Schizophrenic Languages and Study books!

‘(v. Some Forestallings over that Studium of Sexophonologistic Schizophrenesis, Vol. xxiv, pp. 2-555)’

                                   (P: 123 L: 17-19)

   Being the critical analyzer that I want to be, I immediately think of some huge expansive (or expensive) study book on Linguistics (a subject I wish to study, thanks to Joyce) and with that, stalling to get things done, I am very lazy.

   Now, being the critical analyzer that I should be, I would only focus on the combination of ‘sexo’ and ‘phonologistic’ and then go one to say that with this combination possible, sex and speech go hand and hand and can cause a schizophrenic rip between the two, and I would  then go on to say that ‘studium’ is a stadium of critical study...

But being the immature ‘Crit-Anal’ that I really am, I just shake my head, Laugh at Joyce’s words (in a manner he would find appropriate) and think upon one quote by Laurence Sterne:

    “Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”

Study hard or not at all… which ever works!

Lowly Wails and Yawn-ing

'Lowly, longly a wail went forth. Pure Yawn lay low. On the mead of the hillock lay.'

                                                  (P: 474 L: 1-2)

     Regarding the fact that Yawn is really just another name for Shaun the Post, who’s brother,  Shem is the greater one in the family, (they are ALWAYS depicted as feuding brothers all throughout the histories, not unlike the famed ‘brother dynamic’ Joseph Campbell talks about and many writers use as plots… Universality of Words, I guess) Yawn is now alone, but all I can think about is a river (Damn River!) and a barrel floating down it in a day break kind of morning, and then something comes to completion- ‘On the mead of the hillock lay’ it seems the peaceful ride is over and more ‘night’ things have to happen, maybe Yawn will get some peace (he won’t though, he is never destined for it).

     I want to point out the first six words ‘Lowly, longly a wail went forth.’ Now only the first two words ‘Lowly, longly’ I just love the sort of rhythm that those two words can pack together . Then we look at ‘a wail went forth’ sounding like ale ent orth disrupts the more natural sounding rhythms’ flow you could say, with the first two words going –ly -ly then  -ale –ent –orth combine these together and you have this sensation of bobbing up and down a river bend, or at least I do, which adds to the scene more. (And people think Joyce didn’t have an ear for rhythm Ha!)

In the Foreign tribe of Victory!

'And Dub did glow that night. In the Fingal of victories'

                                (P:329 L: 13)

     According  to the dictionary (most anyway) the word ‘fingal’ comes from (of course) the Irish word ‘Fine Gall’ or as I will point out the possible significant meaning(s) ‘Foreign tribe’ and an administrative county founded in 1994 (with references to giants as all of Ireland seems to make from time to time).

      I first noticed Fingal when I heard Joyce himself (‘Pace bee with him’) recite it in 1929 with the River or ALP chapter (many river names are hidden in that particular chapter… I can only count ten!)  ‘of fingalls and dotthergills’ (P:  215 L: 14) and for me, in this context (above quote) can only mean a sort of foreign tribe winning a victory by night fall (a Norse ballad could be written about this, as many were recorded in song) and war kind of penetrates  all throughout The Wake don’t forget the top of the second page ‘what clashes here… something fishy gods” .

     I would have loved to go into the county its self and maybe I will someday… but one problem remains when you take things into (not out of) context, the country was founded in 1994 WAY after Finngeans Wake was published… so only two possible images pop up; that of a tribal victory or of a massive (Irish) giant… so I leave you with those and hope you can come up with some more… watch out for footsteps!

Talk About Muck!

‘Talk of Paddy barke’s echo! Kick nuck, Knockcastle!  Muck!’

                                      (P: 378 L: 36-37 (379))

This reminds me of dirty mud (have you heard of clean mud) or a dirty castle, as compared to Howth castle which is supposed to be clean. Now I vaguely recall reading about a Castle on Loch Ness and that this Knockcastle is in reference to it, but that is the denotative meaning, I’m looking for inspiration and all I am getting is some Irish guy’s echo and kicks in the head! But perhaps that is what I am supposed to get from it.

Putting the Fear of the Wake in 'ya

To pump the fire of the lewd into the soulths of bauchees havsouedovers, tillfellthey deadwar knootvindict

(P:370 L:31)

This line, in the third book seems to me to be a sour bitter sermon; to pump, let us assume is really a description of mass market religiosity, in that I mean that people are being 'pumped' with religion everyday until they die in a war, a dead war at that.  Everyday we are fed this message of 'cleanliness is next to godliness' that is just not true sometimes. And the word 'soulths' adds to this image of a 'sermon by fire' sort of like a trail by fire (war?), although, why not a sermon by thunder?

Double face-ness and rhythm?

I think of this line as a sort of reflective imagery rhythm a moment of doubling reality:

Shutmup. And bud did down well right. And if he sung dumb in his glass darkly speech lit face to face allaround. ( P: 355 L: 8-9)

   You should be able to find this rhythm in the first few lines ‘And bud did down well right.’ And the above mentioned reflective imagery (double I might add!) is ‘And if he sung dumb (word rhythm) in his glass darkly’ I think of singing blindly and wildly without much clue as to what you are singing; one where you have a moment when you just go for it and don’t give a damn (much like Joyce, who was not all blind).

   ‘Speech lit face to face’ reminds me a bit of the Allen Ginsberg ‘A Supermarket in California’ line ‘the trees add shade to shade’; and William Faulkner’s As I lay dying when Darl is on the train to Jefferson and sees two men who he remarks as looking like a double French penny (right?) and this brings me to a surrealist image of a deep, moving complexity of the human soul. And on and on or should I say on to on…

What I am doing here and why

I am an avid reader of James Joyce (And more often than not I read more books then I can remember) I also happen to enjoyce him (get it?) there is something with Joyce that is... well easy for me to get into Finnegans Wake is as much my Bible as anything else.  

   What I will try to do is give you a glimpse into reading and understanding the Wake through stream or conciseness study words (i.e., I will give you a line I literally looked up at random and tell you what that particular line means to me). As for a profile picture for this blog; I don’t like pictures of myself in the flesh … I would really like that Page 30 (Here Comes Everybody) Illustration on Stephen Crowe’s Wake in Progress website (which gave me the idea to do this in the first place, Minus the illustrations I will link that site once I am not so busy fixing my own).

So, I hope you will see the blog; go “what the hell is “Television kills telephony in brothers' broil”. (Part:1 Episode:3 Page:52 ) and then I can only hope that this will make sense to you once you see where I’m coming from.

My key for the quotations that I use:

For Page: P

For the line it appears in : L

Quiet simple right?