Monday 27 February 2017

Monday, 27 February 2017, Pages 365-367

We stopped with "Punk." (367.7)

It was all "Pink, pleas pink, two pleas pink, how to pleas pink." Obviously whoever is speaking (most probably Earwicker alias HCE*) has come to the end of his defence or as he says, "Here endeth chinchinatibus with have speak finish." He admits that he is kind of attracted in dreams to his own daughter (... my deepseep daughter which was bourne up princely out of medsdreams unclouthed when I was pillowing  in my prime...). He thanks the soldier, and, I think, asks for the reaction of those assembled in the pub.

* There was another interpretation put forward today that the one who is defending is not Eatwicker but the great Parnell himself.

Tuesday 21 February 2017

Monday, 20 February 2017, Pages 364-365

We read as far as "No mum has the rod to pud a stub to the lurch of amotion." (365.27)

Well, the above sentence is said to be the variation of a statement Parnell made at a speech at Cork on 21 January 1885.  Parnell said: "No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation."

We are still in the Tavern. Earwicker, the tavern-keeper, is defending himself. Joseph Campbell* offers the following English translation to some of the sections we read today:
".. Twenty-off females are hurrying to the post office with presents for my valued favour. The true Irish approve the raid. It is all clean fun and may the devil rape the handsomest. And if my legitimate went cackling it about, scattering all the riflings of her vacuum (giving to all her life presents), I am, nevertheless, I like to think, a gentleman to the manner born. I confess the worst, as love rescuer of these missies who acquiesced in it...."

* From 'A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake', P. 233

Tuesday 14 February 2017

Monday, 13 February 2017, Pages: 363-364

We stopped with a nice phrase: "Ears to hears!"(364.14)

Whose ears, who hears? Taken along with the preceding word, 'Attonsure!', Hans says that this refers to the St. John tonsure. Read more about it here.

The following* is taken from Joseph Campbell's A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (my current 'Bible' for Finnegans Wake!). It refers to the early part of the section starting with 'Guilty but fellows culpows!' on page 363.

"Now ensues one of the most moving moments of the book. HCE, his back to the wall, delivers with dignity and noble resignation an apologia for his life. Acknowledging his crimes, and even confessing to one hitherto unknown (apparently he drowned someone long ago, and the corpse has been discovered floating in the surf), this patriarchal sinner points out that the good he has done for his people heavily outweighs the evil......"


**New World Library edition, Pages 232-233, 1944, Reprinted 2005, ISBN 1-57731-405-0

Tuesday 7 February 2017

Monday, 6 February 2017, Pages 361 - 363

We read as far as "Howlong!" ((363.11)

The sections we read today are quite puzzling, to put it mildly.

'A skeleton key to Finnegans Wake' by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson* might be of some help in deciphering some of the preceding pages. An excerpt from the above book (pages 229-230) is given below.
(According to Campbell & Robinson, we are still in the tavern. ) The tavernkeeper, tries to defend the Russian General, and gives examples from his own life to show that the guilt of the High Personage is shared by mankind at large. This places him in direct opposition to the tavern company and leads swiftly to his humiliation and collapse. ... The radio has started again... The tavernkeeper, having betrayed his sympathy for the master-type individual, is now about to suffer the consequences of popular disapprobation. More specifically, he is about to be torn to pieces and flung to the winds. 

Here is more help in understanding the pages 361-363. (Source: The blog, One Year in the Wake)

*New World Library edition, 1944, Reprinted 2005, ISBN 1-57731-405-0