Finnegans Wake Grappa discussion

"That's in The Wake!" (!) is a little bit of language which ought to circulate widely until it becomes worn=out with infinite disdain for the enunciator.

It doesn't take much to discover that a thing belongs to The Wake. Almost everything does. So there will be plenty of opportunities to be confronted by innocent bystanders with an insistent request (backed up most certainly with clenched and swinging fists no doubt) To shut the fuck up already please!

For example, one might see Fionnuala's status update and declare, Ah-ha! Arrah Na Pogue !! --- That's in The Wake! (!)

Nice! I got here before I got here.

Fionnuala wrote: "Nice! I got here before I got here."

....riverrun...

A variation :: "That is The Wake"

'...the insect called [in French] perce-oreille (ear-piercer) [and in English, "earwig"]. For not only do "Persephone" and "perce-oreille" both begin with the same allusion to the idea of "piercing"...'

From the marginal text (Michel Leiris, Biffures(Gallimard), pp. 85ff) of Derrida's "Tympan" in Margins of Philosophy.

Another case of 'That's in the Wake'.
I'm reading J P Donleavy's The Ginger Man and the references to Finnegans Wake leap from the pages like a salmon at Leixlip weir: Howth Hill, Butt Bridge, Brown and Nolan, Vico Road, Dalkey, Phoenix Park, Dublin city and environs, Lilly, funt, and there must be many other borrowings/echoes that I've missed.
Other sections of The Ginger Man remind me of Ulysses and Dubliners. Plus the main character's initials are S D like Stephen Dedalus.
Dunleavy clearly knew Joyce by heart, or at least made copious notes...

That's in The Wake!!!

"Hangover Kid made a strong move late along the rail to get up for second, a half-length over third-place finisher Winning Cause. Guys Reward, Screenplay, Finnegans Wake, Bad Debt, Dannhauser, Admiral Kitten, Hard Enough, Slim Shadey, Tetradrachm, 2-1 favorite Lochte and Tricky Hat brought up the rear. Tannery and Unbridled Ocean were scratched."

http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/editor...

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "That's in The Wake!!!

"Hangover Kid made a strong move late along the rail to get up for second, a half-length over third-place finisher Winning Cause. Guys Reward, Screenplay, Finnegans Wake, Bad..."

!!

P204 Finnegans Wake: ...was she marcellewaved or was it weirdly a wig she wore

Marguerite Young's character Miss MacIntosh wears her hair marcellewaved and there's a pretty weird plot issue around whether she wore a wig or not. So is the parallel just a coincidence or is Young nodding to the wake?

Fionnuala wrote: "P204 Finnegans Wake: ...was she marcellewaved or was it weirdly a wig she wore"

I dun know but now I know what marcelling is ::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcelling

Yes - it may be just a coincidence - if everyone was wearing their hair like that in the twenties and thirties. It was the bit about the wig that caught my attention though.

Dear Fionnuala,

You're (almost! almost!) in The Wake. This just arrived on my desk :: "Awake all Finnegans... Finnegans, Finns, Fionas, Finnbars, Fintons and Finnualas are set to bring Enniskillen to life this August in a world first that will see ‘Finnish folk’ come together and sing, shout and maybe even dance to the rhythm of James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’...." http://www.impartialreporter.com/what...

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Dear Fionnuala,

You're (almost! almost!) in The Wake. This just arrived on my desk :: "Awake all Finnegans... Finnegans, Finns, Fionas, Finnbars, Fintons and Finnualas are set to bring Enniski..."

Only an 'o' between me and Finnkinship?
I'm leaping that gap as we speak!
(Although I admit that that the section I'm leaping through at the moment, around p 275, the chapter with the side notes and footnotes, has me threading air a little...)

Fionnuala wrote: "Only an 'o' between me and Finnkinship?"

We are all Finnegans. (Just that some of us are more Finnegan than others!)

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Only an 'o' between me and Finnkinship?"

We are all Finnegans. (Just that some of us are more Finnegan than others!)"

I AM in the Wake! :
page 289 Liv's lonely daughter
This a line from a Thomas Moore song I learned at school and it refers to Manannán Mac Lir, the god of the sea and his daughter Fionnuala.
Manannán Mac Lir is referenced again on page 504 Orania apples for the place where he lived, Emain Ablach, or Emania, island of the apples. His children were transformed into swans by their jealous stepmother and obliged to spend nine hundred years wandering the seas of Ireland, including The Sea of Moyle mentioned in Moore's song.

And while I'm not exactly lonely here on the Grappa pages, I don't see many sisters about - but Lir's daughter only had brothers so it kind of fits...especially since Liv's lonely daughter is also Anna Livia's Izzy/Isolde/Iseult...

The Lir story: http://www.james-joyce-music.com/song...

The Moore song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DdFk5bt...

Page 559 by the white shoulders of Fionnuala you should have seen how that smart sallowlass just hopped out of bunk like old mother Mesopotomac

Love it!

It's a great line!

I forget who else is in The Wake ::

Fionnuala -- check [559]
Nathandjo -- checkchekc [3]
Geoff, you blighter [488] --check
joshuan judges -- check [4]


It's only appropriate that members of the Grappa should be fore-acknowledge in such a dreamy book!

You're all a wake! I thought I was a lone...

Fionnuala wrote: "You're all a wake! I thought I was a lone..."

Fionnuala, take comfort! We're all in this together apparently.

Joshua wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "You're all a wake! I thought I was a lone..."

Fionnuala, take comfort! We're all in this together apparently."

Good to know I have company by these waters of babalong, Joshua.

17 years to read 17 years of writing = fair exchange with the ole Groundhog!

In or around or under or above ye four o' teenth yardarm, disuncovered while reading the wicked wacked Wake in a (Oui! Ja!) pub nar The Muddy Charles, emighty, the word "larrybird", in-during tha hoight o' the namensakes car ear with the Boston's Mass' steam!

Steve wrote: "larrybird"

His parents were Wakean? I have recollection fond of Bird and his boys from those days. Al-be-it I warn't knot of Boston type at the time. Neverthelass.

You warn't at Doyles now with your Waken'ing, war ye? Ach neigh, Doyles ain't near El Charles!!!

"...pub nar The Muddy Charles, emighty..."

The Muddy Charles Pub, MIT.

I'm doing the tandem read of The Bell Jar with many other GR friends and there is a great passage where the protagonist decides to tackle the Wake. Has that been quoted somewhere here in the Group discussion threads?

If you ain't in The Wake, is The Wake in you?

Brian wrote: "Has that been quoted somewhere here in the Group discussion threads?"

Is almost czartainly not been.

If you ain't in The Wake, is The Wake in you?

True fact!

Here 'tis:

“riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs....
 
                The thick book made an unpleasant dent in my stomach.
 
      riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s...
 
                I thought the small letter at the start might mean that nothing ever really began all new, with a capital, but that it just flowed on from what came before. Eve and Adam’s was Adam and Eve, of course, but it probably signified something else as well.
                Maybe it was a pub in Dublin.
                My eyes sank through an alphabet soup of letters to the long word in the middle of the page.

bababadalgharaghtakarnrninarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
 
                I counted the letters. There were exactly a hundred of them. I thought this must be important.
                Why should there be a hundred letters?
                Haltingly, I tried the word aloud.
                It sounded like a heavy wooden object falling downstairs, boomp boomp boomp, step after step. Lifting the pages of the book, I let them fan slowly by my eyes. Words, dimly familiar but twisted all awry, like faces in a funhouse mirror, fled past, leaving no impression on the glassy surface of my brain.
                I squinted at the page.
                The letters grew barbs and rams’ horns. I watched them separate, each from the other, and jiggle up and down in a silly way. Then they associated themselves in fantastic, untranslatable shapes, like Arabic or Chinese.
                I decided to junk my thesis.”

Was the Wake the final push towards madness for poor Esther?

I certainly believe that's how Plath presents her references to the piece! In "real life", Plath was intending to write her Junior Thesis for Smith College on Twins/Doubleness in The Wake, but became severely depressed during the period she was meant to be studying the book, and attempted suicide, resulting in hospitalization. Plath's "real life" experiences are recounted in the persona of Esther in The Bell Jar. When Plath finally submitted her Junior Thesis, she did NOT write about The Wake!

In Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, there's a reference to the two washerwomen gossiping by the river in the ALP chapter. There is also a Countess Alp.
Now that I'm awake to Nabokov's interest in F W, I expect to find more references....

I found the cold pudding quote from Nabokov:

"My first real contact with Ulysses, after a leering glimpse in the early twenties, was in the thirties at a time when I was definitely formed as a writer and immune to any literary influence. I studied Ulysses seriously only much later, m the fifties, when preparing my Cornell courses. That was the best part of the education I received at Cornell. Ulysses towers over the rest of Joyce's writings, and in comparison to its noble originality and unique lucidity of thought and style the unfortunate Finnegans Wake is nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room, most aggravating to the insomniac! I am. Moreover, I always detested regional literature full of quaint old-timers and imitated pronunciation. Finnegans Wake's facade disguises a very conventional and drab tenement house, and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity. I know I am going to be excommunicated for this pronouncement."

My reading of this is that he's capable of expressing this opinion of FW and at the same time wanted to fill one of his books with repeated references intended for readers such as ourselves.

Nabokov wrote: "a persistent snore in the next room"

Makes me think he's kidding.

Joshua wrote: "I found the cold pudding quote from Nabokov.....

...My reading of this is that he's capable of expressing this opinion of FW and at the same time wanted to fill one of his books with repeated references intended for readers such as ourselves. .."

I was hoping you'd pop in here and share that great cold pudding you came across, Joshua - I love it. And yes, I agree that when Nabokov goes to the trouble of putting references to FW in one of his books, it has to mean something more - at the very least that the book really got under his skin - like that persistent snorer in the next room;-)

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Nabokov wrote: "a persistent snore in the next room"

Makes me think he's kidding."

Me too, and also that he'd read it fairly attentively - its not an inapt image to conjure in connection with FW.

Fionnuala wrote: "And yes, I agree that when Nabokov goes to the trouble of putting references to FW in one of his books, it has to mean something more "

Nabokov persistently asks the read to play his games. Outside of the realm of his fiction he pretty consistently suggested that a few games were off limits, including freudian scavenger hunts and spot the influence (see above "immune to influences"). I've always felt the resist to Freud was sincere, but I think I have been thrown off the trail for too long in the other game by VN's opening move.

Looking forward to hearing what else in the Wake shows up in Ada, for reasons other than literary influence, of course.

The wonderful Joanna Newsom, in the final song on her new album Divers, which is titled "Time, as a symptom" and deals with return, repetition and rivers etc, includes the line:

"a way a lone a last a loved a long."

In addition, the last line of the song ends mid word "trans" - the first word of the first song is "sending" - and the final and first notes of the album are the same.

Joshua wrote: "Looking forward to hearing what else in the Wake shows up in Ada, for reasons other than literary influence, of course...."

I haven't spotted any more FW posspots in Ada though it's possible I've missed understandings among the ardouries of Nabokov's Prosepronette, who/which is a trifle tirritating nuncandtunc...

Page 188 of Ada: the phrase passe encore could recall Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side of the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war, especially as Nabokov's characters wander (peniswielding) between his version of North America, Estotia and his version of old Europe quite a bit - and the 'scraggy isthmus' gets a lot of mention, directly or indirectly: all the main characters have Irish blood in their Russian/American veins.
Also re America, there's the name Mascodegama which is quite a joyclike amallagamatia.
Plus there is a Lettrocalamity on page 112.
So lots of reminders of FW in Nabokov for me but maybe I'm just seeing them because I want to...

Jonathan wrote: "The wonderful Joanna Newsom, in the final song on her new album Divers, which is titled "Time, as a symptom" and deals with return, repetition and rivers etc, includes the line:

"a way a lone a l..."

Fantastic, Jonathan - so lovely. I'll dig further into this record for sure...

The Wake is in Leon Forrest's Divine Days - not only do we have a number of direct quotes (including the abcedminded bit) but, quite rightly given the swirling, ta(i)l(e) eating nature of the book, much Wakean talk of rivers and waters and all of the rest.

I'm a whole year late, but Nabokov, at some point in Pale Fire [I don't have it on me] writes the words:

"To fix a broken viola d'amore" which of course is a reference to p.1 of The Wake

Nabokov hated Finnegans Wake so it would make sense that he refer to it as broken.
Nice catch!

Josiah wrote: "I'm a whole year late, but Nabokov, at some point in Pale Fire [I don't have it on me] writes the words:

"To fix a broken viola d'amore" which of course is a reference to p.1 of The Wake"

Yes, this one is interesting, since it is obviously easily associated with FW since it is in the first 5 or so lines. Hard to say since the voila d'amore is an actual instrument, so it could just be VVN reaching for an obscure instrument, but VVN was surely familiar with at least the first page of FW. Nice find!

I'm thinking Nabokov wouldn't just use the source of a Joyce pun and not also attempt his own (and in his estimation, a superior one). So this reference to viola d'amore shows up on the same page where the character Countess de Fyler is introduced, that is Fleur de Fyler.

Fleur de Fyler - violer d'amores?

We've got the theme of a flower (violet/fleur) and desecration (defiler/violator) and an inversion of the three sounds with the Fyler looking distinctly unfrench

Flowers are far more appropriately linked to Joyce's Ulysses, not the Wake though - the "you naughty boy" letter specifically....

the unfrenchness of it is likely "just" part of the Pale Fire-ness of Pale Fire, one of the most unique (and boldest!) novels I've ever read

Am looking for flowers in FW now. Found this nugget:

For the joy of the dew on the flower of the fleet on the fields of the foam of the waves of the seas of the wild main from Borneholm has jet come to crown.

On page 110 of Pale Fire (where viola d'amore and Fleur appear) VVN also references a patifolia - "For other needs than sleep Charles Xavier had installed in the middle of the Persian rug-covered floor a so-called patifolia, that is, a huge, oval, luxuriously flounced, swandown pillow the size of a triple bed."

Can't find out what a patifolia actually is, but maybe a passioflower (FW) or a passiflora (passion flower)?

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "A variation :: "That is The Wake"

'...the insect called [in French] perce-oreille (ear-piercer) [and in English, "earwig"]. For not only do "Persephone" and "perce-oreille" both begin with the sam..."

References to "earwig" also show up in BBC television. In the long-running (1975-2009) British sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, Barry, husband of Glenda, on more than one occasion gets accused by the ladies of "earwigging". By which they seem to mean, in context, that Barry was trying to listen-in to their conversation.
Not only is it interesting to see a Wake word used this way, but I seem to remember some of Joyce's biographers pointing out that Joyce was notorious for listening-in to other people's conversations in cafes, and such, even to the point of jotting- down notes.

[If I have already posted this remark somewhere else here, I apologize.]