Sunday, January 29, 2012

Finnegans Wake in Santa Cruz--a new year. Page 205-208ish

Though there was plenty to say from our last meeting in early December, which I may try to reconstruct at a later date, your blog host here has some time management issues and just couldn't squeeze a blog post in to the day. Our meet up on Wednesday night felt like a fresh gust of wind into our sails, and I thought I'd share some of our experiences of the evening.

After a brief catching up, we tried to remember where it was that we left off and Leslie, despite having been away in Hawaii, proved most adept at reconstructing where we actually were. She said that she knew we were on page 205, and she knew this because she remembered the paragraph ending "Garonne, Garonne." The Garonne is a river (like pretty much every other word in this section of the book) but it also in this context means, "go on, go on". As in one washerwoman saying to the other, "go on, tell me more about Anna Livia". But as Leslie was saying the words "Garonne, Garonne," in trying to find my place,  I had just randomly flipped open to page 239 and my eyes immediately caught another paragraph ending: "gyrogyrorondo".

Now whether this has anything to do with the whole "go on, go on" theme, it remains true that I was trying to read what she was saying into these words, and there was a feeling of synchronicity felt by all.  It is at least an echo of the sound, as well as paragraph placement.

This ended up setting the tone for the evening. Tom wondered if technology let us know more of the synchronicity of experience or not. In a certain sense, the synchronicity is all around us and it's more a case of whether we are tuned into it or not than whether it happens.

We made a brief diversion into all the 2012 prophecies, as some members are more tuned in than others to the whole Mayan calendar predictions. I don't know what Joyce would have thought, but I'm almost certain he would have exploited it.

We got into the actual reading, starting in the middle of 205: "Well, after it was put in the Mericy Cordial Mendicants' Sitterdag-Zindeh-Munaday Wakeschrift..." We read along for awhile and gradually it dawned on us that it was still two washerwomen washing on the shore, but at the same time they were rowing to the source (in the hills of Wicklow). Or the Source, which has no geographic location.

Manneken-Pis
We had another funny moment. Ann had had a disconcerting experience before coming into the group as she parked in the pub parking lot, when she realized that the man standing nearby was actually urinating. It was quite a surprise for her, but more of a surprise when our text referred to "might she passe of him for a minnikin", and the notes told us that part of this portmanteau word referred to the Manneken-Pis, which is a statue in Brussels of a small boy peeing. Suddenly we realized that the text right here was littered with pissing words--"a call to pay" "sprizzling" and further research reveals stalls in the next sentence as a reference to urinals, as well as  "Brie-on-Arrosa" contains the French "arrozer"-- "to water". We all realized simultaneously that the man pissing in the parking lot wasn't just an annoyance, but a Joycean figure, a gatekeeper. And as always with Joyce, a part about Anna Livia Plurabella, the Liffey, but as this section makes abundantly clear, all rivers everywhere, contains not just the high river, but also the low, a man--or a little boy--pissing.

And as if to emphasize the point, several of us had to "pay a call" pretty badly as the evening ended, but quite uncharacteristically, everyone else in the pub suddenly did too!

44 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this post, and I found this a question worth thinking about: “Tom wondered if technology let us know more of the synchronicity of experience or not.”

    I myself have been in the hills of Wicklow, but not to do laundry. I was visiting our friend Declan Burke.
    =======================================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  2. So Declan is at the source, or maybe is the Source. I knew it had to be one of those two things.

    Thanks for reading, as you may be sure that few others dare pass this way.

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  3. I did have a bit of trouble figuring out how to work the technoloical gimcrackery of Irish showers, including the one at Declan's house. But I was eventually able to turn it into my own little source of water in Wicklow.

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  4. Speaking of the sources of rivers, there is a truly wonderful book called simply Danube, where he does in fact trace the Danube to its source--and there is the same kind of joke that it actually comes out of a faucet, as I recall. Then he follows it all the way to the sea and in the meantime elucidates the culture of Mitteleuropa. Worth tracking down.

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  5. I loved Alan Moorhead's The White Nile, so I suspect I might like this book, too. I could read it while listening to Smetana's "Die Moldau."

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  6. Yes. Sorry, I thought I had put that into the sentence.

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  7. I also like Fernand Braudel's writing about the Mediterranean.

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  8. Yes, I remember that. I think I bought volume 2 of those books once, which was not the best way to go about it.

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  9. There's also a smaller book in French with essays by Braudel and a few others about the Mediterranean. I'm not sure if it's available in English. I love Braudel, and not just because one of his translastors went on to translate Fred Vargas.

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  10. I will put him on my list to check out, but unfortunately, it probably won't be all that soon.

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  11. He and Moorhead are modern classics; they'll be around awhile.

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  12. Truly, it's all about either coming in or going out.

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  13. Joyce seems to have been a bit more about the going out than the coming in, though, I'd say.

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  14. I've been reading some of Salma Rushdie's essays. "In Defense of the Novel, Yet Again" cites Danube with approval. Another essay, "U2," cites with even greater approval the band of the same name.

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  15. Oh, dear. Adrian will probably not be calling Rushdie a genius again.

    But that's a happy coincidence that Salman mentions Danube.

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  16. No, Adrian's reply to my Rushdie post makes it clear he considers Rushdie an ex-genius.

    I'd already decided to read Danube based on your recommendation. Rushdie's was mere supporting argument.

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  17. Ah, here it is. Claudio Magris also likes Braudel, citing his conceptions of time and history.
    =======================================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  18. What a superb book Danube is. The next time I see you, remind me to strew rose petals in your path for bringing it to my attention.

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  19. I'm glad you feel as I do, Peter, but technically, we should be strewing rose petals at the feet of Claudio Magris. I had to make sure he was still alive, but he is. 72 and still going strong.

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  20. And I had particular interest in the Danube before I read the book, either. But now I'm curious about that river, as well as reflecting on my own travel experiences. My mind has been expanded!

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  21. That's what it's all about, Peter. Magris has another book which I've read called Microcosms. I think a lot of it was about Italian writers that were not familiar to me, but there was a wonderful tribute to cafes that I do recall.

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  22. And one need not have a special interest in the Danube to be captivated by the book, I think. I just read the chapter on Celine, and makes me want to go back and read Celine.

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  23. No, I have no particular interest in the Danube either. It doesn't matter at all as far as reading the book goes.

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  24. Yes, the book sets the mind traveling beyond geographic boundaries, that's for sure.

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  25. But I have heard and smelled (but not seen) the Black Sea.

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  26. How does that happen? Traveling on a night train?

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  27. It was a nice moment, actually. A group of us had hiked up the hill from where the passenger boat let us off just outside Istanbul just so we could see the sea. We were me, a French couple, a Japanese woman, her Korean roommate, and a German guy who was trying to pick up the Korean woman all talking about French politics -- in English. That was quite a lesson in English's reach.

    Anyhow, there we were at the top of the hell, where we could smell the sea, which made the fog horns sound even more significant because we couldn't see where they were coming from.

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  28. That does sound like a nice moment.

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  29. The revealing moment that preceded that happened on the boat, where the male half of the French couple thought he was being ripped off on the price of the tea served on the boat, and started yelling at the server.

    A Frenchman wants to yell at a Turkish waiter, and what language does he choose? English.

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  30. Yes, this is where we are, linguistically speaking. I don't think that often about how lucky it is, in this sense anyway, that I speak the lingua franca.

    Though it's sad that I don't really speak any other language, lacking the necessity as opposed to the desire to learn one.

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  31. Seana, this may be treading on your territory, but I had not previously heard this definition of lingua franca:

    often capitalized : a common language consisting of Italian mixed with French, Spanish, Greek, and Arabic that was formerly spoken in Mediterranean ports.

    I suppose I thought the term came from French's former status as an international language.

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  32. Though my lazy belief does not explain why the term itself should be Italian.

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  33. I have no territory, Peter. Either that, or it's ALL my territory. Either way, there are no border patrols.

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  34. As the Online Etymology dictionary has it:

    Originally a form of communication used in the Levant, a stripped-down Italian peppered with Spanish, French, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish words. The name is probably from the Arabic custom, dating back to the Crusades, of calling all Europeans "Franks".

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  35. Aha! That makes sense. I knew about that old Arabic custom. Thanks.

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  36. David Hume called himself am emissary between the worlds of learning and of conversation. You're an emissary between the world of knowledge and its opposite -- and we all enjoy your diplomatic missions.

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  37. Thank you, Peter. I'd implore any readers, though, to obey the old adage: "Don't shoot the messenger."

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  38. We're likely to hand the messenger laurels and sweetmeats!

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  39. Really enjoyed this post and the micturition synchronicity. Joyce certainly recognized the profound within the mundane as evidenced by the title for his early collection of poems, Chamber Music, which came about from hearing a woman urinating in a chamber pot.

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  40. Thank you, PQ. That Chamber Music is hilarious. Doesn't sound like he changed much over the years, does it?

    I should be working up the next post soon--should have done it already, but in any case, we're going to have the next meeting at a members house and so be able to listen to that last part of book one, which you so luckily have provided us the link to!

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