Weeks 5-6 (JF)

FW pp. 54-78

Hi. Long time no blog. Like OM kvetched in his last post, FW doesn't always fit into real life - the daily grind of work, commutes, chores, quality time with partners and children, and just plain "down time" to listen to music or watch tv or space off about whatever. This book is difficult to read, for sure, but it's maybe even more difficult to describe in a coherent way. Generally, I can get through twelve pages a week and whatever Tindall has to say about those pages, but I can't get through this without significant effort.

Which kinda begs the question of why.  Why this blog? Why not read the damn book and email OM, particularly if he's the only one here, and quit clogging up the internet with pointless musings? We have an unspoken deal. Read and stay as current as you can (I'm a few days behind, but considering my last month, that's great), then write. If the latter suffers because of the former, or because of other, more important things, that's ok. Well, it's ok, and it's not ok. In a weird way, the blog helps me understand the book - I have to go back and review and partially cement my thoughts enough to at least document this wack thing I'm doing with my friend.  Because, as old fuckers, tipping virtual beers together over dad-rock (promise me, O, that Wilco will still be making music when we're old and grey, even if it's Spencer taking over for Jeff, Menudo-style), we'll share a laugh about good ol' JJ and HCE's peccadilloes.

Those peccas are the topic this time. Here's Bishop's intro (I still think it's him, and not JJ, until OM tells me otherwise) on Chapter III:

"Earwicker's version of the story, filmed, televised and broadcast -- HCE's wake --Reports of HCE's crime and flight -- Court inquiries -- HCE reviled -- HCE remains silent and sleeps -- Finn's resurrection foreshadowed"

Mud clear, right? Actually, Chapter III has been the most enjoyable part of FW for me, so far. Last time, I sorta bitched about how the beginning of the chapter made no sense. It got better, way better, as my underlining and highlighting of the text shows. I mean, six lines into this segment, I got a chuckle out of this line: "Losdoor onleft ladies, cue."  Last door on the left, my ladies, form a queue. That's pretty fun/funny, and the rest continues like that.

Chapter III, as you may or may not have gathered from Bishop's shite intro, is about the public's reaction to HCE and his waka-jawaka in front of the two girls and three soldiers (those numbers are apparently significant, but I haven't grasped that yet). Earwicker is a bar owner, and the rumour mill starts working. Imagine, hm, The Iceman Cometh, which I've seen, but haven't read, only more amusing and pulpy/less angsty and Denehey'd and Lane'd, where a cast of barflies--"evidence givers by legpoll"--testifies about what they know, or what they think they know, about the bar owner's indiscretions. The cast of characters is long and colorful, full of bright voices and viewpoints, too many to list. (Actually, I intended to that, but finishing this post takes precedence over finishing it properly. Tindall does a great job in that regard, detailing 20 people.)

There are those critical, but not, of HCE, like "Missioner Ida Wombwell, the seventeenyearold revivalist," who "said concerning the coincident of infizzing the grenadines [soliders] and other respectable and disgusted peersons [peers to Ida, so young girls] using the park: That perpendicular person [HCE, with a boner] is a brut! But a magnificent brut!" (Tindall says that Ida is a stand-in for HCE's daughter, Isabel, so gross. Again, I missed that completely, as I miss completely most references to his sons.)

And there are those sympathetic, but not, to him, like "Sylvia Silence, the girl detective," who 

"when supplied with informations as to the several facets of the case in her cozy-dozy bachelure's flat [like the flat is a lure for bachelors, duh] ... leaned back in her really truly easy chair to query restfully through her vowelheaded sylabelles [she has a lisp]: Have you evew thought, wepowtew, that sheew greatness was his twagedy? Nevewtheless according to my considewed attitudes row this act he should pay the full penalty, pending pursuance, as pew Subsec. 32, section 11, of the C.L.A. act of 1885, anything in this act to the contwawy notwithstanding."

After the testimony/evidence, there's, per Tindall, another thing about the Cad from Chapter II. I didn't get that. (The Cad is one of the sons?) But some of JJ's style is alot like the Q&A in the penultimate chapter of Ulysses, where he asks questions just to answer them himself. Looking back at the text right now, I have so much underlined and highlighted. Clearly, I liked this part. I thought it moved forward the whole inquiry into HCE's alleged misdeeds, and, at points, the wordplay is incredible. Ever shop at "a men's wear store" called "One Life One Suit"? Me, neither, and I have two, but one doesn't really fit. Who needs more than that? Ask Mr. Finnegan.  "[T]he curter the club the sorer the savage"?  Yep. And what HCE did? Happens all the time, right, JJ?

"[T]here is in fact no use in putting a tooth in a sniper of that sort the amount of all those of things which has been going on onceaday in and twiceaday out every other nachtistag [nightly day?] among all kinds of promiscious [not promiscuous] individuals at all ages in private homes and reeboos publikiss and allover all and elsewhere throughout secular sequence the country over and overabroad has been particularly stupendous."

And the Lupita Lorette/Luperca Latouche passage was great, because, no shit, "it is a horrible thing to have to say to say to day but one delilah."

The Prankqueen from Chapter II (ALP, I think?) reappears, and, by that point, I was checking out.  Chapter III ends with an italicized catalog of all 111 (significant for some reason) names the Cad (who's he again? one of the sons?) called HCE, including, "Man Devoyd of the Commoner Characteristics of an Irish Nature." I'm thinking of Leopold Bloom, but that asshole Tindall doesn't back me up on that.

Chapter III ends with this paragraph:

"Liverpoor? Sot a bit of it! His braynes [spellcheck gave me "brains," so yeah] coolt parrich, his pelt nasty, his heart's drone, his bluidsteams ascrawl, his puff but a pig, his extremities extremely so: Fengless, Pawmbroke, Chilbaimend and Baldowl. Humph is in his doge. Words weigh no no more to him than raindrips to Rethfernhim. Which we all like. Rain. When we sleep. Drops. But wait until our sleeping. Drain. Sdops."

Rain, water.  Water, river. The river is ALP. Nice passage, nice image.

Week 6 took me to page 78, and into Chapter IV. At the end of his comments on Chapter III, Tindall talked a bit about Vico and Samuel Beckett, and I googled an essay the latter wrote in 1929 about FW and Vico, so I'll shoot for something about that.

More soon.

JF