PAGE 15:

babbelers with their thangas vain: Well, we can get Tower of Babel from “babbelers.”  But I couldn’t tell you what “thangas vain” is.  Finnegans Web suggests that “thangas” may very well be “teanga,” or tongue.  But I do like the way in which “thangas vain” matches up with the “thigging thugs” on the next line.  Confusium sure holds me, but I suppose it holds these sentences too.

houhnhymn songtoms: Okay, so this is the funpun Joyce that I missed on the last page!  The houhnhymn, of course, refers to the creatures in Gulliver’s Travels (and, boy, have we seen a lot of Swift references in this first part!).  And you can get “sanctum” from songtom.  I very much like the Biblical phrasing “X were and X were” in this sentence. 

comely norgels:  Norgler in German? Norgler meaning grumbler?

pollyfool fiansees: Parlez vous francais!  Lovely!

Are all the references to the blond in this something which involve the invasion of fairhaired Germans into Ireland?  And does this match the linguistic thrust going on in this first part?

Elsekiss thou may, mean Kerry piggy?:  Okay, I needed Finnegans Web for this. “Elsker du mig, min kaere pige?” is Danish for “Do you love me, my dear?”  I like how much of the double meanings of these phrases also relate to love and relationships.

Who ails tongue coddeau, aspace of dumbillsilly?: “Ou est ton cadeau, espece d’imbecile?” French for “Where is your gift, you imbecile?”  Hey, that’s a good question.  Apologies for late 20th century American education.

upong: Not sure why he’s added the G.  Where’s the uping?

nowanights: A nice contrast to “nowadays.”

shyfaun: Sinn Fein?

Because Tumblr decided to close on me, I lost a good deal of work here.  (Thank you, Tumblr, for not allowing me to save in draft.) Rather than painfully revisit this, I’ll just note that there are many references to the ballad “Finnegans Wake.”  Tim Timmycan being Tim Finnegan and so forth. There is also apparently a flea that hops onto HCE’s bed, which comes later in the book.  And as for “Comestipple Sacksoun,” this is in relation to a Constable Saxon, who may also be the Saxon influence invading Ireland.  I had located a website that explained that there was a crime in the book, one that purportedly continues on Page 186.  And….wait a sec, here it is!

Comestipple Sacksoun: From this website: “Moreover, the lawyer/police officer suggests Sigurdsen, who often takes the role of constable, as in I.1’s ‘Comestipple Sacksoun’ or I.7’s ‘Petty constable Sistersen of the Kruis-Kroon Kraal’ (FW 15.35, 186.19). Later in II.3, Sigurdsen acts as policing agent by throwing customers out of the pub when it closes (FW 370.30-35).”

So yeah, stuff to look up later then, eh?

I had also commented upon mammamuscles most mousterious, pointing out that this was a lovely phrase that might be referencing Le Moustier. The interesting thing here is the animalistic description for the constable, suggesting some primordial problem.  And if Joyce is referencing a flea (“Fleapow!”) and a beggar, then the contrast with a large beastly constable is quite lovely!

ramping riots of pouriose and froriose:  Reference to revolution of some sort.  Finnegans Web suggests that these relate to the French Revolutionary Calendar.

PAGE 16:

kraals: More kraals here. An enclosure for horses.

marrogbones (Cave!):  Yup, definitely Le Moustier!

Hirculos pillar: “hiraculus” is little he-goat, thus referencing the Virginia Woolf dis yet again!  Hercules’ Pillars is the Strait of Gibraltar in Ulysses.

Come on, fool porterful, hosiered woman blown monk sewer?: Okay, so there’s a lot to take in here.  First off, let us consider “Comment vous portez-vous aujourd’hui, mon blond monsieur?”  French for “How are you today, my fair sir?”  Second, hosiered woman.  Well, gee, might this not relate to “Hirculos pillar.”  When I think of Virginia Woolf, “hosiered woman” certainly comes to mind.  This French continues with the stuff referencing the French Revolutionary Calendar.  So we are talking about several forms of revolution: revolution in response to the wars on the page, revolution in language, revolution against Woolf, what have you.  To paraphrase Marlon Brando, what have you got?

chorley guy: Sorley Boy MacDonnell, 16th century rebel!

You tollerday donsk?:  You tolerate this?  But also “taler de Dansk” — Danish for “Do you speak Danish?”  I love the way that Joyce is taking the piss out of people who don’t want to understand his work by using common phrases from other language and loading them with other meanings.

The N. and the Nn. and the Nnn. and the Nnnn. suggest another form of “Tip.” that we’re likely to get in this text.

You tolkatiff scowegian?:  You talk tough, scow?  Or are you a talkative Norwegian?

You spigotty anglease?: You speak English?  But also “spigotty” as a derogatory term.

Loads more here and it’s all very funny.  The Jutes were invaders of Britain.  And here we have the language aggressively being maligned, complete with the references to strong verbs and such (oach eather yapyazzard abast) and the like.  And I think I’m going to save this Tumblr post and get to the Mutt and Jute (Mutt and Jeff) dialogue in the next installment.  Don’t want to lose anything more!

No, I haven’t given up.  Just got busy.  So lets roll up our sleeves again, shall we?

PAGE 13:

herodotary: Clearly a reference to the great historian Herodotus.  But does history — specifically the many starts here with Genesis and Napoleon and many more — dote on us?

Mammon Lujius: Mammon, of course, is money.  And “Lujius” connotes lujoso, Spanish for luxurious.  There is apparently some composite character in FW representing the Four Old Men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  And this takes us into the New Testament.  It is further suggested by Joyce scholars that Mamalujo may be Mama (Nora), Lucia and Giorgio.  (And not knowing about Giorgio until now, that would certainly explain much of the gorgios we experienced in the early pages.)

historiorum: I like the idea of history being likened to a harmonium. But, of course, all this history is setting up for several forthcoming paragraphs, each preceded by years.

bluest book in baile’s annals: Are we getting blue balls?  The first edition of Ulysses had a blue cover and, as we all know, certainly went blue.  Baile is Irish for a town.  So Dublin?

f.t.: for tiden (Norwegian: at present).  Lots of quartets and fours here.

Dyflin is Norse for Dublin.

Why is Joyce using “sall” instead of shall?

Totities: He’s about to announce “the fear of um” or the four of them.  He must do so teetotaled? 

And how does the four compare with the three (HCE)?

We have parenthetical references to the Jewish calendar: Adar, Nizam, Tamuz, Marchessvan, Succoth.  Many of these descriptive references are Ireland, or Eire.

Quodlibus: What you please, I think.  Probably best to come back to this paragraph later.

idlers’ wind: Is the reader or the author the idler here? 

innocens with anaclete: Anacletus II instead of Innocent II, suggests Finnegans Web.

boke of the deeds: Book of the Dead.  Boke is to vomit.  Har har.

So Joyce is about to offer us a parabolic palindrome of dates: 1132 AD, 566 AD, 566 AD, 1132 AD.  1132 is double 566.  (Add up the years and you get 1698.  But I don’t think this matters.) There have been several theories put forth about why Joyce chose these dates, especially 1132, which I am informed we will see a lot more of.  Since I have only just encountered 1132 for the first time, I believe it would be madness to divine at what all this means.  So I shall remain silent for the nonce.

The first thing I must say: what is a mighty whale doing in a river (runnel run?) beyond Dublin?

After deluge?  A flood or something else?

PAGE 14:

wickered Kish: Wicked Witch of the West?  A kish is both an Irish wicker basket.  And Kish, being the father of Saul in the Old Testament, might explain all the
“sall pall” stuff we saw on the previous page.

sothisfeige: Obviously “satisfy.”  But this is such a belabored pun that one must ask why Joyce bothered.  Solthis is Sirius in Egyptian mythology.  Feige is German for fig.  But then given the Figtreeyou (and fuck you too Joyce!), I wonder.

cowrieosity: A shell may have killed the cat.  Or is it a cow?

illigant: Okay, I’m still a bit sour over “sothisfeige” (which I now realize might also be “so this fig”).  But I very much like illigant, which suggests an illegitimate form of elegance.  The stuff about brogues being rich and sweet is also contained in the song.

Aha!  So I now see that we have variations with the final sentence in these paragraphs:

Blubby wares upat Ublanium.

Blurry works at Hurdlesford.

Bloody wars in Ballyaughacleeaghbally.

Blotty words for Dublin.

We get BW for all.  Hurdlesford suggests hurdles forward.  I get bellyache and the suggestion of a clear belly (belly of the whale?) in the third.  And, of course, Ublanium and Dublin match (appropriately enough) the 1132 reference.

It is also worth noting that after the Silent, we get the first clue representing a traditional narrative! 

sobralasolas: This is “over the waves” in Spanish.  And I think this is another piss take at Virginia Woolf.  Woolf’s The Waves was her most experimental novel.  And here’s Joyce with the Wake (Wake/Wave: riverrun, commodious vicus), going well beyond her.

I am indebted to Thomas C. Hofheinz’s Joyce and the Invention of Irish History for my marginal efforts to understand this section.  I couldn’t tell you what “Puropeus Pious” means or is.  Hofheinz claims that Joyce has “put a haunting spin on the Vichian family scheme.”  Here’s more from Hofheinz aabout what’s going on after the “(Silent.)”:

The historical lacuna marked “(Silent)” in the “Annals” is compared in the final version to that in the Eddas, the Ginnunga-gap, precluding a bridge of memory between the catastrophic imagery of the Vichian parents in the first two entries and that of their children in the second two, a bridge carried away by the maternal deluge: “Somewhere, parently, in the ginnandgo gap between antediluvious and annadominant the copyist must have fled with his scroll” (FW 14.16-18, italics mine).  This division of filial experience from the secret prenatal experience registers with great force, from the children’s perspective, in the first two chapters of Book II, “The Mime of Mick, Nick, and the Maggies” and “Nightlesons”.  The metonym for Issy in the third entry suggests the numberless Irish women who have lost their “minions,” their mates, to a dizzying succession of devastating wars that Joyce ironically compares, as he did in “Mamalujo,” to those of Vico’s heroic age, the pia et pura bella (“the ogre Puropeus Pious [FW 14.9]).  The sons, metonymically designated as “Caddy and Primas” in the fourth entry, pursue their contradictory responsibilities as heirs to the fallen patriarch by going into the military for the sake of “decent people” (“Primas was a santryman and drilled all decent people” [FW 14.13]), or scribbling out “farce” describing the post-patriarchal experience (“Caddy went to Winehouse and wrote o peace a farce” [FW 14.13-14]).  The father has fallen, the mother has taken on the self-denying task of tending the children and invoking her husband’s persistent ghost, the daughter/sister remains a half-willing victim of incestuous male desire within her family, and the sons/brothers carry on their different futile tasks of perpetuating endless warfare and counterfeiting “reality” in words.  The “blubby wares” and “blurry works” of the parents have descended, through a logic veiled by inscrutable darkness, into the “bloody wars” and the “blotty words” of their children.  This tormented Vichian family is the pattern for the Dublin-Irish family who move spectrally, in Finnegans Wake, through shifting corridors of imagery from their country’s history.

I’m not so certain if this is as schematic as our man Hofheinz is making it out to be.  It has become clear to this first-time reader of the Wake that it’s impossible to make sense of these “Annals” until one has read later into the book.  And here I am merely on Page 14.  I don’t think the family experience that Hofheinz is going on about is limited to Vichy or Eire.  But since wars are often started by fresh children (and Napoleon possesses the height of a child), it certainly makes sense that the beginnings of this book would be unrustled by war.  Except that the force here is farce!

Now you’re starting to see some of the problems with FW.  You get curious about one thing and it leads you down an endless rabbit hole.

Caddy and Primas: Twins indeed, possibly Castor and Pollux.  But since I haven’t even been introduced to Shem and Shaun yet, it’s too early to tell.  Worth noting that Cadenus was a Jonathan Swift pseudonym.  Should I ever revisit this section at length (ha!), research connections between Joyce and Swift.  There are many here.

Primas was a santryman: St. Patrick was a gentleman?  Santry is sentry, I think.

ginnandgo gap: The gap between the beginning and the end of this book?

antediluvious: Antediluvian.  But in light of “Anna dominant,” a reference to Auntie Diluvious by chance?

scribicide: I love this word.  A legitimate question: How many people have died tried to understand the Wake?

Won’t go into all the business stuff here (fine, six marks).

gynecure: Another portmanteau I’m fond of. (And this makes up for the utterly cornball “sultrup” earlier in the paragraph.) Joyce was clearly anticipating gynecology.

What’s interesting here is that after clear historical reference (the annals), we get mere speculation about the ginnandgo gap.  What our scholar friend upstairs failed to ken was that history is cyclical, not schematic. I mean, look at how Joyce cops to his explanation of the gap being “farfatch’d and peragrine” (which are also references to the four masters of the annals) in the next paragraph.  We must “lift we our ears, eyes of the darkness” for the “fredeland’s plain.”

What I’m taking away from all these references to the Annals of the Four Masters is that history and books can only take us so far.  Is it possible for language to refer to antecedents while mocking them?  Sure. But then why write about it?  (And why read it?  Well, I’m enjoying it and finding myself laughing at referential discoveries.  What does this say about me?)

Liber Lividus: A blue book, again returning us to Ulysses.  If the book that came before is “paisibly eirenical, all dimmering dunes and gloamering glades,” then is Joyce himself copping to the futility of books?  Leaving them in the past?  Even his own?

Lean neath stone pine the pastor lies: “Full fathom five thy father lies” from The Tempest. 

There are loads of Irish historical references in this last paragraph.  I’m skipping over much of this.  Because I feel now that I actually have to be in Ireland right now to appreciate much of this.  (And you thought Lou Reed was too referential about New York. He’s got nothing on Joyce and Dublin.)

PAGE 15:

Knockmaroon: Okay, Joyce, for some reason, you’ve got me interested in Phoenix Park, which you mentioned a few pages ago.  Knockmaroon (or the Hill of the Corpses) is apparently northwest of this appositely named parque.

jerrybuilding: A deliberate word to describe shoddy construction, referencing the humpty fall at the beginning.

Loads of Dublin gates here.

(Year!  Year!  And laughtears!): Okay, so the blue books in question probably also have much to do with Parliament.  “(Hear hear!)” and “(laughter)” were notable parenthetical interjections.  So Joyce’s (“Silent.”) from the previous page suggests a parliamentary feel to these proceedings.

And there’s a call for peace on the eve of Killallwho.  Well, Mr. Joyce, I’ve quadrilled across the paragraphs and will allemande with you later, my friend. 

PAGE 12:

behaviourite job: Reference to behaviorism?

quinance bandy: Queen Anne’s Bounty, which provided for indigent clergyman.  In light of the last paragraph’s reference to “marriedann,” is Joyce merging his sexual imagery with the clergy?  Methinks so.

taking her tithe: “Taking her time” in the act of congress, while also taking tithe.

our review of the two mounds: So have the hills from a few pages ago transformed into mighty buttocks?  What’s interesting is that efforts by the reader to examine are matched by the author.

heegills and collines: Hugill is “hill” in German.  But it could also be eagles.  Colline is “hill” in French.  Perhaps the reference to hills in other languages suggests that there are possibilities beyond the book.  But let me get through this sentence before making further folly-laden suggestions.

sittoo aroont: Sitting around is the most obvious possibility.  Finnegans Web informs me that “aroon” is “my dear.”  But I’m seeing “too aroont” as turn around.

scentbreeched: If this is a reference to St. Bridget, then it seems too weak compared to the previous pages.  And I’ve found Page 12 so far to be a little weaker than the previous pages (certainly that long paragraph about Napoleon).  While I’m bitching about it, somepotreek is a weak “St. Patrick.”

Wharton’s folly: I am informed that this is a nickname for the unfinished Star Fort in Phoenix Park.   Given the “planko in the purk” that comes later, very clear.  Is this also a ref to Wharton’s jelly?  The umbillical cord?  From the Third Census of Finnegans Wake: Begun but never completed as an extensive fortified enclosure North-East of site of the later Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park, on the initiative of the Duke of Wharton; intended as a refuge in the event of a rebellion in Dublin. It was known to Dubliners as “Wharton’s Folly” (a name often mistakenly ascribed to the Magazine Fort, which was built years after Wharton’s death) + Wharton, Thomas, Marquis of (1648-1715) - author of “Lilliburlero.” When he was viceroy, Dublin Castle, O’Mahony says, became “a glorified tavern and brothel,” and in the Phoenix Park was built the Star Fort, locally known as “Wharton’s Folly.” It is my impression that in I,i, Joyce assumes “Wharton’s Folly” to be the Magazine, which erection caused Swift to say: “Where nothing’s left that’s worth defense…”

Why “pur” instead of “par” here?

There’s possibly a Mickey and Minnie Mouse reference here, but, again, it seems too weak.  Did Joyce intend weak multilayered meanings to stand with the strong ones?

I won’t get into Nicholas Proud or some of the other figures here.

Arbourhill, Summerhill, Miseryhill, and Constitutionhill are all references to streets in Dublin.  How obsessed was Joyce with maps?  And how did the hills come about?  Must plunge into the Ellmann biog eventually.

each harmonical has a point of its own: That’s stating the obvious.  Why is this paragraph not as sharp as the other ones? 

robulus rebus: Now there’s the Joyce I know!  Romulus and Remus.  Robulus suggesting rabulous, which describes indecent language.

hopping round the middle like kippers on a griddle: Did John Denver (or, more specifically, songwriter John Martin Sommers) read Finnegans Wake?  This sounds like “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” Especially after the robulus rebus stuff: “life ain’t nothing but a funny, funny riddle.”

Holdhard: Howth Head?

Pied de Poudre: There is Pie Poudre, an alleged court for hawkers. Pied Piper?  Or, more likely, pied poudreaux (French for vagabond)?

PAGE 13:

Fake!: I like how Joyce comes out and fesses that this is a bunch of bullshit.

So This is Dyoublong?: Do I belong?  That’s a good question, James.  I’m on Page 13.  Still 600 more pages to go.  But as it turns out there is yet another reference to Joyce getting shit on here (quite literally).  One MJ MacManus wrote a book called So This is Dublin! in 1927, in which he dissed Joyce.  Here’s what MacManus had to say: “Mr. James Joyce has been paying a visit to Dublin in search of local color from the new book which he has planned, to be called An Irish Odyssey.  He spent a considerable time visiting the Corporation Sewage Farm, the Wicklow Manure Factory, and the sloblands at Fairview.  Before returning to Paris he stated that he had derived keen satisfaction from his visit to his native city.”  Might this explain, in part, the buttocks stuff from the last paragraph? 

Hush! Caution! Echoland!: HCE.  And another following this one.

innkempt house:  I like this wordplay a lot.

chabelshoveler: Sort of a comedown from tauftafu, tip, and the like?  Does “chabel” suggest something other than chapel?

mujikal: mujik — Russian peasant.  And what is the mujikal box but a radio?  As we see later with WKOO.

Lots of grave imagery: ptollmens, gravemure, and so forth.

jubalee harp: Genesis reference to “Jubal,” along with “Jew’s harp.”

Fiery Farrelly: Feardocha O’Farrelly poet? Really?  I don’t know.

Mausolime Wall: The Magazine Fort wall in Phoenix Park?  This is all about Dublin, it seems to me.

Fumfum fumfum:  It’s Friday!

Wheatstone:  A man named Charles Wheatstone invented a lyre-like instrument called the acoucryptophone.  He also created a mouth organ (jubalee harp) and concertina.

References to the Four Old Men?  Look up.  List! if possible!

PAGE 11:

truetowife: True to wife/true to life. That this comes after “bootifull” (booty full or giving her the boot?) suggests varying levels of spousal support.

pretty nice kettle of fruit: Haven’t a clue as to why Joyce opted for fruit instead of fish.  But near the turn of the century, there were kettles of fruit as well as kettles of fish. So perhaps I’m making too much of this.

a naperon for our mask: And if Joyce is employing a turn-of-the-century image, surely this “apron” has something to do with World War I and the ongoing depiction of war after Napoleon.

sabboes: French shoes (as we know in this Internet age), but also possibly an allusion to the Sabbath.  But what of the arias being kicked?  Air or arias?

Gricks may rise and Troysirs will fall:  Greeks will rise.  But I’m guessing this is also an erection, what with the trousers falling.

two sights for ever a picture: Is this as transparent an image as Joyce is making it out to be?  Two sides to every story?

PAGE 12:

the world’s a cell for citters to cit in: City dwellers as well as sitters.  A very creative interpretation from Finnegans Web: “shitters to sit in” — the outhouse of the Museyroom.

butteler’s back: Betteler is beggar in German.

while Luntum sleeps:  Wikipedia informs me that there is a 1926 film about a police dog named Rinty (Rin Tin Tin!) who helps defeat a dangerous organization known as the Mediterranean Brotherhood.  Rin Tin Tin is a German shepherd and Joyce has been laying on the German here like you wouldn’t believe and, in the next sentence, we get “Did ye save any tin?”  Was Joyce a Rin Tin Tin fan? 

And we all like a marriedann because she is mercenary:  Does a married Ann thank nary?  I like this joke.

floote!: Flood!  I get that Joyce is talking about some territory that’s underwater (the Netherlands?), but where specifically is talking about?  Is this merely the flood?  Carrying on with the Genesis theme?

glaubrous: hairless, smooth, and sea green

Herrschuft Whatarwelter: Herrschuft is “mastery,” which I suppose carries on with the mathmaster theme we saw a few pages earlier. Whatarwelter is “waterworld.”

There are loads of piffs, paffs, poffs, and puffs here.  Presumably, this echoes much of the Tips that we encountered a few paragraphs earlier.  “Poffpoff” may mimic Tauftauf. (Note: taufen = baptise.)

beardsboosoloom: Kafoozalum is a Scottish dance that is known as London Bridge, thus referencing the whole “while Luntum sleeps” from before.

grand remonstrancers: The Grand Remonstrance — radical reforms called for in Parliament.  Radical reforms in the novel?

iggs for the brekkers: Eggs for breakfast/gigs for the breakers?

come to mournhim: Come to morning. More cheeseball puns.

the tay is wet: One theory unconsidered in my reference texts: The table is wet.  The Tay is a river in Scotland, but I think that’s a red herring.  I like the idea of Humpty being cracked open and cooked for breakfast while there’s a flood swallowing up the Earth.  But then this image in my mind is very much rooted in my own interpretation.  The tray may also be wet. 

cocked by a hin: Cockblocked by a hen. 

PAGE 10:

keling is here the airabouts: “Keling” connotes cooling and killing.  Finnegans Web notes that “kelainos” is Greek for gloomy and dark, but they don’t have much aside from the obvious “air” and “whereabouts” for “airabouts.”

mussno/annaone: Anna suggests the name we’re looking for, concerning “where she lives.”  As for Muss, well who can say?

Jig-a-Lanthern: So the lamp here is possibly Aladdin.

houthse: We had “harse” in the last paragraph.  And now another house with “houthse,” which brings us to “Howth Castle and Environs” and perhaps back to more literal territory.

The wagrant wind’s awalt’zaround the piltdowns: I can’t possibly convey how much this phrase fills me with delight!  We have the wind the wagrant wind waltzing around the piltdowns (or the rain pelting down).  But then we have the Piltdown Man, the alleged missing link in human evolution.  Wagram is another Napoleon reference.

if you can spot fifty I can spot four more: Given some of the bellicosity of the last paragraph, I’m glad that Joyce is more playful with this parenthetical statement about what we might infer in this paragraph.

So all the “alittles” that follow all this are interesting.  There are no spaces between commas and words.  But it’s very much a version of one potato, two potato, three potato, four.  (runalittle, doalittle, prealittle, pouralittle)

verytableland: A vegetableland! 

bleakbardfields: By comparison, bleak or barren fields?  Insufficient bards telling insufficiently complex tales?

wrothschields: Clearly Rothschild.  But here’s a fascinating reference from Finnegans Web: “Lord Byron is alleged to have said that Napoleon was defeated not by Wellington but by the House of Rothschild.”

Lumproar: L’Emperor?

PAGE 11:

kraaking: a version of krieging from earlier?

Thon’s on shower: Perhaps referencing the thunderbolt on the first page. Thon is also an Anglo-Saxon deity of thunder.

nubo/neblas: Clouds, fog.

peacefugle: Piepsvogel

pringlpik:  There are some references here to Sir John Pringle that I may or may not come back to.

huemeramybows: Humor at my bows.  Also rainbow. Also Greek word for good luck in euhemerema.

sallybright: Sail bright and sally bright. 

siocur: succor/sucker.  But there’s also a reference here to the Irish song Silul a Ruin.  “Siuil go socair.”

scampulars: Amidst all the puns here, this one for scampular stands out for me.  Although I’m wondering if we might replace all pedicures with clavicures.

boaston nightgarters: Was there a special form of nightgarters in Boston?  Or was this merely an excuse to get “masses of shoesets” as a pun?  I must learn more of Joyce’s process if I can.  Some puns in this work seem throwaway.  Or they are mots held in reserve for such a moment.

foder allmichael: Father Almighty. 

that’s cearc!: That’s correct/That’s the ark?

All the kiss kiss cross and so forth seem the end of a letter and the natural end of a paragraph.  And I must confess that I presently feel nowhere close to fully grasping this book, not that such a thing is possible.  Slain, incidentally, might be “slan.”  The end of a letter.  Goodness, at page 11, and I still don’t feel that Joyce is done with the ends.  Looking ahead on to Page 13, I see the beginnings of several historical references.  Are these new beginnings?  We shall see.

A three page graf.  Here we go.

PAGE 8:

Rather than attempt to explain what a “museyroom” is, why not watch this Spanish version of the paragraph in question (which includes some quasi-animation)?

Willingdone: The Wallinstone National Museum is also the Wellington Monument — an obelisk designed to celebrate the Duke of Wellington.  But the Wellington Museum that Joyce relies on (near Waterloo) was, incidentally, also visited by Victor Hugo.  And we also have “Willingdon” against “Lipoleum” — or the Duke of Wellington vs. Napoleon.  The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon.  Tip!

Prooshious gunn: Prussian gun.  There is also apparently a Michael Gunn who was manager of the Gaiety Theater, who is also referenced later in the book.

Cap and Soracer: Cup and saucer/cap and sorcerer.  Caught on me own, but no further speculation from Finnegans Web.  Go figure.  Interestingly enough, I found a 1900 orinthological reference to “soracer.”

Tip: There are ten Tips in this paragraph, with the last one reading “Tip (Bullseye! Game!).”

Lipoleum: Winning second place for most frequent word in this longass paragraph!  Linoleum is suggested, of course.  But Finnegans Web suggests “lipos” (fat) and “oleum” (oil).  The olive oil made from fat.  “Oleum” suggests Napoleon.  And if we’re talking about a triplewon hat, it’s certainly a Napoleon bicorne.

Cokenhape: Copenhagen?  Not so, according to Wonderworer Press! Who knew?  Copenhape is a mashup of tobacco, cocaine, heroin, sugar, and caffeine.  Very applicable, I suppose, to sussing out meanings in this book, although I proceed apace sober.  The “goldtin spurs” is a funny reference to this.  It occurs to me now that Tip can also be dip.

Sraughter: There is an a-ha song called “Ramb to the Sraughter.” I know those guys actually fancied themselves serious intellectuals, but I wonder if they truly had FW in mind (probably not).  Sraughter = Sir Arthur?

magnate’s gharters: Magna Carta?

goliar’s goloshes: The goliard was a type of wandering scholar in France.

harse: Horse/arse.  Ass/arse.  Another end to the ginormous tale looping from the beginning?

inimyskilling inglis: English “in my skill,” but also inimical.  Language as hostility?

mordering: With the King Arthur ref above, a ref to Mordred perhaps!

Gallawghurs argaument: Finnegans Web informs that Gawilghur was a fortress in northern India — part of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.  This could also be a “lawyer’s argument.”

Touchole Fitz Tuomush: So if we’re “assaye, assaye” on the language, is Joyce suggesting that some of our speculative efforts might fit too much?  A touch-hole is a part of a cannon where a fuse is attached.  So if this is a war with language — one in which “Lipoleum” will meet his downfall, along with Finn in the wall — then FW is the ultimate narrative expression of life, innit?

Delian alps: The lying alps. We’ve had a good deal of montane imagery throughout, but consider the names.  Tivel for tipple, Tipsey for tipsy, and Mons Injun being both mons pubis or “much enjoyin’.”  And it’s the “crimealine of the alps.”  Criminal, but also a crinoline skirt “hooping to sheltershock.”

jinnies: Who are these?  Later in the book?

I may be a jinnie “with their legahorns feinting to read in their handmades book of stralegy while making their war undisides the Willingdone.”  I have a lexicon (or legahorn) with the Internet at my disposal.  My stralegy is strategy, yet as useless as astrology.  And I am very under the Willingdone (or on the side of Wellingdon, who is enemy to the Irish and Joyce?).

mormorial: Memorial/marmoreal — but also possibly a ref to “mordering” above.

PAGE 9:

Dispatch in thin red lines cross the shortfront of me Belchum: Now this is a marvelous phrase, connoting the guns of August (thin red lines, meaning atrocities of soldiers) in the “shortfront” of Belgium.  But it also suggests that my stralegy here is insignificant and also deadly.  What am I doing right now but trying to belch up what Joyce is offering me?

Fear siecken!: Fin de siecle.  Fear being sick.  Look, Joyce, I know I have a “tiny frow,” but there’s no need to get personal.  I have made it to Page 9 and will soon be in double digits (or one sixty-third of my way through this book!).

Hugacting. Nap.:  Or maybe all this is happening in my sleep.  If this paragraph is a dream state, Joyce is committing us to quite an experience.  In fact, last night, I had a dream that I was reading FW and the words were flying off the page and turning into concrete imagery.  So perhaps Joyce knows something about the dream state that I don’t.

fontannoy: font + annoy.  Annoy with a fount of words?  Also Fontenoy is a village in Belgium.  The Battle of Fontenoy — the Irish and French defeated the English.  Are the many wars referenced in this paragraph intended to connote the defeat of various languages at the hands of others?  Tip.

the jinnies is jillous agincourtin all the lipoleums:  Joyce, why are you trying to make me feel bad?  I’m not a jinny, unless there’s someone else you’re trying to reference.  And I’m not jealous in courting Lipoleum.  But in your next sentence (“And the lipoleums is gonn boycottoncrezy onto the one Willingdone”), I see that everybody’s at war! 

dispitchback: Dispatch box?

Salamangra!: Man, I really need to read up on Wellington.  At the Battle of Salamanca, he was victorious.

And now I realize that Lipoleum/Napoleon could be Joyce himself — the egotist with this text.  I refuse to call him Lipoleum or hegoak!

Figtreeyou!  Fuck me, Joyce?  The first joke of Willingdone?  Wow, you’re being a bit of a bastard in this paragraph, aren’t you?

the first joke of Willingdone: From Finnegans Web: Sigmund Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious contains two jokes involving the Duke of Wellington.  Flipping through the Ellmann bio, I see that Joyce (like many) was influenced by Freud.

Rooshious balls: Russia’s balls/Prussia’s balls/a rooster’s balls.

Tarra’s widdars!: Terra(earth)’s widows?

Is it just me or did Joyce introduce an interesting skirt theme earlier and just drop it?

There are loads of puns here — double meanings to real battles.  (Such as “ousterlsts” for Austerlitz.)  But I’m going to plough through this aspect of the paragraph.  Too much of a cumdrum, or a conundrum or a cummerbund, for me.

It is interesting to me how marmorial is here twice.  Memories are marmoreal?  Hardened to marble through language?

Sophy-Key-Po: sauve qui peut — French for “every man for himself.”

Gambariste della porta!: Giabmabattista della Porta was the inventor of the camera obscura.  How much was Joyce committed to photography?  Or was he more interested in the dark room?  I’m guessing more psychiatry.

Dalaveras fimmieras!: Deliver us from evil?  Or errors?  Or Eros?

PAGE 10:

montrumeny: matrimony?  I really like the phrase that follows: “nice hung bushelors.”

krieging the funk: Krieg I know from blitzkrieg.  War.  Would you krieg the funk out of here?

bluddle filth: bloody filth, but might there be another meaning in “bluddle?” This is the downside of Google.  You Google “bluddle” and you get nothing more than search results for “Bluddle Uddle Um Dum” — the washing song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

ranjymad: Various scholars suggest that Joyce intended K. S. Ranjitsinhji, an Indian cricketer who played for England.  But might he have just meant ranjow?

Culpenhelp: Another ref to Copenhagen.

seeboy: sippah is a Turkish word for soldier. Napoleon referred to Wellington as “a general of sepoys.” So yeah that’s the insult here in question.

Shimar Shin: Shim or Shaun?

Half the hat of lipoleums (half a bicorne) blown off the arse of an ass?  Now there’s a mental image I’m not going to forget easily.Yes, I will mind my boots leaving this little museum, Mr. Joyce.

Phew!:  Indeed!

So today I am reading a “short” paragraph — in large part because the paragraph after this one is three pages (followed generously by Joyce by a “Phew!”).  I’m doing my best to keep my pace of about two pages a day.  We shall see if it is possible to work one’s way up to five pages.  I can tell you this much.  I’m not bored and I’m having fun and Finnegans Wake takes much of the edge off of depressing headlines (London riots, Dow plummeting for the sixth worst dip in US history, and so forth).  I must say, I don’t think there’s another book in literature that provides so much bang for the buck, what with looking so much up!

PAGE 7:

brontoichthyan:  So we have a portmanteau of two dinos here, with preference to “brontosaurus” (this book?) and, later in the sentence, “Bronto” and “Brunto” (reference to the Bronte sissies?).  But what of the Latin phrase that follows?

Hic cubat edilis.  Apud libertinam parvulam.: “Here lies the edible man.  By the tiny freedwoman.” 

sundyechosies: Sunday clothes/sun-dyed perhaps?

little Anny Ruiny: Little Annie Rooney? Who knew?  The song or the strip?  Probably the former, given that Joyce writes “unda her brella, mid piddle med puddle,” suggesting “Ev’ry evening rain or shine.”  It’s raining right now as I lodge this.

brontolone: A legitimate Italian word for “grumbling!”

Seeple Isout: Simple assault? Steeple is out?

His clay feet: Takes us back to the tricky trochees?

verdigrass: Verde (green)/grass.

fellonem: fellon = felon or villain. 

mund: Loads of possibilities.  Mound.  Mund for world (monde?).  It was apparently “hump” in the first draft.

Ill Sixty: Reference to the Battle of Hill Sixty from the First World War?  Since this was a defeat for the British, perhaps it is a reference to the many German phrases throughout the book.  German vs English and so forth.

tarabom: This is just a pleasant word suggesting marching.  Best to read “bom, tarabom, tarabom” out loud.

PAGE 8

Wallinstone national museum: This may explain the Brontosaurus at the beginning.

minxt the follyages:  These are cheap puns for Joyce, but I’ll take them.

Welsh and the Paddy Patkinses:  You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  I’ve consulted a few online texts and they don’t have a legitimate answer about “Paddy Patkinses.”  What’s interesting about all this stuff involving the UK is how Scotland is ignored.  Tommy Atkins was known as a British soldier.  But even so…

poussepousse: Well, someone’s getting a bit moist here.  This is “pulse” in French.

the sort of their butt: Indeed.  The juxtaposition of war and love continues.  I’m guessing that most readers have quit at this point. 

janitrix: Now I really like this word.  Believe it or not, it’s legit!  Wikipedia page.

No idea who the mistress Kathe is, but she sounds hot.

The whole “Tip” business, of which we’re about to get quite a bit of in the next paragraph, is explained by Campbell as such: “The repetition through Finnegans Wake of the word ‘tip’ finally turns out to be a dream transformation of the sound of a bench knocking against HCE’s window as he sleeps beside his wife in the upper room.  This branch is the finger of Mother Nature, in her dessicated aspect, bidding for attention.”

I’m not sure about that last sentence.  It seems too schematic for my tastes.  I’d like to think of the “Tip” as a natural rest.  This last paragraph is best read aloud and, unlike the pages before it, permitted to stand without dissection.  Perhaps Joyce is moving away from the portmanteaus and the multiple meanings as we move along.

The next entry will deal with the massive paragraph ahead.   But just looking at it in advance, I see far more repetition going on — totally incongruous with what I’ve just read.  Perhaps now that Finnegan has had his fall, we’ll get a slight break?  (Ha!  Fat chance.)

PAGE 6

Shize?: So to maintain continuity with the last part of the last smutty entry, it should be noted that Finnegans Web has nothing on “Shize?”  A pity, as I thought there might be another level to the orgasmic masturbation explosion/death of Finnegan. 

Macool: Also known as Finn MacCool, purportedly.

thirstay mournin: Thursday morning and thirsty mourning.

And now, at long last, we’re getting into the Wake!  Or specifically the “chrissormiss wake.” 

chrissormiss: Christmas, but this also takes us back to “wielderfight.”  I know that we have two characters who will be swapping perspectives later in the book, but in light of the doublin Dublins, it’s interesting that there are dichotomies ever.  Can Finnegan be called a martyr? A martyr to literature perhaps.

duodismally: Guess I know more words than I realized, because I saw me “duodenum” right off the bat!  It’s kind of sad that “ululation” also serves as a kind of elation.  The duodenum idea is introduced so Joyce can get in his grumes, I believe.

And the all gianed in with the shoutmost shoviality: From a song “Phil the Fluther’s Ball”: “They all joined in wid the greatest joviality.”  (Notice how “wid” is altered to “with” by Joyce.) And here’s an animated film featuring the song.  Wonderfully nonsense lyrics, the kind of thing you suspect Lear would have been aware of.

Hanandhunigan’s extermination!: It has been suggested by some folks that there’s an HCE here.  But I think the Irish drinking song “Hannigan’s Hooley” has a greater chance of being taken seriously. 

Something about the Twelve Tables maybe.

Priam Olin: Another Irish song, as befitting a wake: “Brian O’Linn” maybe. Prius is “before” in Latin.  “Olim” is “once” in Latin.

dacet gaylabouring youth:  So in all the drunken festivities here, we have D and G swapped.  A reference to “gaceta” perhaps?  Gazette?  Drink enough and you’ll confuse day labor with reading the public journal.

tap up his bier: Ho ho!

brawdawn: Browdown, but also “bradan” (Irish for salmon).  And what is a salmon in Celtic mythology but something associated with knowledge.

finisky fore his feet: More music.  This time, the bona-fide Irish song “Finnegan’s Wake” containing the lyric “a bottle of whiskey at his feet.” Lyrics and guitar version can be found here.  (We also get “a barrowload of guensesis hoer his head” instead of “a gallon of porter at his head.”)

there is but young gleve: Continuing with the Islamic theme on the previous page, Finnegans Web suggests that this is a reference to the shahadah.  But I’d like to think this is purging of the impostor Dublin mentioned at the beginning/tail, for “gleve” is both another sword (a spear) and possibly “glebe” (land).  I have obviously not yet read the end of FW, but there is apparently dry land at the end.  Tautologically the same thing, yes?

tautaulogically the same thing: “Tau tau” is both men and statutary.  More here.

well, see peegee ought he ought, platterplate:  And this phrase is followed by a symbol (presumably some reference to the “platterplate”). From Mark Troy’s “Mummeries of Resurrection: The Cycle of Osiris in Finnegans Wake”: “If we observe the aural value of the phrase, and follow the suggestion of ‘see pg eighty-eight’ in Moret’s Rois et Dieux d’Egypte (1911, reprinted soon after the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb and popular at that time), we will find a ‘platterplate’, that is a plate of ‘dished’ or fallen Osiris, roused by Isis. “  Unless, of course, Joyce is merely referring to Page 88 in FW, much less Page 8.  Does the symbol mark the typographical “end” of the book?  It certainly resembles an ass. 

Shopalist: Chapelizod — village that is west of Dublin

Bailywick: The Bailey Lighthouse is on Howth Head, east of Dublin.  All this business of west to east continues with our sense of the reading experience.  And it’s also there in the other direction-based imprecations.

He calmly extensolies: HCE. For future reference, here’s a rather ridiculous list of HCE refs in FW. 

PAGE 7

delldale dalppling night: What I love about “dalppling” is that the word “dappling,” signifying something colored with patches or spots, itself has been dappled by “alp.”

in tricky trochees: Trochee being a metrical foot in poetry.  And then we have the two feet (“O carina!  O carina!”).

patterjackmartins: Finnegans Web points out that Peter, Jack and Martin are the three brothers in Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub — each representing various religions.

teary turty Taubling: Is this Dear Dirty Dubiln? “Taubelin” German for “little dove.”  So is “Little Dub” in Georgia also biting the dust?  And of course “tub” also references A Tale of a Tub.

As is typical of Joyce, much of the language in the middle of this paragraph is brilliant, both referential and that of dialect.  (“So pool the begg and pass the kish for crawake.  Omen.  So sigh us.”)

As for the stuff about Grampupus, here’s some interesting stuff from John Bishop’s Joyce’s Book of the Dark:

If “Grampupus is fallen down” at the Wake, and “grinny sprids the boord” (7:8-9 [the “old man” dead to the world, his widow arranging the wake]), it is complimentarily true that “grampupus” has become a “big baby” (It. gran pupo) — as a consequence of which, everywhere one looks in “the Nursing Mirror,” a “grin spreads broadly” across the face (“grinny sprids aboord”).

Finfoefum: Fee fi fo fum. So we see that “grinny sprids the boord” might also refer to the “bread” in the famous rhyme (“I’ll grind his bones to make my bread”). 

Singpantry’s Kennedy bread: And what new Englishman (“Be he alive, or be he dead”) do we get? Well, the Eucharistic kind made by an Irishman.  In the first draft, Joyce originally wrote “Keannedy’s bread.” So perhaps there’s a failed “kneading” pun here.  As for Singpantry’s, I guess it’s St Patrick’s.

Danu U’Dunnell’s: Daniel O’Connell?

Salmoslar: Atlantic salmon is known as “Salmo salar.”

Agapemonides: Well, “agape” I got.  But I had to go to Finnegans Web to find out that “Agapemones” was a 19th century religious community, sort of a more pious pagan movement.

I’m actually slightly sad that something old and lively is being “woebecanned (echoing “rubicund”) and packt away.”

goodridhirring: Yup, plenty of these here, Mr. Joyce.  And we’re only on Page 7! 

There was a good deal of talk about Ulysses.  Tom [T. S. Eliot] said, ‘He is a purely literary writer. He is founded upon Walter Pater with a dash of Newman.’ I said he was virile—a he-goat; but didn’t expect Tom to agree. Tom did though; and said he left out many things that were important. The book would be a landmark, because it destroyed the whole of the nineteenth century. It left Joyce himself with nothing to write another book on.

That comes from a Virginia Woolf diary entry from September 26, 1922.  But Woolf committed suicide in 1941 (she outlived Joyce by a little more than two months) and Finnegans Wake was published in 1939.  So if “hegoak” (on Page 5) references “he-goat,” how in the hell did Joyce know about it?  Is it possible that Tom Eliot passed it along to Joyce?  We do know that Eliot and Joyce were friendly (with Joyce picking up the tab for dinner), that they met in Paris on August 15, 1920 and that Eliot was fairly tactful.  Yet as intimated above, Eliot did indeed profess that Ulysses killed the 19th century, exposed the futility of all styles, and, according to the Richard Ellmann biography, had more to say about Joyce’s book than he wrote down.  (Among Woolf’s other complaints of Joyce: “underbred,” “the book of a self taught working man” — she says this as if it’s a bad thing! — and “a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”)  If Eliot was so effusive about Ulysses, it’s possible that he felt that passing along Woolf’s “he-goat” comment may have amused Joyce.  One thing that’s interesting.  According to FW’s first draft, “hegoat” wasn’t there in the first draft.  It was added later and changed to “hegoak” sometime before publication.

PAGE 5

Wassaily Booslaeugh of Risesengeborg: A delightful name. Wassailing is a southern English tradition that involves ensuring a good crop of cider apples for the next year’s harvest.  And how do you like them apples? Here we are, with masterbuilder (Bygmester) Finnegan about to bite the dust, with the end/beginning still not quite settled, and the glorious thunderclap on the first page announcing the death of a humptyhillhead from the offwall, and we are granted this nomen. Boosleaugh could very well connote bobsled (bobbing for apples?) with booze.  And here’s your obscurant ref: Vasily Buslayev, the hero of the Novgorod cycle, which I’m disinclined to look up further.  Risesengbebord leads us to Risesengebirge, or the Sudeten (sudden?) Moutnaisn.  And if we are talking “huroldry” here, it would seem to be Beowulf, although I’m wondering how much this even matters.

vert: Green tincture in heraldry.  I found “vert” later in the book while flipping through it randomly.

ancillars:  Ancillary, of course.  Origin of “ancilla” — Latin for handmaiden.  More from Finnegans Web: “There are two handmaidens on the Dublin City coat of arms.”  Two Dubilns: one in Ireland, one in Georgia.

a hegoak, poursuivant: Well, here’s some interesting stuff.  Michael J. O’Shea’s James Joyce and Heraldry observes that “he-goat” was an epithet that Virginia Woolf applied to Joyce.  So it’s rather funny that Joyce would follow this with “poursuivant,” which connotes “perseverant.”

scutschum: Escutheon?

Mister Finn, you’re going to be Mister Finnagain!: More nursery rhyme than one would expect from Joyce, but still very fun and cyclical!  But rewarded later when we get “fined again” from Mister Funn. 

tragoady: Mimicking “he-goat” from above.

arafatas: No, not Yassar, but “Arafat” the mountain.  There’s loads of religious imagery here, suggesting that Finnegan’s fall isn’t limited to any one creed.

hurtleturtled: Turtle holding up the earth.

toothmick: Mohammed apparently used toothpicks.  And Mick, disparaging term for Irishman.

[Lost some work here on this paragraph because the browser closed, so temporarily saving this and hoping to reconstruct. Apologies if the religious imagery isn’t as detailed as it was in the now lost draft.]

 a nod to the nabir is better than wink to the wabsanti: “A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat/horse.”  From John P. Anderson’s Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah:  “the nod is no good at all; the blind horse, like the sleeper, can’t see a nod or a wink and wouldn’t know what either meant anyway.  One futile gesture is equal to another futile gesture if the audience is unable or unwilling to pay attention.”  Wab/web? Santi/saint?  Therefore, webbed saint? 

Otherways wesways: Still hoping to support my theory of “wesways” leading to the beginning.

Cropherb the crunchbracken: Proverb the hunchbacked.

ansars: ansars = answers, as well as ansars = citizens in Islam who helped Mohammed.

I very much like the “one thousand and one stories,” suggesting the book, as well as 1,001 potential stories in this paragraph alone!

ivvy’s holired abbles: Apples bring us back to “wassailing.”

rollsrights: Rolls Royce and Rollsright Stones?

stonengens: Stonehenge/stone engines.

kisstvanes: Shoutout to Finnegans Web on this: kistvaen is a boat-shaped tomb from the Stone Age.

fargobawlers:  A very helpful lead from Finnegans Web: fargobawlers is cargo haulers, but check out “fag an bealach” — allegedly Irish for “Get out of the way!” or “Clear the road!”

Loads of stone/traffic double/triple meanings here that I speculated on before and lost.

mecklenburk: Mecklenburgh Street in Dublin.  This was apparently where the Red Light District was, continuing with the traffic theme.

merlinburrow burrocks: Marlborough Barracks — army barracks in Dublin.  Then there’s Merlin’s Barrow, where Merlin died.

Of this paragraph, Finnegans Web keeps telling me: “This paragraph corresponds to Vico’s third age, which is characterized by the institution of burial.”

PAGE 6

noobibusses: Aside from the obvious omnibuses, to what degree was Edward Lear familiar with FW?  I was most excited to find this letter from Edward Lear, whereby he mentions “Noobibus.”  But I can find no real world trace of Noobibus. Finnegans Web suggests “nubi basse” (Italian for low clouds) as a possibility.  I know Thornton Wilder was an FW fan.  But was Lear?

Safetyfirst Street: 71st Street?

derryjellybies: dirigibles, jellybabies, and possibly “djellaba” (Arabian cloak).

aufroofs: Carrying on with our Germanic theme.  Pretty funny that Joyce follows this with “a roof for may.”  I can’t think of any other writer who is willing to make prepositional puns!

erection/mastabatoom/mastabadtomm:  Lovely masturbation imagery, especially with the hod gone “howd” (or hard) and the “hoddit did shake.”

when a mon merries his lute is all long:  I hereby replace “choking the chicken” with “merrying the lute.” 

I realize I should stop at this paragraph.  But I’m quite impressed that “Shize?” stands in for jizz as the first word in the next paragraph.