The Skeleton Key

The delay in posting can be summarized as follows. I had a baby girl. No, I did not name her Finnegan. But she was born on St. Patrick's Day, so that should suffice as a worthy excuse. :)

I am now going to pick up where I left off by reading the first section of Joseph Campbell's A Skeleton Key To Finnegan's Wake. The goal here is to check out what I missed from a source I trust, and then plunge into section 2 on my own armed with this new perspective. So here goes.

Right away, it's clear I've missed something. Here's what Campbell says at the beginning of his section on Chapter 1.

The story of Finnegan, freed from the thematic entanglements of the first four paragraphs, now begins to run in a narrative style comparatively easy to follow.

Hmm.

I will have to go back and see where the division between the fourth and fifth paragraph lies. I do remember it getting easier to understand, but never easy to follow. If I look back at the post I wrote at the time, I could easily identify it as a description of Finnegan, but that's as far as I got.

Campbell goes on:

The first twenty-five pages of Joyce's narrative ... deal directly with the subject of the title theme: the fall, the wake, and the portended resurrection of the prehistoric hod carrier Finnegan.

Ok. I got the fall and the wake, and that it was about Finnegan. But I haven't gotten anything about a portended resurrection, and prehistoric? Really? I had no idea what time period this was set in.

Campbell then goes on to translate portions of the book. I find this exercise fairly infuriating. Not because of the translation, but because of how Joyce wrote it in the first place. Here's an example, and then I'll explain more of what I mean.

The original of paragraph 5:

Of the first was he to bare arms and a name: Wassaily Booslaeugh of Riesengeborg. His crest of huroldry, in vert with ancillars, troublant, argent, a hegoak, poursuivant, horrid, horned. His scutschum fessed, with archers strung, helio, of the second. Hootch is for husbandman handling his hoe. Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnagain! Comeday morm and, O, you're vine! Sendday's eve and, ah, you're vinegar! Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you're going to be fined again!

And then the translation:

He was of the first to bear arms and a name: Wassaily Bouslaeugh of Riesengeborg. His crest, green, showed in silver a he-goat pursuing two maids, and bore and escutcheon with silver sun-emblem and archers at the ready. Its legend: Hohohoho! Hahahaha! Mr. Finn you're going to be Mr. Finn-again! In the morn you're vine, in the eve you're vinegar. Mr. Funn, you're going to be fined again!

When you look at the two, you can see the translation very clearly. It's like reading Chaucer's English. But the real question I have is - what does it add? Chaucer wrote that way because English was spoken and written that way at the time. But Joyce is deliberately obscuring his story. If it were a map for a hidden treasure, I might appreciate this. But the translation maintains the word play and the important elements. There's not as much alliteration, and the words are undoubtedly less vivid, but I see much more gained in translation than lost.

Reading the translated version first does make reading the original much more fun. I recommend that, actually. Read the translation and then read the original aloud. There is something wonderful gained in that - beyond simple understanding. But to me, this does not outweigh the difficulty and annoyance of the original as written, and I still can't believe Joyce would want us to read it in translation first, with the two texts side by side.

Here's another instructive example. Campbell's book points us to the word "hierarchitectitiptitoploftical" on page 5. The footnote says this:

This is a good word on which to practice. Note the way in which it combines the words "hierarchy," "architect," "tipsy," and "toplofty," climbing up and up, beyond every expectation, like a skyscraper.

That much I would have gotten on my own. But the footnote goes on:

In Joyce's text, the phrase "with larroons o'toolers clittering up and tombles a'buckets clottering down" refers to Lawrence O'Toole and Thomas a Becket, bishops respectively of Dublin and Canterbury in the time of Henry II. The former advanced his personal career, the latter was martyred.

Now, not only could I never have worked that out on my own, I am also at a complete failure to see why any of it matters. I do see the connection between "laroons o'toolers" and "Lawrence O'Toole," but what is the purpose of this foggy fireworks display? Is the fact that I'm looking for a purpose where I'm going wrong?

Here's another footnote that I find intriguing.

The Blue Book of our local Herodotus, Mammon Lujius, is finally the dream guidebook, history book, Finnegan's Wake itself. It is here regarded as any ancient tome that might be at hand. "Blue Book" suggests the well-known "Blue Guide" series of travel books. The name "Herodotus" is modified in the text to the "herodotary" ("doting on heroes"). Mammon Lujius is a name based on the initials M. M. L. J. of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Evangelists whose gospels are the history book of the Living Word. The four Evangelists coalesce with four Irish annalists, whose chronicle of ancient times is known as The Book of the Four Masters. These four again coalesce with four old men, familiars to the tavern of HCE, who forever sit around fatuously rechewing tales of the good old days. These four guardians of ancient tradition are identical with the four "World Guardians" (Lokapalas) of the Tibetan Buddhistic mandalas, who protect the four corners of the world - these being finally identical with the four caryatids, giants, dwarfs, or elephants, which hold up the four corners of the heavens.

I am just enough of a nerd that this is the type of footnote that really excites me. It's why I love both Campbell and Stephen Mitchell - their footnotes are often as good as the text itself. Campbell has a similar deconstruction of the Nataraja Shiva image that I enjoy - it unpacks the image for all of its dense symbolism in a way that not only makes sense of the whole, but increases the sense of wonder involved, unlike most analysis, which kills it altogether. I do appreciate the many layers, and so it's not this which bothers me about FW. Instead, it is the thick, metallic curtain of language that Joyce has placed in front of it, making it too much work to even get this far without a sherpa like Campbell to guide you.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not demanding that I should be able to understand all this by myself with my own limited resources. I just would like to be able to get some part of it on my own, and then turn to my sherpa docent for more detail. When I first look at the Nataraja Shiva, I won't get much of the layered symbolism, but it will still arrest me and draw me into itself without anyone to offer any explanation. FW intrigues me, but does not reward the curious adventurer. On the contrary, I feel punished and shunned.

That's enough for now - I've been working on this post for weeks. More to come soon.

By the way, this is a very funny article about someone who tried to get Google's computers to transcribe Joyce reading the work.

The End of Round 1

I have now finished reading through page 29, which is the first sort of chapter/ section break in the book. I'd like to take this opportunity to breathe and regroup, reflect on what I've experienced and gained so far, and map out a modified way forward.

I am now able to read whole paragraphs and pages at a time, and I feel like I am well aware of what's going on in individual pages and paragraphs, but still at sea as to a pattern connecting the whole. I can see the word play constantly, and I can read at a fairly satisfying pace, connecting subjects and verbs and getting a basic sense of flow. This may sound immensely remedial (which it is!), but after all, I'm having to learn a new language as I go, without the benefit of a teacher or even a dictionary. It is truly a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. I can identify hundreds of details in a close-up, but am unable to pull back into the wide shot and see the whole.

I've also made a host of connections to other types of art, music and literature, all of which have helped me somewhat in understanding what Joyce is up to. I talked about Robert Wilson in a previous post, and I'm also reminded of Jackson Pollock. I read a book a few years back that I found in a used bookstore called Art & Physics, by Leonard Shlain. This is a wonderful study of the historical moments in art and science, and it shows (fairly convincingly) that every scientific innovation was preceded by a similar development in art. So particle physics and relativity were preceded by cubism, and Newton was predated by da Vinci. I don't want to recreate his entire argument here, but the upshot is that if we want to know what the important scientific developments of the future will be, we should look at what's happening in modern art. Just as a baby recognizes an enormously complex variety of images that correspond to a bottle long before learning the word, so, Shlain argues, humanity understands the universe visually and intuitively long before developing coherent explanations. His chapter on Pollock was particularly illuminating for me, because he talked about how what Pollock was doing was (I'm sure I'm oversimplifying this) working himself into an emotional state as he flung the paint on the canvas, and what we are looking at in his art is a souvenir of that state, like a ticket from a theme park ride that has been stained with all the colors and emotions that went with it.

Where this reminds me of Joyce is that, no matter how far I penetrate into the words, I still feel like there is something fundamental missing. I feel there is an experience to be had, but I'm still on the very outskirts of it, looking in. I can't imagine a writer taking 16 years to write a book - begging money all the time - just to create an incomprehensible mishmash of words that no one could penetrate. I also have trouble understanding why an author would write a book that requires critical analysis to be understood, but as my colleague Mil pointed out, the intended audience of the modernists was mostly art critics. The languages they were experimenting in created an experience that really was for insiders, and things like biography, authorial intent, and obscure allusions were all part of the game. Eliot's Wasteland is a prime example, with footnotes that are longer than the poem itself.

I have also arrived back at the point where I wonder if there really is anything more than the Emperor's New Clothes here. Despite the progress I have made, I am feeling deliberately excluded by this work. Not only is there a perceived inner circle that Joyce may have been writing for, but that circle must be extremely small, and I get the sense that he is laughing at us from inside of it. The word play is intricate, but often seems pointless, like when he says

"One's upon a thyme and two's behind their lettice leap and three's among the strubbely beds." (20)

or

"The lads is attending school nessans regular, sir, spelling beesknees with hathatansy and turning out tables by mudapplication." (26)

Sure I can see the point of one's/once and two's, and thyme/time coupled with lettice/lettuce, but what higher purpose does this serve? If the purpose is to be witty or funny, it doesn't really succeed at either. The puns are not clever, as far as I can tell, and what is impressive about them is not their insightfulness but their density. They feel like a gimmick - just one step above the way teens write their text messages: idk WTH 4ni uv th15 m3nz 4niwai IYKWIM.

Is the purpose to create a confused state on the part of the reader? Is it like a Zen Koan - intending to short circuit the intellect? Either way, despite all the progress I've made, this still feels deliberately exclusive.

And so what I've decided to do for Round 2 is to read part of Joseph Campbell's Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake. I know that's a scholarly source, and I said I wouldn't read those! While I am very glad to have done this experiment in this way so far, I believe I have now discovered my limitations. Without context and insight, I do not believe that reading 600 pages in this way will be any different than reading 30. The example I have been using is that it is like buying lottery tickets. The difference between not buying a lottery ticket and buying one ticket is an immense difference. But the difference between buying one ticket and buying two makes no difference at all.

My hope is not to get a full-on explanation, but simply to get a new window and context through which to engage with the text. With just a few reinforcements, I think I'll be ready for Round 2.

Satori

It's been several days since I've been able to pick up the book, but I had a pretty exciting moment today when I read a paragraph and felt really anchored for the whole thing. Is this because I'm improving in my ability to translate this foreign language? Or is Joyce suddenly being more clear? In one way, the victory of almost understanding one paragraph in a 628 page book may seem ridiculous, but it still made me almost giddy. Here's the paragraph in question:

Shize? I should shee! Macool, Macool, orra whyi deed ye diie? of a trying thirstay mournin? Sobs they sighdid at Fillagain's chrissormiss wake, all the hoolivans of the nation, prostrated in their consternation and their duodisimally profusive plethora of ululation. There was plubs and grumes and cheriffs and citherers and raiders and cinemen too. And the all gained in with the shoutmost shoviality. Agog and magog and round them agrog. To the continuation of that celebration until Hanandhunigan's exgtermination! Some in kinkin corass, more, kankan keening. Belling him up and filling him down. He's stiff but he's steady is Priam Olim! 'Twas he was the dacent gaylabouring youth. Sharpen his pillowscone, tap up his bier! E'erawhere in this whorl would ye hear sich a din again? With their deepbrow fundings and the dusty fidelios. They laid him brawdawn alanglast bed. With a bockalips of finisky fore his feet. And a barrowload of guenesis hoer his head. Tee the tootal of the fluid hang the twoddle of the fuddled, O! (p. 6)

I would be interested if anyone feels the same about this paragraph. I'm not pretending to understand every word, but I was able to read it straight through, with a real sense of comprehension, as well as a simultaneous appreciation for the internal rhyme ("all the hoolivans of the nation, prostrated in their consternation") and telling mispellings ("the shoutmost shoviality").

Reading this way reminds me of that phenomenon in which the human brain can read words that are completely misspelled as long as the first and last letter are in the correct position. In case you haven't seen this, here's what I'm talking about.

Reading this paragraph in Joyce is not exactly the same, but the feeling in the brain is the same. In addition, there is another benefit in the word play (as noted in the previous entry), and allusions that are thrown in.

And now I've just read 4 pages in a row with the same result. I'm definitely getting the hang of something here! But I can definitely feel my brain functioning differently as I read. It's like I can feel the neurons stretching in a different direction, but for the first time today, it's a direction they enjoy stretching in, like a good yoga class.

Here's a little description I enjoyed:

The wagrant wind's awalt'zaround the piltdowns and on every blasted knollyrock (if you can spot fifty I spy four more) there's that gnarlybird ygathering, a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle, kicksalittle, severalittle, eatalittle, whinealittle, kenalittle, helfalittle, peflalittle gnarlybird. (p. 10)

This is the perfect proof of the value of what Joyce is attempting . I could spend all day spelling words correctly and clearly, and never capture the personality of that little bird half as well as this does when read aloud (and read quickly). The only example I know of that could come close is another of my favorite poets - again a great experimenter - Gerard Manley Hopkins:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him stead air, and striding

Hi there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

That's always been one of my favorite poems, especially when read aloud, because it captures the movement of the falcon so perfectly. Hopkins and cummings and Joyce are the great grammar busters, and they really do show the limitations of grammar (this from an English teacher). Grammatical correctness is like political correctness - it offends no one and is also not all that interesting.

While I'm in the middle of my paradigm shift here, I'm reminded of one more story that sheds some light on why I'm doing this project the way I'm doing it. There is an American theater director named Robert Wilson who was born in Texas, but has developed a much bigger following in Europe than in the United States. Perhaps his most (in)famous production is a 5-hour play with no intermission called Einstein on the Beach, in which a group of people in Einstein wigs perform repetitive motions almost endlessly. The first production I actually saw of his was a Wagner opera in which one of the most rousing numbers consisted of a single spotlight focused tightly on the hand of one of the singers, with everything else in blackness. This was the same production that began with a huge rousing overture in which the only thing happening on-stage was a single light cue from black to green for the entire piece. I was not only bewildered but also sort of offended by the experience, that I would be expected to sit through such a torturous experience for so many hours.

But I have never wanted to let anything defeat me, and so I picked up a book on Wilson on the way home. I read the book and learned that Wilson is profoundly dyslexic. He says he cannot follow a complex plot, and so did not want to create one. Instead, he says, he wants to create an experience that is trace-like, to put his viewers into a transcendent state rather than appeal to their intellect. This is why there is no intermission. You can leave the show whenever you want to go to the bathroom or get something to eat - when you come back, you haven't missed anything, you can just re-enter the meditation.

Knowing this made a huge difference for me. I went to see another Wilson show when he was back in town - this one written by Lou Reed - and without the expectation of a linear plot, I just settled into my seat the way that you might get settled in for a long plane ride. Turning off the critical factor, I did indeed find myself transported beyond the intellect into a remarkable experience of color and sound and an altered sense of time.

Without any scholarly guidance, I've had trouble entering Finnegan's Wake in this way because I don't know what part of my consciousness to turn off, and what to turn on. But I seem to be fumbling my way forward, and - for today anyway - making a tiny bit of progress.

Word Play

Still getting no where in terms of a plot. Or even of a location. Or of any sense of what is going on.

But I'm fairly dazzled by the word play. Here's a good passage:

His howd feeled heavy, his hoddit did shake. (There was a wall of course in erection) Dimb! He stottered from the latter. Damb! he was dud. Dumb! Mastabatoom, mastabadtoom, when a moon merries his lute is all long. For whole the world to see.

The other writer this is now reminding me of (perhaps my favorite novelist) is Vladimir Nabokov. While the fascination and expertise with wordplay are similar, the use and function of them are opposite. When you read a novel by Nabokov, you get totally gripped in the story, and it's only afterward (or when you are reading his introductions) that you start to see the playful language. Sometimes it's more obvious (like in Pnin), but it's always there. Here, however, the wordplay is completely obscuring the sense of the piece.

Foreground and background again. Somehow I've got to find a way to distinguish what's important. It's like people who have that brain defect where they cannot distinguish different sound levels, and so every sound - air conditioners, light breezes, screaming football fans - all carry equal weight. I guess this is also like those Magic Eye Stereograms from the 90's that I could never do. I don't need a plot, but somehow I do have to find some sort of pattern.

Listening

David found a YouTube video of James Joyce reading from Finnegan's Wake. I don't count this as scholarship because it's the author. I can't figure out where he's reading from, but it seems crystal clear in comparison to reading it on the page. If I can find the page, I think this might be a real key. I have felt from the beginning that this is something that needs to be heard instead of just read.

Anyone know what part of the book this is from?

Navigating

This seems really remedial, but I'm going to use this post just to document what I can figure out in terms of bare basics.

The first paragraph locates us. It's also reminding us of the circular nature of the novel ("a commodius vicus of recirculation") and then it lands us at Howth Castle and Environs. I wonder if Sir Tristram may be a protagonist of sorts? I think perhaps Sir Tristram is arriving from North America to Ireland ("the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor"). "The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man..." We're dealing with a wake, so is this an announcement? The announcement of his death? I love the words in this sentence:

The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the w

est in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

If I had to translate this - knowing nothing so far, and so probably completely wrong - I might say it's about a notice of some sort that entails the death ("pftjschute") of Finnegan, who was in life a solid man, but his death ("the humptyhillhead of humself," like a gravestone?) promptly sends someone on a journey to the west looking for him, and where he lies is in a grave "where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green."

So we have someone who has died and someone who is going to the wake now.

Maybe?

Whew. It's taken me an hour to get this far, and I have absolutely no idea if I'm anywhere near the zip code, let

alone the mark.

Many of the words are just flat out made up, of course, and onomatopeia must play a large role here. "The fall (bababadalgharaghtakammionarronnkonnbronn...thurnuk!)" - surely this is the sound of a fall!

I looked up "violer d'am

ores" on Google Translate, and it had trouble with it. "Violer" means "rape." I presume "d'amores" has something to do with love. May ask my French teacher friends. Of course Joyce could be created French words, in the same way he's making up English words, and so maybe it just means "violator of loves."

On page 4, we get our first description of Finnegan:

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen's maurer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofarback for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers of Helviticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very water was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!) and during might odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper's Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso.

Other than the fact that

my head is now pounding, there are some small shoots of understanding emerging here. I think as long as I can anchor myself in the subject and verb of each sentence, the adjectives and adverbs can become background noise. Of course, they are important too (and for me are both the most interesting and most distracting parts), but what's most difficult here is that the text doesn't feel like it has a foreground. As I read this section, just identifying subject-verb-object and letting the rest wash over me seems to help.

I do wonder, however, how this book was edited. It will be really interesting to look that up when I'm done. I love words like "hierarchitectitiptitoploftical," which (aside from driving the spellcheck crazy) looks at first like a word you want to skip over. But then you see the roots in there. Hierarchical, with "architect" and "tip top loft" embedded inside it. This now reminds me of e.e. cummings. One of my favorite poems of his is this one:

If you haven't seen this poem before, stare at it for a few minutes. The method here is the same - embedding words within words. Of course, the length of the cummings poem rewards effort with a quick sense of satisfaction, which is so far missing from the Joyce for me. And it takes a long time to work these things out, which explains why I'm only on page 5 so far (the book starts on page 3), and haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what may be at work here.

But each little pin-prick makes me feel like I have some small chance of entering in. I'm not navigating yet, but I feel like the compass arrow is starting to settle down.

Starting Over and A Little Housekeeping

So I've had the night to think it over, and while I really liked Sarah's idea of starting on page 237, I found 2 issues with this that go beyond comprehension.

First, 4 other people are reading this with me, and so for us to have any sort of meaningful conversation, we need to be (literally) on the same page.

And second, even though the book may be (in)comprehensible when starting at any point, there is an authorial intent in starting from the beginning.

These considerations seem strong enough for me to start at page 1, so that's what I'll be doing today. Don't worry, 237, I'll see you again!

Also, I have changed the settings to allow posting a comment without signing in and without moderation, so it should be much easier to comment now, and I hope you'll take full advantage of that!

And finally, if you want to follow the blog, there are several ways to do this. If you have a regular Google account, you can follow by joining over on the right side of the blog. Or you can subscribe through Google Reader, if that's your thing (very easy that way), or you can just check back to the page from time to time. Let me know if you want help with any of this.

All right. Here we go again!

FW Song

Vlastik posted this in the comments, but I thought it deserved its own posting.

Finnegan's Wake (traditional) (with audience participation notes)

by The Dubliners



Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
An' to rise in the world he carried a hod
You see he'd a sort of a tippler's way
but for the love for the liquor poor Tim was born
To help him on his way each day,
he'd a drop of the craythur every morn

CHORUS
Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
round the flure yer trotters shake
Bend an ear to the truth they tell ye,
we had lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

One morning Tim got rather full,
his head felt heavy which made him shake (audience convulses)
Fell from a ladder and he broke his skull, and
they carried him home his corpse to wake
Rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
and laid him out upon the bed
A bottle of whiskey at his feet
and a barrel of porter at his head

CHORUS

His friends assembled at the wake,
and Widow Finnegan called for lunch (audience yells "LUNCH!)
First she brought in tea and cake,
then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch
Biddy O'Brien began to cry, (audience yells "Boo hoo hoo!)
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see,
Tim, auvreem! O, why did you die?",
"Will ye hould your gob?" said Paddy McGee

CHORUS

Then Maggie O'Connor took up the cry,
"O Biddy" says she "you're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and sent her sprawling on the floor
Then the war did soon engage,
t'was woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began

CHORUS

Mickey Maloney ducked his head
when a bucket of whiskey flew at him
It missed, and falling on the bed,
the liquor scattered over Tim
Now the spirits new life gave the corpse, my joy!
Tim jumped like a Trojan from the bed
Cryin will ye walup each girl and boy,
t'underin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?"

CHORUS repeat

towooerds him in heliolatry...

Well.

Getting started on page 237. I can't believe I'm doing this. Just in case you haven't read the book, let me type out the opening paragraph on page 237 so you will get a sense of what I'm up against.

thing feminite, towooerds him in heliolatry, so they may catchup in their calyzettes, alls they go troping, those parryshoots from his muscalone pistil, for he can eyespy through them, to their selfcolours, nevertheleast their tissue peepers, (meaning Mullabury mesh, the time of appling flowers, a guarded figure of speech, a variety of perfume, a bridawl, seamist inso one), as leichtly as see saw (O my goodmiss! O my greatmess! O my prizelestly preshoes!) while, dewyfully as dimb dumbelles, all alisten to his elixir. Lovelyt!

That's what greets me at the top of page 237.

In a sort of a panic, I turned to page 1, just out of curiosity, to see what a devastating mistake I made. However, I ended up quite reassured since page 1 is no more comprehensible.

ruverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to weilderfight his pensiolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios whole they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoic from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kikdscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonn-thunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstraight oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstresly.

So at least on a surface level, I'm not any worse off on page 237.

But oddly enough, as I typed out the selections, they made more sense to me, on a sort of non-sense level. Or should I say on a sensory level, as opposed to intellectual. Something started to click. I can't name what it is yet, but it felt like something I could follow. I think reading it aloud will help, and from what I've read before, I think I shouldn't struggle too hard to understand the plot. I have a feeling the story will emerge on its own, and that really it's about sounds and images and the playfulness of the language. Like the difference between learning about biology in a class or just splashing around in a mud puddle. Sure, it may be difficult to figure out exactly what's going on, but it's still fun to splash around, and the education there is perhaps less linear, but no less profound. If this actually is non-linear but still something I can experience, I'll be mightily impressed!

I'm barely into Round 1 and already reeling from the punches, but the sounds and the colors are kind of pretty!

237

Snippet from a conversation with a friend and colleague in the hall today.

Sarah: So have you started the book yet? (This has been a fairly constant question for me this week.)

Me: No, not yet. Hopefully today!

Sarah: What is it you're reading again?

Me: Finnegan's Wake.

Sarah: Oh, right. I read your email about that.

Me: (showing the book) Yeah. Apparently, the book is circular, and the first half sentence is actually the second half of the sentence that ends the book. So the theory is that you could pick up the book anywhere and start from there.

Sarah: So where are you starting from?

Me: I'll probably just start from the beginning.

Sarah: Boring!

Me: Well, I guess that's fair.

Sarah: You should start on page 237. Find out if it's really true.

Me: Hmm. Good idea.

So I guess that's where I'm starting....

Boxing an Irishman

I've seen enough Jim Sheridan movies to know that boxing an Irishman is never a great idea.

Yesterday, I sent an email to our faculty to let people know what I was doing in case they were interested. I honestly didn't expect anyone to reply or even read the email. But very quickly, my inbox started filling up, and I posted several of them to the comments section of yesterday's entry. It seems like this project has touched a nerve. Two people even decided they want to join me in reading the book. All of the comments suggest intriguingly complex relationships to Joyce. The language at times implies the type of relationship you might have with an abusive father. There is grudging respect, emotional scarring, guarded tenderness, and the type of connection that clearly transcends the academic. You can read them yourself, but let me deal with a few of them here.

The responses I got seemed to fall into several distinct categories. The first can be summed up this way:

I'd rather burn my first edition of DeLillo's "Americana" than slog through "Finnegans Wake." I'll certainly read your blog and roll an occasional Red Bull across the cafeteria.

And then there are the dire warnings:

Please start with Dubliners and use a Reader's Guide which we have. Nobody attacks Joyce successfullly without a teacher, and forget about "Finnegan's Wake."

I love the compassionate tone, which could be read to imply some sort of physical danger could be involved. This was reflected elsewhere in the comments too.

It is like hearing the ocean is a really great place and jumping in the middle of the ocean when a storm is going on.

Or this:

If I were you, I would have chosen Ulysses. An easier opponent to box. At least the Bible is in English.

A lot of people said I should start with Ulysses, but I think if I conquer FW first, then when I do get to Ulysses, it will be like beach reading.

People in the hallways have expressed their commiseration as well, saying things like, "So I heard about your Joyce project..." followed by the type of pause they might use if they found out a close personal friend of mine had died.

On the other side of the spectrum, I've had some wonderful comments about how transformational Joyce has been, and these little hints are what make the project seem so worthwhile.

I probably think about JJ about once a week at least. While I was running yesterday, for instance.

Or this:

I can't say I like his work, I just can't forget it or let it go as I have so many others, it still fascinates.

Or this:

My favorite moment in "Araby" is the pause between these two lines: "'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you something.'" and "What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening!" So much is implied in that pause, that break. The 2nd sentence encapsulates 14-year-old love better than almost anything else. I was that boy at that age.

That's not the type of comment I've heard about Joyce before. Always the awed respect, but rarely the personal identification. All of this reinforces for me why I want to do the project in this way. The encouraging comments are all wonderfully complex and personal, and show that when the works touch you, they can leave a permanent scar. Those who connected find themselves looking at the world differently, and find this new paradigm unforgettable.

But what confirms me most are the warnings. If a book cannot be understood, unaided, by a reasonably intelligent person, then what does that say about the book? If those who were affected by the book could only achieve that in a classroom setting, then how much of that has to do with the relationship with the teacher? Perhaps - as has been suggested - this is the essence of post-modernism, that this type of book cannot be separated from its intricate context, and shouldn't be. David (my co-teacher of the Living Epic course) suggested that it would be like trying to start reading The Two Towers without reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and that perhaps FW is not a standalone work - that it needs the context of his other writings, and even perhaps his own biography, to be understood properly. And I do understand this, and it's probably why I'll lose this fight.

But losing, ironically, would be the best outcome here.

Or perhaps the only better outcome would be to succeed not in proving that the work is not worth the effort, but in proving that the work can be understood on its own terms, and what I can bring to the text are my own experiences, my own biography, my own cultural references, my own curiosity. I am certainly allowing myself to look things up - dictionaries, encyclopedias, the internet, and of course the contributions of those who participate with me and comment here. But literature is ultimately a conversation between an author and a reader, and should not require the intervention of the scholar or the critic. I know that's a Protestant belief, and Joyce's complex relationship with Catholicism may complicate this even more, but I stand by the principle that a great work of literature should reward the seeking heart without having to be filtered.

So while I'm boxing a dead Irishman here, I'm actually searching for ways for his blows to reach me.

I just heard the bell. Time for Round 1 to begin...

A Confession

I have a confession to make.

I have never liked James Joyce. Now, this may not mean anything to most of the people on the planet, but you see, I'm an English teacher. A teacher who for several years specialized in British Literature. In addition to this, most of the authors and teachers I respect, as well as many of my friends, are Joyce fanatics. A friend of mine invited me three years in a row to a celebration in NYC, where Ulysses would be read aloud in its entirety on Bloomsday. After the third year of lame excuses, I lost not only an opportunity to appreciate Joyce anew, but also my friend, who hasn't communicated with me since. Apparently, this was a rift too deep to bridge.

It's not like I haven't tried. In high school, I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. My father recommended it, and every other book he recommended has been ingrained on my psyche like a permanent tattoo. He was an English professor and later a bookstore owner, and supplied the reading list for the entire first half of my life, unfailingly handing me precisely the right book at precisely the right time, diagnosing and prescribing exactly the right medicine for my slowly evolving soul. And so I struggled through every page of Portrait..., certain it would eventually speak to me.

It didn't.

My father and I had quite a few discussions about Joyce's aesthetic theory, but it seemed to me more like something that should have been an essay. I didn't believe Joyce achieved what he was aiming for.

But just about every one of my literary heroes swears he did. T.S. Eliot shaped my youth as clearly as if I were clay in his hands, and he called Ulysses “the most important expression which this present age has found," a “book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape."

While still acknowledging my limits, I can say confidently that it's not a lack of intellectual ability that left me cold to Joyce. I am unique among the English majors I know in having loved Paradise Lost. I am comfortable among intellectual heavyweights as well as modern authors who spin their tales like Jackson Pollock flung paint. I have connected to the theater of Robert Wilson and Ariane Mnouchkine and Anne Bogart, as well as Joyce's protege, Samuel Becket, who remains one of my favorite playwrights of all time, especially in his obscure mode, as in Krapp's Last Tape and Rockabye.

When I taught British Literature, the other teachers taught Dubliners for the unit on modernism, but I convinced the administration to let me teach Virginia Woolf instead, pleading that women writers were under-represented in the curriculum. While this is true, and while I adore Woolf in nearly every possible way, there was also an element of cowardice in this decision. How can I teach something that leaves me so profoundly cold? Woolf herself called Joyce "a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples," and this perhaps explains some part of my devotion to her. I couldn't shake the feeling that Joyce was really weaving the Emperor's New Clothes. But if this was so, why had so many of my heroes been taken in?

Other than Portrait... and sections of Dubliners, however, I haven't read any other works by Joyce. And I have never been one to allow myself to be defeated by anything that it is within my capacity to conquer. And so as a project for my Living Epic class, I have decided to wade once again into the treacherous waters of the enemy. I am going to work my way through one of his masterworks, from beginning to end. The current plan is to work through Finnegan's Wake, since Joseph Campbell speaks so highly of this work, and I may save Ulysses for the next project. However, I want to discover it only on its own merits, so I will not be reading Campbell's Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake (or any other scholarly works) until after I complete the exploration on my own. If the essence is really there, I should be able to find it unaided and untethered.

A few years ago, while I was teaching a course in the Hebrew Bible as Literature, I discovered the wonderful blog by David Plotz called Blogging the Bible. In this project, Plotz read the entire bible (the foundation of his faith as a Jew), but blindly, without any help from the scholars. What he discovered was surprising and original and profound and quite funny at times. I plan to model this project on his, refusing to look at any scholarly interpretations, but at the same time engaging fully with anyone who wants to comment on this blog. I will try to attract some Joyce fans and engage them in the merits of the work, and while I will begin as a skeptic, I will keep an open mind. After all, Joyce is as foundational to my field as the Bible is to the Jewish faith. I am eager to be convinced, but I also won't give in easily. It is my hope to discover what's really there beyond the smoke and mirrors. Either I will find out I've been right all along, or will finally discover the root of my ignorance and dig it out once and for all.

Hopefully I won't lose any more friends in the process...