Monday, 30 October 2017, Pages 422 - 423

We stopped at "... muddyasss ribalds." (422.18)

Shaun is being quite rude about his brother Shem, who has penned the letter that Shaun tried to deliver. The girls listening to all this, ask him, whether he has not used language ten times worse than the pen marks and with such hesitancy by your ... brother? This makes Shaun even more voluble about the deficiencies of his brother and announces, 'If he waits till I buy him a mosselman's present!' (Mussulman's present: ... The pig!)

The girls then request Shaun to unravel the letter in his own sweet words, with yet another fable from Aesop.

Shaun's answer hints at the rumours of Phoenix Park scandal that has been following his father, Earwicker.

(Note: Reading Joseph Campbell's rendering of these pages help a lot to unravel the sentences and get  at their meaning!)

Monday, 23 October 2017, Pages 420 - 422

Read as far as "Gach!" (422.3)

These pages are the funnest (oops, wrongly spilled!) ones in the parts we have so far read in the book. Shaun, the postman, is carrying a (the?) letter to deliver. It was written by Shem, the penman.  Shaun has problems delivering the letter though he tries different possible addresses.

He tries, for example, at 29 Hardware Saint, 13 Fitzgibbets, 12 Norse Richmound, 92 Windsewer. Ave., Fearview, 8 Royal Terrors, 3 Castlewoos, 2 Milchbroke, 7 Streetpetres, 60 Shellburn and ends up finding that either there is no such number (No such no.), or no such person (Noon sick parson), or no such street (none so strait) exists.

If these addresses were not wrongly spilled but correctly given, then they would correspond respectively to the following addresses in some of which James Joyce's parents lived over the years
29 Hardwicke St, 4 Fitzgibbon St, 17 North Richmond St, 29 Windsor Ave., Fairview, 8 Royal Terrace, 23 Castlewood Ave., 2 Millbourne Ave., 7 St Peter's Terrace, 60 Shellbourne Rd. In all James Joyce is said to have lived in 20 houses in Dublin. This article tells us more about it.

Do discover which other words are wrongly spilled on these pages!

Monday, 16 October 2017, Pages 418 - 420

Read as far as "An infant sailing eggshells on the floor of a wet day would have more sabby." (420.16)

Before that we read the poem of Ondt and the Gracehoper. It is available in regular English in Joseph Campbell's 'A Skeleton Key To Finnegans Wake'. (See pages 264-265 in the 2005 edition of the book.) You can also listen to the entire Joycean version of the fable here and read a critical analysis of the fable here. The original version of the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop is of course available here!

Regarding Ondt and the Gracehoper, Joseph Campbell writes the following on page 264:
"Underneath the sly insect play of this fable, the Gracehoper restates Shem's philosophy: there are advantages to Shaun's possessions and the thrift that begot them - all of which the Gracehoper appreciates - but he would not relinquish his own life style to enjoy them. He can see the Ondt's point of view, but why cannot the Ondt see his? - The fact that Shaun recites this fable would seem to indicate that he knows very well of the charm of Gracehoper existence, but realises that he is incapable of enjoying it, and therefore insists the more on imposing his own store-keeping pattern on the world."

Monday, 9 October 2017, Pages 416 - 418

We stopped at "Haru!" (418.8)

Next week we shall be starting with the poem on the Ondt and the Gracehoper (pardon, ant and the grasshopper) on page 418.

(My apologies that I have no time this week to write a bit more about the delightful pages we read this week.)

On another note, we are celebrating this month the completion of five years of reading of Finnegans Wake with Fritz Senn. It was in October 2012 that we came together to 'read' the book. Let us celebrate with a glass or two at the James Joyce Pub, Pelikanstrasse, after our reading on next Monday, 16th October. 

Monday, 2 October 2017, Pages 413 - 416

The reading group has reached: “chip so mitey” (416.26).

Monday, 18 September 2017, Pages 411 - 413

The last reading stopped at “all times a day.”  (413.10) 

Monday, 11 September 2017, Pages 403 - 411

We read as far as "Weak stop work stop walk stop whoak." (411.6)

Of course, we did not read all these 8 pages on one afternoon! But I want to include here all that we have read so far in Book 3 - and more - in order to extract some sense out of these 'fun' pages. I had to seek, naturally, Google's help to search for this 'sense'. I have reproduced what I found below and have listed the sources at the end. At the outset it helps to remember that we are still in the dreamland of Earwicker. He is dreaming of his son Shaun. (Shaun is referred to in FW as The Postman, and his twin brother Shem as The Penman.)

Joyce is said to have written in a letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver the following about this part: "the copying out of Shawn which is a description of a postman travelling backwards in the night through the events already narrated. It is written in the form of a via crucis of 14 stations but in reality it is only a barrel rolling down the river Liffey."*

Wikipedia's page on Finnegans Wake** has the following explanation on Book 3 / chapter 1:
"Part III concerns itself almost exclusively with Shaun, in his role as postman, having to deliver ALP's letter, which was referred to in Part I, but never seen.^[71]

III.1 opens with the Four Masters' ass narrating how he thought, as he was "dropping asleep",^[72] he had heard and seen an apparition of Shaun the Post.^[73] As a result, Shaun re-awakens, and, floating down the Liffey in a barrel, is posed fourteen questions concerning the significance and content of the letter he is carrying. Shaun, "apprehensive about being slighted, is on his guard, and the placating narrators never get a straight answer out of him."^[74] Shaun's answers focus on his own boastful personality and his admonishment of the letter's author – his artist brother Shem. After the inquisition Shaun loses his balance and the barrel in which he has been floating careens over and he rolls backwards out of the narrator's earshot, before disappearing completely from view.^[75]"

Anthony Burgess has this to say: "In the first chapter he (Shaun) presents himself to the people-sly, demagogic, totally un­trustworthy, obsessed with hatred for his brother and ready with another parable to figure forth the enmity-a charming tale called "The Ondt and the Gracehoper", in which he himself is the industrious insect, while Shem, the irresponsible artist, fritters the hours away in the sunshine. But Shaun is more ready to admit to himself now that his own extrovert philosophy is insufficient, that the life of the "gracehoper" has its points. Shaun can rule over space, but he cannot, like the artist, "beat time". Sooner or later, when Shaun's rule col­lapses, we shall be forced to move back to the father, in whom both dimensions meet and make a rounded world. Shaun rolls off in the form of a barrel: he has filled himself with the food that is his father, but it has not nourished him; he is becoming a big bloated emptiness."***


* Annotations to Finnegans Wake, Roland McHugh, p. 403
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake#Part_III
Notes:
The numbers 71 to 75 refer to the links given in Wikipedia. 
There Book 3 is referred to as part III, and Book 3/chapter 1 as III.1
The first of the fourteen questions is on page 409: 'But have we until now ever besought you, dear Shaun, we remembered, who it was, good boy,.....'
*** http://www.metaportal.com.br/jjoyce/burgess1.htm

Please note that there will be no blog post next week.