wildly discursive, raggedly elusive; and tainted with a sly slightly offensive attitude.

The theme changes; his thought and words turn to women; but such women! All seem flighty, given to promiscuity; willful. His women seem to have had too much time in the side streets of lower Dublin; or any city.

The reader will all too soon begin to realize that James has known too many girls like these; and we are reminded, as this section unrolls, that, through Shem, we are being subjected to a rather revealing picture, not only of women but of James himself; for all writers reveal themselves to their readers.

The differences in structure and content of this chapter are such as to raise the question, is this section the work of the “Unmentionable” persons discussed on P118

This possibility deserves scrutiny by the experts, but, debatable as the matter appears to be, the author is surely J.A. Joyce.
 
 

 
 

On The Book

There is a fair certainty that the Wake will never be popular in Australia.

For starters its now over sixty years old, and with Australian publishers putting out about 8 thousand books each year there are plenty of good books available. American and England houses put out just on half a million books annually, so there is no risk of a shortfall in the supply.

Behind the crop of new books – there is a wonderful little world of old favourites; scores of them, still in print after many years; these are the books the readers of the world remember, go back to and cherish; keep on our shelves, and dip into at will; the loved books we read in bed, read till sated; then read again.

The world should, if it has any sense at all, declare a moratorium on the publishing of books; perhaps for one hundred years. This so we may read the good books already in print.

But in spite of all this, it is recognized that we practical Australians, accustomed as we are to savage drought, exorbitant legal costs; 40,000 laws; flood, locusts, flies, a falling trade balance and a personal debt, of about 12 billion dollars on our credit cards, are buyers of books.

We have HCE’s at our Universities; New Zealanders taking over! Taking care of Timor, Iraq, Bougainville, Abyssinia, Palm Island; running out of water and rednecks in every state. We, the survivors, have little time for interest in impractical books.

This opinion is particularly true of Finnegans Wake; many consider it to be not a book; just a compendium of words. Just to own a copy marks one as an “egghead.”

But the compendium offers insights – insights? Into the history of man, measured by this man of Ireland; an imagined “Fall” from “Grace” into language, and what language; the everlasting frission between man and woman; and there is also a constant reiterated interest in Matthew Mark Luke and John. But never as apostles of the Christian religion but simply as characters, and very wordy characters in his compendium.

Well, read for yourself; and judge not, lest you also be judged.

Such judgements have been made by the many Joycean societies and scholars. These exist throughout the world and are ably supported by many excellent web sites and chat rooms. China has recently published a second translation of Ulysses.

And through the world, groups of followers celebrate Bloomsday; June 16, as a quasi celebration of Joyce, his main character Bloom, and with them, the Wake.
Many will scoff, but those who remain to pray will reap reward.

The study of Joyce may become the interest of a lifetime.

So he offers solace to his readers.

P160
 

“You will say it is most unenglish and I shall hope to hear that you will not be wrong about it. But I further, feeling a bit husky in my truths.”

So there!
 
 

 
 

On The Beginning

Then there is the Web; in this new dimension of invention, are all the good books; almost every reference man might desire; why clutter the house with books? So use the search engines; find Joyce; there is plenty on J.J. 

But there are millions without computer, and these, the latest marvel from the publishing houses, serves well. It is the humble paperback. In these pages, we may find all the classics; translations of the worlds best; pocket versions of our own best. They will not sit gracefully on your bookshelf; they self destruct, but are cheap to buy. Above all, they instruct, advise, guide, amuse, just as you desire, and millions now read them, who, for some strange reason, as yet unfathomed, would never bother with a hardcover book.

It is to be hoped that the publishers keep the price down; this to allow access to the treasure trove; and continue to publish the good with the indifferent; hopefully, they will move into the “How to do it,” series; this for the common good; and “spoken English” and “On the Writing of English”; these for the billion or so, already acquainted with this most versatile language, but in need of help, to refine their abilities.

Joyces Ulysses and the Wake have already appeared in paperback, thus improving Joyces hope that his work will be read in a thousand years.

These two, already have outlived many of his contemporaries and clearly have a future. Both have lively support in chat rooms and web sites. Ask Google or any of the search engines to put you in touch. Joyce and his work generate 28 million hits annually!

There are also many Joyce clubs and societies providing a venue for discussion.

Some American Universities maintain courses in the critical study on the Work, and a visitor to Dublin may enjoy tours of Joyce pubs and other exotica, and genuine Joyce memorabilia are eagerly sought. 

Sadly, Joyce read by only a few in Oz. Thousands of our Overseas Exchange students are unable to meet their overseas peers in any conversation over Joyce and his work; a sorry lack in the education of our better students. Many will move overseas in their lifes work, and still feel the lack.

The man and his work of lively interest in academia, this very much so in America. Joyce was well aware of this American interest in his work. Paris also cherishes Joyce as a “patron” and a visit to No12 Rue L’odeon may stir the mind.

Early chapters, or segments of both Ulysses and the Wake published as “Work in Progress” published in literary magazines in both England and America, and Ulysses ultimately banned in both countries as “obscene.” 

This prohibitation lifted, first in America, in the 30’s when a judge of the High Court declared it to be, “Offensive rather than obscene.”

He makes mention in the Wake of the Amelicans, or the Amorcians or the Europasianised Affreyank – and their interest in the Work; always jesting; never in acknowledgment of their industry and research; their determination to keep him alive for at least one thousand years; and, if one, why not two?

So, there is still, a lively interest in Joyce; well over one thousand other books written about him or of his family his relationships, his place in the shadowy world of literature. There is a good representative library of Joyceana in New Zealand; it is doubtful if such exists here in Oz.

He hoped for one thousand years of recognition. In that thousand years, if his hopes of reincarnation are realized, he may well live some thirty or so lives, new and unexpected incarnations. One trusts that, along that way, he might encounter his own work, and attempt the reading; a cosmic karmic joke indeed.

It wont be easy, but where is it written that Life should be easy?

Part IV. This is the last section of the Wake, but, we are told the first section to be written.

The work, produced as Work in Progress and published in the Little Review in England. Edited by his patron Harriet Shaw Weaver was greeted by his friends, including the editor of the Review, with dismay – even disbelief.

But he was an earnest. The Work in Progress was no joke, and by the time the second part was published, opinion on it was well and truly polarised.

Such is the difference made by a few thousand miles of cold and unfriendly sea, the Work was better appreciated in America than in either England or Ireland.

However, when we can know what the end will be, we can tackle the road with confidence. All well be well!

So in Part IV we have at least, the end; we find though, that this end in the labyrinthine Mind of J.J. is but the beginning! We are returned by a ‘commodius vicus of recirculation’ to Howth Castle and Environs.

The message is clear. Read again!!

Some commentators write in lyrical terms of this last segment of the Wake.

It certainly contains the usual purple patches; it is, in an emotional way, a little more human than much of the rest; amongst “the drunken flight of words,” this, his brothers opinion of the segment; the first to be published, we find the usual few grains of interest; noting that many of the vast paragraphs touch on deep subjects.  Such as the very beginnings of the Hebrew people, and all that followed after.

One such is clear, P596, the sentence
 

“By the anthar of Yasas.”

 The altar of Isaac?
 

“Could this be that altar which Abraham raised, on which he was to sacrifice his only son, by Sarah, his Isaac; this shocking act demanded by God to prove the fealty of Abraham.”

What a terrible thing to ask a man. We can well imagine the distress of old Abraham. But he obeyed; saved at the very last moment by that angel in the burning bush.

Joyce continues the story; read it for yourself, the tragic story of a cruel deception.

But back to Work in Progress.

The next line in this sentence is, “Ruse?” A ruse is a trick, a deceitful trick, such as was played out between Jacob and Esau, twin sons of Isaac.
 

“Ruse made him worthily achieve inherited wish.”

Which means that Jacob stole from Esau his heritage, and Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage – in plain English, for a good meal.
 

“Never on Fingal did such bountiful drops rain!”

The next line, another of James, jests.
 

“Loughlans Salts will make a new man of anyone. So! Ha!”

Then more nonsense.
 

“You mean to say you have had a good night's sleep? You may think so that everything is just about to roll over. Nothing like it has ever been written in, although books and eddas.”

“The entireties: of livesliving being the one substance of a streambecoming. Totalled _ _ _ in tittletale tattle. Why? Because Graced be God and giddy gadgets, in whose words were the beginnings, there are two signs to turn to, the yest and the est the right side and the wronged side, feeling aslip and waulking up, so an, so farth. Why?”

Trust me; the translation here is accurate enough!
 

“On the south side of the tracks, we have the Music Hall and the gin palaces; (note djin palace). (This is going to be an East—West thing!)”

“The ginpalace, with its bathhouse and the bazaar. Allahallahallah!”

On the other side we have the alcove, and the rose garden. Why? One side is about bed and breakfast, partygoing and the couch.

The other is of dole and outworn buyings (op shops and market stalls), all heat, contest, and enmity. Why? Every dog has his day. Why?
 

“It is all a sort of swigswag, systomy dystomy.”

“Why – search me!”

There's a flash from the future, in glimpse of the Maya; if you have a bit of luck; youre lucky.

A hundred or so wild words, later he offers, 
 

“There is something supernatural about it!”

Glancing through the remaining thirty or so pages of this segment it is much the same until page 626-27 in which Finnegan contemplates his life, this time round, and speculates on the next run.

Critical readers will probably take issue with the license with which this paragraph has been translated; so be it. His words attract thought and honest comment, and, at times one wearies in the search for order and meaning. So many weird words; so little meaning.

The episode, clearly intentional in the ribald treatment of ‘the altar of Isaac’.

But, as, hopefully, this essay demonstrates, there is indeed, much to think upon; and a satisfying meal may be made from the bits and pieces left over from yesterday; as from a simple loaf and some small fish.

Surely the frission between East and West; Occident and Orient; Muslim and Christian is merely the natural flow, the balance between the hotter than the cooler parts of the planet. We see it clearly here in Australia; and is surely evident elsewhere, the ‘redneck’ of the north, so different in temper from the cooler southerners; South Africa also has its ‘rednecks’; and all the world has people who go ‘troppo’ in the dog days of summer; and the wise take ‘siesta’ in the heat of the day. Omar Khyhams treatment of the Eastern way of life, so much more intelligible than that of Joyce.

This said, there are indeed deep matters bandied about in this segment. Scripture interpreted by the Irish Jester.
 

“It was a long, very long, a dark, very dark, an allburt upend. Scarce endurable, and, we could add mostly quite various and somewhat stumbletumbling night.”

This, clearly enough, is how James saw things to be.

That he has little respect for the old War God. Jehovah, of the early Hebrews he makes plain throughout his Book.
 

 “I doffs my hat majesty, or should I say reverence.”

Despite all the foregoing, it is clear enough that Joyce saw this, the first segment published – but to be the last in the Book, as an allegory of the old wisdom.
 

 “The first shall be the last.”

And be it noted, he grants space and understanding to the biblical account of the very beginnings of the Hebrew people; and deals at length with much of the mystique of Hebrew mythology – and theology; the vast sine wave in the history of East and West; the dystomy and systomy of Life. The segment, despite the Irish idiom, the Joycean wit, a rather poetical look at life – spirit and body.

In a very real sense, this segment is the heart and soul of the Wake, the beginning and the end. 

But give the man the last word.
 

 “I don’t understand! I fail to say! I daresee, you too!”

 
 

 
 

Why?

It seems almost impossible that Joyce wrote the Wake.

That Browne and Nolan wrote it? 

No that's equally impossible.

Or is it only partly impossible?

This seems to be clear enough from the text.

But Joyce's hand sure shaped the thing, even if other 
 

“Fingers were fiddling in the pie.”

After all, he writes of Tweedledum and friend; of red rocking horse; of Sleeping Beauty; Snow White and Rose Red, children rhymes and stories; possibly a planned theme throughout! A social history of the world, or the Empire! What's an Empire, Dad?

But the row over the first published piece justifies the belief that he wrote it. His friends make it clear. They protested.

There is a very painful letter from his brother Stanilaus, now grown and keeper of the house in Dublin; he wrote, asking, in short, 
 

“Why did you do this? You can do better than this!”

P237 turns out a dreadful paragraph for this brother. It opens well, 
 

“Enchanted dear sweet Stain-us-less_ _ _ .”

“Deliverer of soft missives, tell us about your paltry days, but leave literary things to me.”

“You are pure, pure, don't get your hand dirty just wait till the end.
Then, no more hoaxites.” 

So Joyce castigates his brother, 
 

“You live in a different world, mandy pamby.”

But he uses nigh on a thousand words to say that which he says.

It is not a pretty picture, nor a nice kettle of fish. As so often there is the faint suggestion of offensiveness in the segment. But the impression is strong that he resented his brother's criticism.

He complains, elsewhere, P61
 

“Have we ever thought that sheer greatness is his tragedy?”

This, one hundred percent Joyce
 

 “I am General Jinglesome.”

Others, friends and critics also asked “Why” when the Egoist published the early Work in Progress.

Even strong supporters of Ulysses, such as Ezra Pound and Eliot, that Anglo-American supporter, were rather shocked.

But Joyce is unrepentant!
 

“Someone wrote it, and there it is.”

Seems good enough. Finnegan, is published under his name, and with high hopes of one thousand years of life! Good on you mate!
 
 

 
 

What? Again?

Here in Oz, we have a couple of hundred years before us in which to grow into a National Identity, or just a plain mature society. Eighty thousand runaway fathers; thousands of children preferring to sleep in the streets, rather than live at home with their parents; tens of thousands of other children in foster care; these things tell of a sadly immature society. Possibly these features an inheritance from the terrible conditions of our beginning in this country; such wounds only time can heal. But few of us find any consolation in church or in any theory of reincarnation.

Like Joyce, we can only live through our times and thank whatever Gods may be that ‘things’ are as good as they are.

The better qualities of we humans develop only slowly. This because we must ever choose the way we live, and the easy way claims so many.

Our better qualities demand a degree of self control, even idealism, certainly good training for any real self growth and development.

Today, there are hundreds of books on self-development; schools, classes, workshops, to encourage self improvement; but the inertia of thousands make a real and dark divide in human society.

The Wake speaks frequently of the Unities, which underlie all Life; and of this dichotomy, this black and white; good and evil; up and down; the inside internal life and the outward physical life. It is all a systomy and dystomy; and this he well knows, for he is a man of great talent, and brilliant mind, a creative spirit, yet his life is bounded by poverty; bedeviled by sickness; haunted by depression, mocked by his early training.

Yes, Joyce knew intimately the terrible extremes of the human condition.

Few of us expect, never hope for the golden promises of heavenly grace as held by Islamic suicide bombers; the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II.

One can catch a glimpse of the hope of growth and development through ages of reincarnation.

Most would prefer, and possibly demand of the Gods, somewhat quicker growth and maturity; or for Evolution to take yet another ‘giant step forward for mankind’.
If it must be reincarnation, only one or two, not more than a few lives please, and in one of them a little more cash than in this one! But, like Joyce we will have to put up with what we get. For most of us it will be the first words of the Wake;
 

“A commodius vicus of recirculation.”

With no promises.

Its up to us, any improvement must ever be our own choice, our determination; our will and our deep desire. This simple truth, the driving force of the New Age movement.

But such thought not in the mind of Joyce as he confronts the end.

Though mocking and jesting as ever, he has other thoughts about Life; the last pages of the Wake are revealing and distressful.

Here is a man of great talent, but uncertain; a life without the freedom or the certainty, of conviction, and at the end still fearful of the dark.

There is no certainty; no faith; no trust; not even in Life.
 

“When the moon of mourning, is set and gone _ _ _ Ourselves, oursouls alone. At the site of salvocean.”

This man has thrown away his belief in a heaven; is shocked at the possibility of oblivion; so clutches desperately at the faint hope of reincarnation. What hopes, James; whatever will be; will be.

This has the ring of his early Jesuit teaching. Implanted, it remains forever in the heart, if not the mind.

We well may ponder, did he ever awake from the Maya; the dreamworld?

A very dear friend, one with whom such problems may be discussed, has confided, that she has so controlled the inward flow, the internal monologue that its conversation is now only music!

In reverie, or in meditation, or just half asleep, she is able to hear again and again all the best loved music and song of her long life.

Sometimes, she calls the tunes, the symphony or the song; at other times, she lets the unseen, unknown personality within make her own selection; often, she says she is rough, a few bars of Mendelssohn will lead into the Moonlight Sonata, from there to that, and in fifteen minutes of peaceful beginning may finish up in the Bolero – or 1816 or such.

She told also of a priest who, hearing of her experience, said “Blessed indeed.” For the hidden conductor of your dreams, is he of whom Jesus spoke when he advised;
 

“When you pray, go, in secret into the closet of your mind, and there pray to the Father in secret; and the Father will reward you openly!”

She said, with a twinkle in her eyes, 
 

“A wise priest indeed, and I believe him implicitly!”

A fortunate, and talented woman. She also confided,
 

“Sometimes, other things.”

This story recounted here to give veracity to the statement that we may change our world; all and ever at our own choice, through a deep understanding of our own abilities.

Yogananda traveled the world with the same message, but James Joyce, it seems, endured the intramystery of his own internal world dominated in later life by a most unruly ‘Word’.

The Word with a strong will of its own. 

P467
 

“Friss! Did you note that worried expression on his menalogue? A full octavium below me! And did you hear his browrings rattlemaking when he was preaching to himself _ _ _. But its all deafmans duff to me begob!”

Internal monologue is ever with us. The quality of such reflects the society in which we live; but the dark stream is also strongly personal and individual.

In many of the basic simple communities, the witch doctor, the shaman or the priest, whatever, is the arbiter of much of the peoples dreamworld; these internal fantasies translated in the daily life into fears or terrors. Rarely do such communities learn to use the full creativity of the inner life.

In modern society, and writing in very general terms; the stream of internal thought often reflects the dichotomy between the simple primitive and socially conditioned personality.

The first democratic conditioning, was that of the ten Commandments; these also the same rules, which we learn at mothers knee; self-respect, and respect for others.

Later he added care for others, and the compassionate society was born.

Later, and only because the first primitive urges are still strong in us, we have added sixty thousand other laws, and still need policeman and lawyers and law to keep that pagan self in reasonable control.

So the problem, which so dogged Joyce seems to have been a complex breakdown of the pathway between mind and hand – very simply, he might wish to say “Listen” but the hand writes “Hork” or some other aberration.

For what other reason would a talented, educated man, a successful writer, allow the Wake to be printed in his name?

P256, at random
 

“That little cloud and nebulissa, still hangs in sky. Singabed sulks in slumber. Light at night has an Alps on his druckhouse. Thick head and thin butter or after you with me. Caspi, but gueraligue stings, the air. Gaylegs to riot of us, Gallocks to left.”

This a cosy remark on their own family life. More on this later!

Yes, such is the mystery!

Hundreds of pages of this, and this a good sample. Some not at all nice.

For a real slice of nonsense try, P499
 

“Bappy-go-gully and gaft for us all! And all his morties calisenic, tripping a trepas, neniatwantyng. Miels Mulelo! Homo Humilo! Dauney a deady O! dood dood dood! O bawse! O Boese! O Muerther! O Mord! Mahmaro! Montmaro! O Smirtsch! O Smertz!”

And so on and on and on, regardless.

That first four billion years cannot ever be told by words. Words and other subtleties of expression are but arts; arts learned upon the way.

Joyce, tho using his own words is still unable to define that journey, or imagine its end. One suspects that there is a deep conflict between his understanding and the early teaching of the Jesuits; the early Eastern tradition. Reincarnation is but one step, and an uncertain step – a hope rather than a belief; but the great river of Life has infinite possibilities, so, unable to reconcile his rather uncertain beliefs, and joking about the possible realities; tells us, nothing. Nothing at all!
 
 

 
 

Hope V Faith

 “In the name of Annah, the allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Pluabilities, haloed be her Eve, her singtime sung, her will be run, unhemmed as it is uneven.”

“Her untitled manifesta memorializing the Mosthighest has gone by many names at disjointed times. Thus we hear of:_ _ _ .”

Then follows a couple of hundred such as; 
 

“Lumptytumtumpty had a big fall.”

 And othersuch.

Or, something a little more prophetic;
 

“Yes, before all this has time to end, the golden age will return, with a vengeance. Man will become dirigible, Ague will be rejuvenated; woman with ridiculous white burdon will reach by one step sublime incubation the manwanting human lioness with her dishorned, discipular manram well lie down together publicly plant upon fleece _ _ _.”

“In the house of breathings lies that word, all fairness. The walls of rubinen and the glittergates of elfinbone. The roof here is of massicious jasper and a canopy of Tyrian awning rises still depends to it. A grape cluster of lights hangs there beneath and all the house is filled with the breathings of her fairness _ _ _.”

It seems, he was in tune with the times; 
 

“God is, She, the all merciful, and the world is filled with her fairness __.”

Right up with the New Age.

But! Throughout, it is the same. The beauty ever spoiled by the jest. 

As he says somewhere, 
 

“There is a darkness in the soul.”

Ulysses records the beginnings of the folly; for the thing, which makes Ulysses dull and difficult for even literary people, is the stream of infernal internal monologue.

Who cares what the other fool is feeling and thinking; our own internal dreamworld has more than enough for most of us.

Our savage beginnings; our animal nature, so deeply embedded in the silver cord, and in the old brain, is ever at war with the creative awareness of the new brain.
From Freud to Kinsey they tied the streaming drama to our sexual conditioning, but the dark stream runs in deeper, older, stronger waters.

Joyce's internal monologue in Ulysses traces the stream in Freudian terms; in the Wake, he recognizes the more primitive origins – it is the very river of Life itself; and sexuality, but one of its many manifestations.

This aspect of the Wake, ever a recurring theme with him is deserving of deeper study--.

A doctored thesis here!

Some lucky, clever, young student!
 
 

 
 

A Note On Society

Long before the ancient Hebrew misogynist dreamed up the story of an Adam and Eve, there were four billion years of Life, and a grim fight for survival on the planet; and humanity is but the latest version of that long line of experiment in Life.

That Joyce, or Finnegan, or Porter or Kevin or Earwicker, knew his way around the grocers shop, even if he were not too sure of its own name, is certain.

He has noted the existence of Lanes Emulsion; Ellimans Embrocation; Warnes Wonder Wool, Capstan Plug Tobacco, Kruschen Salts; Beechams Pills, worth a guinea a box; the box a tiny circular thing, turned in wood, little more than two centimetres wide, if that! Both these latter items, the salts and the pills very good for ones health.

Velvet soap, for the households of the Empire, big generous bars of it; Pears Soap, for the more delicate members of the Empire; this company widely admired for the quality and taste of the advertising. Monkey Brand Soap, useful for mechanics and the harder male population.

These items sold in Outback Australia, as well as other outposts of Empire. Also favoured in the Outback, was Condensed Milk, Highlander brand favoured over Nestles, as was Cadburys chocolate.

The present writer recalls the school children being given a small flag and a threepenny cake of Nestles, at the flag raising ceremony when Armistice was celebrated, in November 1918.

Cayleys chocolate also mentioned by Joyce in the Earwiggle.

Dunlop Tyres also noted, and presumably other groceries, gadgets, household items, to say little of gents and ladies apparel; as he says
 

 “All the giddy gadgets.”

Also noted a reference to Charlie Chaplin and other notables of the day. Regretfully, no mention of Tom Mix, our cowboy hero; nor (yet) Mary Pickford, the world's sweetheart, nor Doug, her daring husband. Come to think of it, this beautiful pair were a little later. Not yet acting in the childhood of James.

The unexpected ever to be found in the pages of the Wake. A universal comment on the Society of his day. Though his comment on World War I, is a repeated reference to Mademoiselle from Armentiers. And to Woodbine Willie; a padre noted for handing out Woodbines, one of the cigarette brands of the day, to the soldiers. One of his sigla refers to Goering the German Air Marshal of WWII.

He plays a similar game with names; pages of names. Everyone of note from our earliest records; but rather than inflict the brutalities of history, or its glories, upon us; it is just names; just to let us Know, that he Knows, or perhaps, just one of his Irish jests!

Then there are the invented names list of them, these presumably recommended reading.

Thus P306-7, the list begins boldly; 
 

“Cato, Aristotle; Julius Caesar; Pericles; Ovid; _ _ _.”

 
 

 
 

Games With Names

Shakespeare would have dipped into all, had they a book written, at the local grammar school, but beware; there be jests in such lists!

So he remembers he is writing the Wake, he includes Adam and Eve, Ajax, Noah, Saul, Philomena, Leonidas, Nestor, Cain, Promethus, Lot, Castor and Pollux, Sappho; all such mixed in with the surviving Latin and Greek greats.

The text is a gentle mockery of such classical learning; 

On P176 is yet another list of recommended reading, offering such classics as
 

“Hat in the Ring; Nickel in the Slot; Adam and Ell; Moggies on the Wall; Twos and Threes; American Jump; Broken Bottles; Postmans Knock; I Know a Washerwoman; What's the Time; Fickeleyes and Futilears.”

P341-2 is a delightful treatise on horseracing. It in this we note that 
 

“This eeriedreme has been offered by Bett and Tipp. Tipp and Bett our swapstick quackchancers, is in from Topphole to Bottom of the Irish Race and World.”

So, Nolan and Browne wrote of this particular race meeting. 

Excellent reading.

But these pages will deserve reading. Inventive and racy!

In another place, P104, he tells us
 

“Her untitled mamafesta memorializing the Mosthighest has gone by many names at disjointed times.”

Some of such names are;
 

“Which of your Hesterdays Mean Ye to Morra? Rebus de Hubernicus; Lapp for Finns; This Funnycoons Week; Mum it is All Over; Cowpoy ride by Twelve Acre Terris in the Unique Estates of Amessican; Thonderbalt Captain; Siegfield Follies and or a Gentlehommes Faux Pas.”

There are a hundred or so of such creations; a full evenings work for writer, quietly moving out of a depression and invigorated with a little French wine.
Another such list on P71

So, what is a reader to make of such – by and large, as James might have said there are literally many hundreds of such constructions in this Book. Thousands!

But why? True, Sir, it is his book, he may say what he wishes to say, but the reader is compelled to ask, by sheer commonsense, why?

Such wordplay. All the pages noted here, are printed in italics. This is done, usually to draw the readers attention; this is something special!

But, apparently not in Finnegans Wake! Or in Funnygan's Fake!

As he says elsewhere, 
 

“Who, short of a madhouse, would believe it?”

This sentence, written in plain English, stands clear; something, perhaps like a scarecrow, alone, in the midst of a field of thistles.

There is a puzzling little fragment, a paradox of course, concealed in French 
on P283

As usual, he leaves his readers, unless they be multi lingual, in the dark as to the  meaning. So, why include the wretched paragraph at all? It seems a deliberate, calculated insult to the reader.

Both friendly, and unfriendly critics must oft look to other nationals for translation.

This present instance, seems such a deliberate thrust at his readers.

For the paragraph is possibly the most simply beautiful in the book.

Translated; 
 

“Today, as in the time of Pliny and Columella, the hyacinth flowers in Wales; the Periwinkle in Illyria, and the daisy in the ruins of Numantia; whilst the cities around them have fallen in captivity and ruin; many have long disappeared  but such generations of flowers have bridged the ages and are still with us, fresh and laughing and will survive our cities, our battles, and our times.”

Now, there is no acknowledgement of authorship, other than the margin note.
 

“Thus spuke Zarathustra.”

Which tells us, usually, that this is Joyce.

Then read footnote 2;
 

“Translout that into turfish _ _ _.”

Which is cheeky, adds insult to injury, for footnote 3 really rubs it in;
 

“You daredevil Donnelly, I love your piercing loss of lies and your flashy foreign mail _ _ _ with all my exes, wise and sad.”

Now, this means simply, ‘Translate this into English theres a good boy’; and third note is; ‘I'm a clever chap, in either wisdom or sadness’.

Or, of course, for we wish nothing but fair play, whatever you can make of it.

But why not let a rare gem indeed in this matrix of word, shed in its own light in such darkness?

It must be noted that the footnote 2 is placed against the word Numantia; which is no ancient place such as Illyra; it should, surely be ancient Numidia.

The tiny extract appears to be based on a comment by Pliny; it would be the Elder; on the swift re-emergence of the flowers, in the ashes and desolation of Pompeii, buried in AD79; by an eruption of Vesuvius.

So altogether, a well crafted little game, using a truly beautiful aspect of nature for his purpose. This astonishing survival power of nature exists in ourselves.
Blessed be the High Gods!

Indeed, for we need a little help in reading Joyce.

This fragment, this reflection on the life of flowers is noted elsewhere in the Wake. We read, P14
 

“Since the bouts of Hebear and Hairyman the corn flowers have been staying at Ballymuro, the duskrose has choosed out Goatstown hedges, twolips have pressed togetherthem by sweet Rush, townland of twinnedlights, the whitethorn and the redthorn have fairygeyed the mayvalleys of knockmaroon.”

This pretty little picture, sadly drifts off into four hundred words of little interest.

The saga of words ends; 
 

“Flippety! Flippety! Fleapow! Hop!”

This possibly tells us that fleas and other bugs also have survived the centuries.

Ever and always thru the Wake, this tiny snippets of human interest.

The touch of beauty makes the world worthwhile!
 
 

 
 

Allusions And Illusions

Some commentators delight in seeking out ‘allusions’ in the work they are considering. Such allusions create the opportunity to write about the allusion; the where, the when and the why of it, and hey presto, more pages for the book.

In the early years of such comment on Joyces work, one exegetist claimed to have discovered over one hundred references, or allusions, in the first page of the Wake.

Such in mythology, history, love and war, social mores, old English, the conquest of America, and many other arcane items.

But none of this will be attempted in this essay, though there is plenty of opportunity, should one be tempted.

For instance, on P2 James mentions Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Joshua, etc, but fails conspicuously to offer anything Scriptural, other than just the names. It seems that the reading beyond these first few books became too much for him.

A pity, for there is much of greater worth in Job and the poetical books.

So the allusions are of no importance in the Wake. They reveal simply, that Joyce had an excellent memory, sharp recall; these qualities backed up with wide reading and a decidedly superior talent for literary work, and, of course, reference books. The purchase of such a book on Astronomy is mentioned in Ulysses. It is quoted in the Wake.

Literary work means not only the art of writing, but the art of writing in an interesting and often intriguing – even a compelling manner.

Sadly much is printed in book form that can never be described as ‘literature’.

In our day that clever devil, the WWW web, and little brother the chat room, and that little sister, email, have stolen the game from Literature; it is now possible to download all the world's history, its art, and its wisdom and its wit; and a great deal more.

Useless, though, all useless without understanding and application; and the paper!!!

So much paper. A4, becomes a nightmare. So much more simple and satisfying to buy a book, or borrow it, from either a more wealthy friend or the public library.

Happily, public libraries now have a system of brownie points, which, when there are enough borrowings, mean a small cheque to the writer, public libraries all too often, reducing the flow of royalties to the writer.

So the allusions dont amount to much. Thousand of us, blessed with a reasonable education, plus a few years reading experience can offer thousands of allusions.

We do so, even without thinking, for all good reading feeds the human mind with new feeling – emotion – information, all of which becomes a part of the self, gradually colours and shapes the personality; and may be recalled quite spontaneously in our speech, our writing and our arts; and as Joyce so strongly informs us, in our dreams.

The Box, that simple screen in the living room is also a good teacher for those willing to learn and the Gods alone know the wonders yet to unfold in our future history, for the astrophysicists say that we have about another ten billion years ahead of us before our glorious Sun runs out of hydrogen.

So, long years of exotic wonder and delight lie ahead.

Back to Joyce. It is easy for me, an Australian, to note, as Joyce does in the  Wake, Van Diemans Land; Broken Hill; Captain Moonlight; and to say with certainty, that he has never been to Tasmania, nor Broken Hill; nor did he ever meet Captain Moonlight; and it is the same with a thousand other places mentioned.

All spring from that subtle, marvelous, intimate well of knowledge, deep in the  subconscious human mind; and flows, as we write and talk, into use as we demand.

As we move around this vast island continent, larger than all Europe; Adelaide to Darwin; Melbourne to Cairns; this a world tourist centre; everything here; why go anywhere else in the world; on any of these journeys; we cover more miles than Joyce ever traveled; could ever travel in his European exile; and we see the world, even in its history, from a different perspective; and also see the literature of the Old World from a different, an antipodean view, and, probably, a less conditioned view. Few of our writers controlled by the Style Manual.

So this look into Joyces ‘Wake’.

The multitude of names, Irish or universal, offered, mean little. They are there not to reveal his reading, but simply as figures in his writing. As noted, he mentions the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch.

Has Joyce read these books? Could he tell us in his own words the stories of each? The hollow echo of a laugh greets the suggestion.

Well read, he was; no doubt about that; a good memory. Excellent would be a better word; an extraordinary power of recall, and a most inventive, creative writer.

There's no need to gild that lily; folly to make him more than what he was.

Joyce a thoroughly capable: creator of his own world, and with the Wake, this a most intimate and subtle world; a world wracked with a deep distress and supported with great courage. 
 
 

 
 

On Writing

Most writers know that the story flows from the deep unexplored; the entity within, which we know only on the surface, and which we call the mind.

But dysphasia is a failing, somewhere along a most complex matrix of the pathway between the experience as accepted by the mind, and the creative writing hand.
Our best thought has not fathomed the pathways between the observation and the ability to convert that experience into the written word.

All too well, we are aware of that which we wish to write, but the hand is disobedient; some pathway blocked or twisted; the ability diverted or at the bitter end completely blocked – useless. Many, as age encroaches simply neglect the ability; which, because it is not exercised, dies away, and even writing Christmas cards becomes impossible; a task left to wife or carer.

The ability to write is a construct of the mind. Millions use the facility with careless abandon; equip the mind with the limited vocabulary of their social world. Others learn a specialized vocabulary; devoted to a particular science or art.

The writer, to produce work of wide appeal, must perforce have a wide and deep store of words, each with emotional experience; accurate in the depiction of the world in which his creatures live and move. Thus Shakespeare, who plunged the depth of human emotion had about 100,000 words at his command; consequently, school children fear him. The reading of his work demands a well stocked and mature mind, this, not at all the common experience.

A child, in year 12 in an Australian public school may have a vocabulary of about two thousand words, the better students about four thousand, some few eight.

A child of the same age in many countries may have ten to twelve thousand words, for the simple reason that in the same years at school, they will learn three and often four languages; many such children have a better command of English words than many an Australian child, simply because they are taught more; and taught more consistently.

Joyce, not only explores the limits of an excellent vocabulary, in English, but was literate in several other languages, and quite literally, invented thousands of his own.

In Finnegans Wake, he creates a new and strange world of words, but it is doubtful that such may form a vocabulary. They are but misshapen creations of a full mind corrupted with dysphasia and Joyce, rather than let the disordered defeat him, has recorded them, together with the broken syntax, the deliberate misconstructions, the fractured grammar, the puns, both accidental and intended, the play with the vowels, all the mischievous paradox implied in this arcane production.

Throughout the impish play on words, there is a story, tragic, and frightening, the story of his loss of control; of his grim determination to complete the Work, the story of bright creative mind dogged by a soul destroying depression; tormented by a developing blindness; the tragedy of the daughter falling into schizophrenia; a sea of troubles and determined that such afflictions will not ever defeat him. That others assisted in the work is made clear; this aspect examined in this essay. In this connection it is fair to note that Milton, in his blindness, had his daughters, transcribe his work. So, with Joyce.

Because of dysphasia, this story will be told – as it is – in the unique idiom of the Wake.

This is the way in which words mock him; so he tells us the story in the same words.

Throughout, there are paragraphs in plain English, paragraphs without paradox; often, but not always, such plain English intercepts, are in association with yet another intervention; the hundred lettered word!

So there are these broad hints as to an effective reading of Finnegans Wake. The way is not plain; but it may be traced between the exotic landscape of eight page paragraphs and other verbal obstructions.

The search for story in this wonderland of twisted word is well worth the search.

Much more interesting than crossword puzzles; infinitely more acceptable than TV. So, be not dismayed.

He found it interesting; worthy of accomplishment.
 

“The strength of the rawshorn generand is known throughout the world. Let us say if we may what a weeny wukeleen can do. Au! Au! Aue! Ha! Heish! A lala!”

General Jinglesome having a little laugh at himself. 

A ‘weeny wukeleen’ indeed!
 
 

 
 

The Open Way

Repeated many times in these tiny essays, is the observation that Joyce has only a superficial wholly suburban, outlook on Life.

Take for instance, these words from P452,
 

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

Now these but a few words but are the boundaries of his vision of Life and the recourse of history and of time before; but the reality is different! A day or so ago, some 80,000 people packed a stadium in Sydney, singing and happy.

To watch a cricket match. The last in the 2006 Ashes series.

Vicos recourse would have 80,000 people watching a gladiatorial frenzy.

One imagines the scene as Darwin and Wallace saw it, round the world, year after year, age upon age, ever an upward movement, Life growing – expanding with every cycle, the vector of Life an ever ascending helix; all experience encoded and built upon. Thanks to Watson, Wilson, Crick and “dark Roseleen.” We know that Spiral to be an helix; and the growing understanding of it will transform the life of millions.

Rather like a pyramid, but at each corner of the pyramid a step upward into the next course – ultimately, we may reach the polished limestone, see the Light and Know as we are Known.

Possibly we are on the fourth course of those great stone steps. A long way forward and upward, is the polished capstone. Humanity has an eon or so to go before we attempt the stars.

Somewhere along the way, whilst with the Jesuits, Joyce should have noted that the speculations of Vico have been superseded by a deeper understanding of those recurring cycles of the human story. The Journey is slow, the way often difficult; confidence men, con artists today, lawyers, laws and regulations, and the warmakers impede the way, and though we squabble and fight, the crowds of 80,000, who watched the Ashes cricket series 2006 were singing, a happy bunch.

This was no gladiatorial frenzy! The wars which erupt over the world, tell us that we have far to go before Joyces fanciful ‘Golden Age’ will return; Dark Ages will recur, but Homo Sapiens is beginning to think; Life will change for the better; the rich bounty of Life will flow deeply into our Societies, our Arts and Sciences, and with that bounty we shall transform the world into a prosperous garden. Given time, we may recreate Eden!

Only then we will think of the stars!

There will ever be, as Joyce notes ‘A darkness in the soul’. Some Napoleon, or Attila, or Stalin or Hitler, beset with dreams of grandeur to harass the world. But we will ever deal with them.

The record of those last bitter hours of Hitler, Goering, Himmler and others should deter other seekers after world power.

Joyce had a rather similar literary love affair with a Bishop Berkeley, circa 1600; a man intrigued by the mystery of sight. Humanity is happy to accept the mystery and make good use of the faculty.

Joyces interest seems to associate the good Bishop, with the untimely death of a Russian general. This is a very odd association, and most unreasonable.

The surviving teaching of the Bishop is a folly. If an object is not observed, it does not exist; this a very difficult concept to grasp. Some people, however, glimpsed a possible aspect of his theory, for the matter became one of speculation amongst the philosophers, as, for instance, the bright young minds at Oxford University, for the following appeared on one of the college notice boards.
 

“I find it astonishing, odd,
When none are about in the Quad
That the tree that I see
Just ceases to be
When no ones about in the Quad.”

A day or so later, this verse was capped;
 

“I find your astonishment odd
I am ever about in the Quad
So the tree is still there
Though you’re not aware
For I’m always about in the Quad.”

Signed, ever faithful, God.

These verse a studied comment on Berkeley.

Apology is humbly offered, if the words are not wholly correct, the verses are dredged out of the memory of an amusing article an English literary magazine of some seventy years ago.

Many others have pondered the mystery of sight, a most complex adaptation of Life; reporting to that brain the most exact detail of the object observed. In many birds and animals the faculty is stronger and more precise than in humans.

The poet Grey, in his once famous ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’, wrote, 
 

“Full many a flower is born to blush, unseen.
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Grey erred, as did the Bishop, for the unseen flowers and other myriads of creation, tho unseen, are not wasted; their worth is expressed in their very existence.

But Berkeleys views, as did those of Vico, touched a special nerve in Joyce; but the nerve granted little response.

Both Berkeley and Vico had only a glimpse of the great natural functions, which engaged their thought, both constrained by the times in which they lived.

The same limit of understanding underlies our own learning!

We see this clearly in many aspects of our daily life.

Today's technology superseded within a few months by yet a greater understanding of the natural laws in which we are working.

Sadly, Joyce's comments on either Vico, or Berkeley offer no new insights into either optics or to history.

It remains to be seen if he has given the dreamers and the visionary amongst us any new insights into the reality, still almost unknown, in which Life, and, we ourselves exist.

Just the dreamstory of disordered experience; a great talent suffering too deeply from the infirmities of existence but keeping control, laughter, some loving, some wine, some good friends; and a couple of excellent books to entertain the world.

As Nora said of him, “A good man.”
 
 

 
 

Hopes Deferred

Though Joyce writes a clear sentence or so about reincarnation in so many places, one notes that there is a strong element of jest in many such pieces.

There is never any determined statement; so often it is simply a repetition of the first bold word to Finnegan;
Thus, P5
 

“Hohohoho, Mister Finn, youre going to be Mr Finnagain! Comeday morm and, O youre vine! Senddays eve, and, ah, youre vinegar! Hahahaha, Mister Funn, youre going to be fined again.”

Now, this is no apostolic declaration of faith.

It is but jest, and teasing; and so it is throughout until the very last page of his book of Kells, when the mood becomes serious; and the words are uttered on the very threshold of Death.

Joyce is, of course, in the grip of the terrible quandary; he has thrown off the sheltering cloak of his church; he is contemplating his end; and so deep the learning of his early years, simply cannot accept the possible, or the probable end as simply – death; the dreadful nothingness. Night, and Oblivion!

As with most of humanity, the man has within himself, ‘Intimations of immortality’, and this a deeper understanding than his ‘Inclination to immorality’. We all without thinking, believe that we will live forever; so, to assuage his doubt; to deny his early hope, trust and belief, he adopts the vague suburban hope of continued life in an incarnate form.

But knows so little of the ‘Known facts’ of reincarnation. He hopes that he will return as Mister Finnegan. That is not possible, but he closes his mind to the probabilities.

Come, back as an animal? Horror! Come back as a nautch girl in some Indian seaport? Undisguised horror; if I must come back, I will come back as a man! But the decision is of the gods. Man but obeys.

His chances of being born as the eldest son of an English Lord or even of an Arab oil billionaire are slim indeed, despite the great number of New Age reincarnate princesses and noblemen!

The only possible perfect way, to ensure a happy return, according to all the great teachers, is by Love. An elemental, an absolute impersonal love, strong in its confidence, will enable the soul to recreate its fully mature resurgence; the permanence of personality.

Few indeed of mankind have yet achieved such power. Without such Love, every return is to be but another learning experience.

Now this is the teaching of the Masters.

There are one or two legends, old legends indeed, of men who have gained such life.

The now forgotten story of the Wandering Jew.

A better told tale is that of Saint Germaine. This figure has been reported through the past five or six hundred years. Books have been written about him, but all the tales bear the hallmarks of imagination and invention.

He is reported to have instant access to immense wealth; without benefit of any bank, to move in the best society; to talk with kings, and to disappear, and reappear at will.

He is, to be more precise, but a modern version of Alladins Genii; instant impossibilities on demand; a construct of the poor and dispossessed of the world; today they have taken the form of Lotto, and the pokies; a modern genii; master slave of Alladins lamp.

Also, today, Saint Germaine has been adopted by some American avatars, and plays a most insignificant role in society.

But these thoughts are a digression.

Ever throughout the Wake, this attitude, “You'll be back again, Mr Finnegain,” persists; always in the same jesting mood; some on the crude side.

P6, we read
 

“Shize? I should shee. Macool, Macool, Macool, orra whyi deed ye diie? trying, thirstay mournin? Of a Sobs they sighdid at Fullagains, chrissormiss wake, all the hoolivans of the nation, prostrated in their consternation and Seer duodismally profusive plethora of exlulation _ _ _.”

And so on for several hundred equally allusive and invented words.

So it is plain that his views on reincarnation are either idle twaddle, or a covert disguise for feelings within himself too deep for any sharing with his readers.

The usual construction is, that the Wake is a dream. This also an impossible paradox. No dream, ever so Wordy!

But, as we continue reading it becomes a trifle, but only a little, clearer.

He treats his encroaching blindness the same way; the enveloping depression; the growing dysphasia; his Love story with Anna Livia; all things; others have said it more bluntly, more cruelly; Life is a mockery; Life is a cosmic joke; he created us this way, and on purpose; ‘laugh, and be merry, for tomorrow we die’.

He apparently knows nothing of the Karma, the ancient belief, so closely related to reincarnation, which has it that our life here, will be punished or rewarded in the reincarnation as determined by our life in this world; and that life here was determined by our earlier life, elsewhere!

Wealthy here, we must learn, the endurance and resilience of poverty in the next round!

Cruel here, you will suffer – some say, an hundredfold in your next round; only the power and influence of Love, as noted earlier, allows us to move onto the better life in the next round.

As for this life, it seems, that if we, for a moment, accepting the belief in Karma, must believe that Joyce must have had an exciting life in his previous incarnation.

His birthday is February 2. The worst, most unlucky day of the old Roman calendar. Ulysses published on his birthday. He was 40 – the date, 2-2-22, a terrible configuration to the Romans.

His fathers family fell into dire poverty after a good start.

He failed as a potential priest; he failed as a potential doctor; his first book, Dubliners was a failure; ten years to find a publisher, a print run of only five hundred, few of which sold; his second book, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’, was pirated by the Americans; his third book Stephen Hero, never completed; Ulysses forbidden in England and America; published in France, because no English publisher would risk it; English typists refused to type it; and the Wake unreadable and published only on the shoulders of Ulysses.

His personal life equally ill starred; he suffered greatly from glaucoma, a depression, a great talent, but spent creative years as a desperately poor teacher, self exiled in a foreign country, and his beloved daughter Lucia, highly talented, but afflicted by a developing schizophrenia.

A bad Karma indeed.

That he had as positive qualifiers a resilience; a dogged persistence; the mental strength to cope with a tumultuous life, is of great credit to him. He carried his adversities like a man, and created the greatest, most notable work in literature, since Shakespeare, and there are men and women alive, who will argue that he is a greater man than Shakespeare.

Some few even who think that he may be a reincarnation of Shakespeare, but such a thought only, idle speculation.

Such too, is this small essay on reincarnation; to many people the subject will mean nothing more than an Irishman joking about Life.

A jest at an Irish Wake? If so, there is little hope for Mister Finnegan!

But the man confounds his reader.

The foregoing extracts are from the first pages of the book. But turn to the end! Here the words have the ring of truth; there is pathos here; a deep longing; a firm belief.

He hopes to meet again his handsome Amazia, his stormies, the haughty Niluna; to meet his Anna Livia, whom he calls his ‘Allenuivea Pulchrabella’, the woman of his dreams, the essential feminine, perfect and unapproachable. Could this be possible?

Only in dream, and in his book, but the book is full of dreaming; of silver linings in the dark clouds; hopes, hopes and more hopes; going bumpily along.

P107
 

“Our social something bowls along bumpily, experiencing a jolting series of prearranged disappointments, down the long lane of generations. More generations and still more generations.”

It was but a passing thought in the mind of the poet, that she might love him better after death!

Our poets have warned us to ‘Gather rosebuds whilst we may, for they, too, are a-dying’!

But Joyce must, as must  the rest of us, have clutched at what straws are available, and aeiry faiery dreams of the Christian – Jewish heaven, and the Muslim heaven graced as it is with suicide bombers and available young women are but residual hopes from ancient priesthoods intent on inducing good deeds; good works from us, for the good of our souls and of the church.

But the Gods are never deceived by simulated love; they show no mercy to Love betrayed, and James Joyce could never forget the look in his dying Mother's eyes, as the favoured son denied her a word of hope, of prayer in her last anguished moments.
 
 

 
 

Karma

James, your Karma is inescapable!

There is this elusive thing which wiser men than most of us have been telling us thru the centuries, three of four or five millennia!

That men, tho animals, have spirit, somewhat different from other animals; we alone can laugh at the troubles of life; we alone may weep in self-pity, in sympathy with anothers pain; weep even for humanity; weep with the trials of consciousness; war, even with the war mongers, and lawyers; for the law too often denies justice; takes too long, and costs too much.

We are also the only animals of all creation, to take a little – or a lot – of Dutch courage when facing disaster; or to drown our sorrows; or drink our selves to death or blind our minds with some narcotic.

Chesterton said of us, ‘Either an angel fell from heaven or some animal went berserk’.

Something like that; but it is the angel gave us this soul – or spirit – whatever that made us different from the other animals. Strangely – this mysterious quality in us, despite its extraordinary qualities, does not dominate us. We use its powers by choice, and it lies unused, in millions of us.

The transformation of the new forebrain, that beautifully domed brain which developed with amazing capacity from the low browed skull of the ape – or possibly, we were given it from the angelic forefather.

Whatever, it seems an utterly impossible leap in the slow growth of evolution; and it was not the only marvelous thing that happened to homo erectus.

We balanced upright on flat feet; lost a prehensile tail, had new, almost everything and chief amongst the wonders that beset us the awesome power of rational thought, this balanced by the equally awesome power of abstract thought; and the ability to translate that thought, into speech, into the awesome power of the written word.

Everything we see about us flows from such pristine skills. 

So there must have been some angelic input – surely?

The change was more than a great step for mankind; it was a radical – an immense leap forward in the mysterious course of evolution, and if the next evolutionary step is as great, it is to be hoped above all things that we leave behind us, not any physical quality, but that there may be an equally vast improvement in the reasoning power of the mind ensconced in that brain.

For we have such great power that there needs to be a firmer more directed control to enable us, and guide us toward, gently please, guide us towards the angelic inheritance.

Now, the inpatient will be demanding, ‘What has this to do with Joyce and the Wake?’

Plenty; for it seems that the reincarnation which Finnegan (read Joyce) hoped for  is granted only to some humans. Those who mature in their lifetime to their full capacity as humans.

The rest of us are as grass, that flourishes, and passes away.

We see this selection clearly in nature. Trees, flowers, grasses, fish and a thousand other living things produce seed in rich abundance; only a tiny proportion – the very few survive, continue; create new varieties and species; survive even ice ages, and carry on. It is the same with we humans. Only a few, those who achieve a full maturity of that unseen spirit, will achieve reincarnation. The rest of us return to the dust and will be reborn no more; merely recycled.

The Upanishads, the source of the teaching on reincarnation tells us that those chosen? Not chosen, but earn reincarnation also may have to live a million lives to achieve the unspoken goal of our existence.

Evolution as a slow process – ‘it’ has billions of years in which to achieve its hidden ends.

So Joyce has high hopes that Mr Finnegan will live again. 

Those interested will find much to interest them on this most interesting possibility in Part IV of the Wake.

Sadly, as with Joyces view of world history and many other things, the seeker  must look farther for enlightenment; develop some capacity to read the real, behind the invented word.

He used the internal monologue in both the Portrait and, in Ulysses; in the Wake he has invented a new language, or rather, reverted to a debased language, with which to explore the subconscious. But to me new understanding of the deep psyche of man.

The dark stream is governed by Will, not by Word; and, without malice, Joyces Word as offered in the Wake, tends to disturb, rather than understand that stream.

The turbulent waters; or in some, the deep still waters, are the source of desires, of passions, of rages, and of the tenuous thing which we call vision, or consciousness. All are our own, the secret part of us, and none of it, good or bad, is of value until we direct it with purpose; bring it to the surface; express it as word, and channel and direct its awesome powers thru the conscious mind.

So, instinctively, it is survival first; this demands, with our safety, that we fill the belly; the whole world is ever hungry, and then it is the reproduction of our kind.

The rampant sexuality of the human animal is a reflection of the satisfaction of the belly, and the security and safety of our social something, whatever it be.
And that is which is to do with Joyce in the Wake.

Simply, the Wake is primarily the love song, ever in praise of Anna Livia; and it was written, because he loved her, and, rather dimly it seems, thought it good to use the language of the Wake to express the chaos of his own inner stream of consciousness.

That the story is told with the tattered remnants of his learning; his personal life experience, and with vague thoughts of reincarnation is; well, that's just how the understanding poured out of him; sadly coloured with the indignities of his infirmities his frustrations and the hope, unsupported by his church, of another run at life.
 

“Tis gone, insofarover – Dryleash; Por deday. To transfixture ashone. Feist of Taberneccles, scenopegia, come! _ _ _ Yet is nobody present here which was not there before. Only in order othered. Nought is nulled.”

And all through this bitter ending not one word about his book. All is but a mad dream world, and Anna and these hopes of reincarnation.
 
 

 
 

The Darkness Of The Soul

Joyce writes in the Wake,
 

“There is a darkness in the soul.”

That he lived, in and out, under or within such darkness there is little doubt.

It fell upon him, with all the thunder of the hundred lettered word in his early youth; in that terrible descent of his family into poverty; his mind scarred with the deaths of siblings, six, born and died before he left home, the death of his mother a blight on his spirit all his life; the failure of his loved father in his neglect of the family; then the ten year war to obtain publication of Dubliners; the obscenity changes against Ulysses in both England and America; the failed priesthood, the failed year in Paris medical college.

The bitter years of teaching, self exiled in Europe; all this and more. Then his success with Ulysses was damned by the prohibition of publication in England and America, and the harsh and unjustified criticism leveled against the book.

Little wonder that the poor devil was depressed!

The seventeen years for the writing of the Wake was little better; the descent of his daughter Lucia, into an acute stage of schizophrenia, his own developing problems with glaucoma were significant features; but there is the strong possibility that his entire lifestyle, was a dominant factor in his rather erratic creativity.
This feature of his life, a controlling aspect of the depression, which having dogged him since childhood, now began to override his work; govern his control of words; distort his invention; the end effect being the Wake and all its exotic mystery.

There are other subtleties which shape our reaction to the world about us. The interaction with friends; the constant war with circumstance; and unrelenting task of earning a living; the wars; the fun and games with alcohol; the frission between him and her; the red tape of the official world, even the tyranny of distance. So much for mere men to handle; and to exercise a demanding talent in the face of such obstacles is hard and difficult work indeed.

Over and above all such circumstances, forever snapping and snarling is the Black Dog – depression, and the devastating growth of dysphasia.

To his everlasting credit as a man such obstacles never became despair; he fought the enemy to the last; and he found in the Wake, created in the Wake a wall – if you like, a wall comprised of the hundred letters word in several models; to keep Black Dog at bay; and safe behind his wall, laughed and teased the dog in an unrestrained literary hilarity, the history of Life and Literature as seen in the dreamworld of Humphrey C. Earwicker. ‘Ere Comes Himself’, for so much in this book means little more than the internal life of James Joyce.

So, throughout, usually hidden, clearly, cleanly writ; hidden in long paragraphs, we find evidence of the Dog, the depression which dogged him; we are told plainly obscured, of the structure of his Book, dictated much of its exotic weird word, created the literary singularity which he called Finnegan's Wake. His book of Kells; the thousand year master work.

All humanity has some chance, some opportunity to so surmount those seemingly impossible aspects of life. It is to be found in our inner self, some say the spirit, rather than the blind acceptance of fate. Briefly it is to find, decide, choose, the new desired life; and put ones back into the job!
 
 

 
 

The Last Words

In grappling with his creations we must learn to look anew at the sounds and appearance of word; to learn this strangeness, take into our consciousness the broken structures he uses; we learn slowly and consciously to become familiar with his constructions; to understand them better, we verbalise them – they become more than printed symbols; we must work to make his words gradually part of our own word pattern; they will invade the mind; form new imprints, and, because of the constant ever present dichotomy, they cause some slight disagreements, then insoluble difficulties, and in time, as he himself accuses Shem, his creation,
 

“Causes me a pain in my lower loins.”

Or as many Australians might say, in moments of distress at anothers folly, ‘Give us the raw prawn’.

Joyce attempts, in relation to the hundred letters Word, to relate the Biblical ‘Fall’ to the beginnings of speech. The words refer to our unmentionables; our private parts and their functions; secret private parts, which Mr Joyce in this dreambook, tells us have been betrayed by words.

This is so when those words are used as an oath! When used as such always mean contempt; creating a resentment in the victim.

Words ever having power! Once uttered, may be withdrawn, but the hurt remains. So, in our primitive, first adventures after that Tower of Babel thing, we agreed amongst ourselves that the words we use to describe those parts of our bodies, and their functions are taboo in our social togetherness; never to be mentioned directly; hints, circumlocution, oblique reference, as necessary but these blunt Anglo Saxon words are out, or were out, until we lost our respect for the body.

Ladies and gentlemen do not use them.

Others must not use them! Joyce, despite the reputation of obscenity does not use these words, his substitutes for them deserve attention; literary invention at an interesting level!

So it has been since Eve sewed figleaves for Adam, and presumably for herself.

The writer of the book of Genesis had an understanding as to why, and approved the convention!

We others also understand. The words are, of course, in common use; the more common the usage, the more common the user.

They are also used by people, some people, who should know better. Such as educated folk; people in public office; often men; and these days, god help us sometimes women, in the media; and all too often in the families of our society. Generally, a simple human regard for the other fellow conditions our use of these few words. Sadly one hears them from little children, a sad reflection of either parents or peers.

There is good reason for such regard. Even Blind Freddie can understand such reason; and, tho such reasons are rarely discussed, we are all aware of the importance of considerate speech; of respect for others.

We exercise the same care and self respect in our clothing; the stripper disrobes for the money, the stars, for notoriety and more often for publicity; others too, have reasons but the human race mainly prefers to clothe itself according to custom wherever and whatever that custom demands.

Hence, the very popular fashion magazines; the wonderful opportunity for the wealthy to spend thousands on their attire; the rest of us, equally conscious of local customs. But unclothed, only the young and beautiful can get away with it!

Even the ‘Op shops’ with their stocks of the discarded wardrobes of the more affluent. These great centers of collection, perform a valuable, tho not commonly known service. Every year, hundreds of bales of good serviceable ‘left off’, or ‘previously owned’, or ‘once loved’ clothing is dispatched from wealthy Australia to less fortunate parts of the world; and ever most gratefully received.

The entire clothing industry a magnificent social machine, busy, welcome, and creative; just following Eve, and providing fashionable or useful figleaves for the millions. Flamboyant; exquisite, romantic; exotic, fashionable, for our woman.

Conventional, darkly sombre, sporting, or just plain shorts and shirt, shoes for the men; and of necessity the uniform, the dress form of office for those who guide, protect, shepherd us in our in thousand ways.

The simplicity of nature is beautiful in many – in a million visible and entrancing ways. We enjoy the incredible variety of colour, form, shape, activity, the rich creativity.

But the human figure is rarely beautiful. Beautiful mainly in the vigour and energies of youth. The mature figure ever preferable in well fitting – even glamorous clothing. The woman in the subtleties of fashion, the men, well dressed and hopefully with a restrained and attractive tie.

Sadly, the world, which for some magically exotic and mysterious reason appears to have adopted English as a Universal Language, seems intent on adopting the dull; even dowdy Western dress as a Universal Dress Code.

Gone the lovely robes of India; the more delicate grace of the Chinese, the bright National costumes of so many peoples, even rebel armies of a dozen kinds have chosen the Jungle Green of the American army. And this is a great loss.

For beauty is a fleeting thing in our humanity. We, find it, best expressed in the face; and the qualities we look for are qualities of the personality.

The Venus of Milo; the David of Michelangelo, the beauty is the perfection of form, the calm strength of face and eye. This is the beauty of we admire; so in the Wake, Joyce writes again and again of such insights, but ever in riddle and paradox, and most appropriately in the voice of Anna Livia.

Thus, in Joyces Wake there is never explicit nakedness, never offence; his erotica is ever suggestive; the oblique; the risque; only slightly offensive. Amid the welter of words only rarely one of the infamous four letter words of Anglo Saxon is suggested, rarely explicit, tho always clear in meaning, as they were with Ulysses.

Both censor and seekers after porn will be disappointed; for, though he uses invective often, he does so with a cheerful Irish skill; and though the sexual relationship is a sub-theme running through the book, it is ever clothed in words; words often as well designed as the beautiful young women, and their clothes upon the red carpets of the fashion shows.

A zealous exegetist has counted those pages of Ulysses which contain an “Obscene” word or phrase or what. Of the seven hundred pages of the edition studied, only 57 such pages noted!

Part I, chapter V is a reasonably frank open discussion on the making of the Book of Kells; the version of the J.A. Joyce, his Orange book.

His conviction of genius is such that he imagines no doubts about the relationship between the Book of Kells, the magnificent picture of the Gospel, faithfully executed in the sixth century, now a National Treasure of Ireland, and Finnegan's Wake.

The mention of both in the same breath seems a crass heresy; but Joyce not ever thought or felt, it so.

Every beautiful page of the Book of Kells, tells of faith; of strength, of confidence, of peace; is a page rich in the warmth of human understanding of the greater mystery.

But the Wake? His ‘Book of Hells’.

No; his assumption of the name – his Book of Kells, is but a vanity. Another human folly, but, because it is a literary folly, we others accept the vanity as such; and withhold all judgment!

Throughout the Book, he persists with the indulgence; we must perforce, accept it as a thing done;

So P368
 

“And, when in Zumschloss, to never, narks, cease till the finally ending is consummated by the completion of accomplishment.”

So we go along with this man till the end, but with the certain understanding that when in Zumschloss, when we put the book down, there are still the unanswered questions, doubts and misgivings, but we know that we will return.

For we must return; until we begin to understand.

But such understanding is not granted lightly.

Whatever are we to make of P503
 

“And the grawndest crowndest consecrated maypole in all the reinladen history of Wilds. Browns Thesaurus – Plantarium from Nolan's, The Prittlewell Press has nothing like it. For we are fed of its forest, clad in its wood, burqued by its bark and our lecture is its leaves. The cram, the cram, the king of all crams _.”

Please do note the beautiful sentence “For we are fed of its forest _ _.” Interleaved between the weird word.

Nolan and Brown again, as they appear all through this merry-go-round of words, reference, name and word, Brown and Nolan again.

But sure, it is simply saying, that which Brown and Nolan wrote in it, is nothing at all like the real thing.

In short, no imagination; they cant see the woods for the trees; have little understanding of that which I am trying to say.

Other constructions possible.

Kevin is the genius, the others, but writers.

On P503, the same page, he asks,
 

“Now, do you know the wellknown Kikkinmidden where that illassorted first couple first meet each other? The place where Ealdermann Fanagan? The time when Junkermenn Funagin?”

And the reader to be left with an insolvable puzzle, a paradox.

Is this our pair, in yet another disguise?

And also on the page.
 

“Trickspasses will be pairsecluded.”

In short, Brown and Nolan encoded yet again. What a pair!

Or more cruelly, the work is nearing the ‘final ending of the completion of accomplishment’.
 
 

For example, P194
 

“Bewailing like a man that innosence which I could not defend like a woman -- -- -- the compline hour of being left alone -- -- -- when days woe, and lo, youre doomed; -- -- -- firstborn, and firstfruit of woe; -- -- -- in me, branded sheep, pick of the wastepaperbasket, by the tremours of Thundery, and Ularens dogstar; -- -- -- to me unseen blushed in an obscene coalhole -- -- -- dweller in the downandoutermost where voice only of the dead may come -- -- -- O me, lonely sun, ye are forgetting me -- -- --.”

And then, a merry tingling and jingling, happy and laughing sentence or so all about,
 

“Giddgaddy, grannyma, gossipaceous Anna Livia.”

Someone, somewhere, has done him wrong!

And he thinks it is Life!

But to Joyce a rather cruel Life!

There are many such paragraphs; all disguised, hidden in the broken or invented words; all on a similar note. This is a depression, in an acute and damaging form.

The words display the same negative defeatist attitude of stories in Dubliners – dark introspective pages of the ‘Portrait’, of similar episodes in Ulysses, and are a constant theme in the Wake.

The first page of this Wake, thoughts of reincarnation; the last pages of the Wake the same theme; but now spoken at the end of life, and in hope expectant.. 

As P158

In his dismissal Joyce treats us to a muted version of the death of Arthur; Sir Belvedere coveting Excalibur; why throw away so good a sword? And the woman of Avalon, the apple isle of healing; all present; a challenge to the eye and the ever searching mind. So, Joyce himself, and his work treated as but light to stir the mind!

“The sist of the whisp of the sigh of the softzing at the stir of the vergrose. -- -- -- shades begin to glitter along the bank; -- -- -- the mooskie could not hear -- -- -- nor see -- -- it was dusk, all glooming -- -- -- the Gripes heard Arthur, took instruction, took Excalibur to the water's edge -- why waste -- why lose it -- -- he ceased – tungandtrit and it was neversoever so dark for both of them; and he hid Excalibur, thinking he would come tomorrow to retrieve it; if he had luck enough. Oh, how it was dusk! -- -- -- tears began to fall -- Arthur distressed -- as we are now distressed for him -- -- --. Then there came down to the water a woman of strange appearance. She gathered up Arthur tenderly -- his wounds were grevious, his hoariness, where he was spread, and carried him away to her magical dwelling, for he was holy and sacred; and yet another woman came down to the water's, and she was comely, and carried away King Arthur in all his beauty to her unseen sheiling.”

But the lovely little parable of the Mooksie and the Gripes is well worth any effort of reading; even more, the effort of decoding.
 

“So the poor old gripes got it wrong, for that is as it is and always has been. And it was so thoughtful, of all of them.”

For those who know Tennysons magnificent Death of Arthur, Joyces trite version of the tragic story is just that – trite, but as ever it is written with purpose.
 

“For the river tripped by, lapping as tho her heart was broke.”

This could good reason, for this little vignette, is to test of a falling out with Brown --. It is but,
 

“Overtures and beginners.”

Joyce says, P159
 

“As I have successfully explained to you my own naturalborn rations (reasons) _ _ _ .

“ _ _ _ I am most desiring genius.”

Perhaps Browne mentioned, that perhaps he could be named as a co-writer of the Wake?

And then, King Arthur, castigates the Sir Belvedere for his coveting Excalibur!

Now this is the fancy; the interpretation of these two pages. The fancy is offered as a fancy, but it is a fancy with a close and visible touch of the old story.

Other readers may make other attempts to reduce the wordplay to English as she is spoke; but it is both possible and reasonable that the Joyce could see a reenactment of King Arthur and Sir Belvedere on the dim shore of those magic waters.

It is not too difficult a fancy for we humans; we who are gifted with imagination.

P226 Is a mad but sad threnody for fated Isuelt – the innocent of Ireland, her story that of Ireland and all the world.
 

“Poor Isa sits a glooming so gleaming in the gloaming -- -- -- Her beaumans gone -- --. Begood enough to sympathise! If he's anywhere, she is off to join him. If he's nowhere, she is going to join him. Bring tansy, throw myrtle. Strew, rue, rue, rue.”

So, a new version of the tragedy of Tristram and Isuelt.
 

“So and so, toe by toe to and fro they go -- -- -- for they are angels _ _ _ .”

Then follows a rondeau of word in praise of girls; the man just cannot help himself; 
 

“Rubretta and Arcania and the others!”

Of these girls and their names. He creates a rainbow! That promise of a better day!

Though they’re all but merely a schoolgirl. Yet, these went they and so, now until, untidy, untimely, he tells us in near a thousand words,
 

“Non de plume! Gout strap Finnlans! And send Jarg for Mary Inklanders. -- -- -- For he is the General, make no mistake in he. He is General Jinglesome.”

In the Queens English, James Joyce, and make no mistake about it!