I Walk Through Walls, I Float Down the Liffey

O

tell me all about

Anna Livia! I want to hear all

So begins Chapter 8 of Finnegans Wake. This is the final chapter of the Book I of the novel, and it's in this chapter that we cross the magical 200-page marker (ed. note -- there is nothing particularly magical about 200 pages). Chapter 8 is known as "Anna Livia Plurabelle," for it's in this chapter that the lens finally focuses on HCE's wife. 

Thanks, Google!

It's also perhaps the novel's most well-known chapter. When I typed "Finnegans Wake chap..." into Google, it appears as Google's fourth suggestion. Chapter 1 comes up first, but I guess that's due to all the English undergrads who've decided they're ready to take on the Wake, get to page 6, and then decide they better find out what the heck is happening in Chapter 1. Considering how many people bail on this after only a few pages, let's say that at least Chapter 8 is the second-most read chapter in the book.

So why do people care about so much about "Anna Livia Plurabelle"? For starters, the gimmick of the chapter is a neat one. Joyce worked in the names of over 350 rivers into the text. The character ALP is the river Liffey (aka the River Anna Liffey -- Abhainn na Life in Irish). Anna Livia Plurabelle is an important character, no doubt.  Heck, the novel begins with the word "riverrun." Now look back at the top -- the chapter opens with the Greek letter delta (Δ). Oh, hey, a river delta. Cool.

Statue of Anna Livia Plurabelle

The action here concerns two old washerwomen, wringing out laundry on the banks of the river. They chatter and gossip and tell the story of ALP.  One of the pervading ideas is that these two women are washing away the sins of the world ("the dneepers of wet and gangres of sin in it!"). In another sense, they are scrubbing at language, and Anna Livia is there to sweep everything away in her current. 

Perhaps another reason for its popularity? The entirety is around 20 pages long, making it fairly easy to excerpt and insert into whatever edition of "The Collected Works of James Joyce" or "The Essential Joyce" or "A Readers Guide to James Joyce" or what have you. Or maybe that's me being cynical.

For me, the best part may be the audio recording that exists of Joyce himself reading from the end of "Anna Livia Plurabelle." It was recorded in 1929 and gives a wonderful taste of how Joyce imagined the book to sound.  Hearing his sing-song Irish accent flow through the text is nothing short of glorious.

The video above has a slightly odd animation, but the audio is clear and the subtitles are a nice touch. You can sit back and listen to that recording without any context and, I think, enjoy the music of what you're hearing.

That gets to the heart of the matter, in fact. Finnegans Wake is a musical novel. I've written about it before, but reading it out loud is one of the best ways to attack the text. And because this chapter was written to flow like a river, it's develops a cadence that carries the reader along. 

Chapter 8 works quite well as a standalone piece of text, as long as you have a bit of context for what it's all about. In that sense, it's one of the pieces of FW that I'll likely return to after I've finished stabbing this beast with my steely knife sometime early next year. Well, I'm not going to immediately re-open the book to page 196, but perhaps I will  many years from now, when I want to remember what this project was all about.

And with that, I'll leave you with the final passage from "Anna Livia Plurabelle." Anna Livia has flooded her banks. The two gossiping washerwomen are fading from the story. One turns into a tree and one turns into a stone. It's quite beautiful. Listen to Joyce read it, or try it out loud for yourself. Either way, enjoy!

Can't hear with the waters of.  The chittering waters of.  Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk.  Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thoma Malone? Can't hear with the bawk of bats, all thim liffey-ing waters of.  Ho, talk save us!  My foos won't moos.  I feel as old as yonder elm.  A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter-sons.  Dark hawks hears us.  Night!  Night! My ho head halls.  I feel as heavy as yonder stone.  Tel me of John or Shaun?  Who were Shem and Suan the living sons and daughters of?  Night now!  Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!  Night night!  Telmetale of stem or stone.  Beside the rivering waters of, highterandtithering waters of. Night!