Here was a weekend meeting much afflicted. Some laid low by germs, and others triple-booked, out of town, and one even beating down the door of the inn but cad-like, was not let in as if HCE himself were crossly shooing away barflies; perhaps the collective earwhig prevented those engathered hearing the next visitor.
Nevertheless, a trio quorum did justice to macaroons and two pages of the Shem section, p186-188.
A brief note about donkeys, first. Asses have recurred to symbolise the Four Apostles (Mamalujo) and will be of greater interest to our group in the future. Also, the donkey is on the way to assuming mascot status, not at all in allignment with a certain American politial party, but rather to represent our plodding progress. When it comes to reading FW, we are donkeys, not thoroughbreads. We hope our hoofsteps are sure on the uphill and steady on the down, bearing heavy loads of scones, wine and cake as we make a slow but steady progress.
Our previous gathering in late August introduced Shem's sacriligeous mass, in which sham latin depicts Shem in the act of "foul clay". That latter quote is her eon p186 and also refers to the story Clay in Dubliners - in fact, all Dubliners tales are referred to here.
A censor, an authoritarian policeman, is referred to - he is the "blond cop", both blind and fair, possibly Dutch due to the presence of that language. Racial issues arise as Shem is associated with dark-skinned, downtrodden folk, but that's tangential. So the cop is meandering down the street after visiting his mistress (a "protoprostitute") and the term "pigeoness" as slang for "business" is slightly reminiscent to us (as hen fans) of the dove/hen female bird image, with a hint of a link back to ALP.
To harken back to the idea of censorship - which began on the previous page with a parody of the agonising, paranoid pre-censorship kefuffle that slowed down the publishing of Dubliners - there's a portmanteau of ligature and libel: "ligatureliablous". A sense here that censorship is responsible for stopping the flow, cutting off the creative process with fear of libel and censorship.
To the scene at hand: the cop is being solicited from brothel doorways: "rival doors of warm bethels of worships", which I thought referred to 'warm beds' in a humorously blasphemous way, as 'Beth El' means 'house of god'. In another interpretation, he looks out through the window (the "fongster", as in finestre) of the bawdy house/bordello, the "boardelhouse".
A difficult passage follows, and no answers are to be found in The Skeleton Key. As we have said before about Tindall, it is no good just summarising the easy bits. So our group may one day write a cook called "The Hard Bits That Skeleton Key Left Out" or similar.
There is talk of drunkenness and a little bit of tipsy dancing ("findingos") which I also like for the dingo reference, the second in FW at this count, but it's not quite certain whether the blond cop is drunk or if it's Shem (it's usually the latter), even though the cop himself is dodgy.
GC interprets 187.15 as starting with another thunderclap. It's a long difficult word with lots of plosive consonants that sounds thunderous. Plus, it's another voice of male authority from on high scaring a lowly man (the cop challenging Shem), which is the power structure of the voice of thunder in the Wake (neanderthal man conceiving of a god through the 'voice' of thunder.)
There is a hilarious reference to the winter seasons and some mythological mystery about he who pulls the "cold stone" from out of the sea (an interesting bath plug image.) Then the reference to Mercy and Justice sets up two equal Voices who will narrate in the ensuing pages. JUSTIUS (2nd last paragraph, 187) uses excessive alliteration on "b" to begin a condemnation of Shem. I just noticed that the introduction to this, "brawn is my name" rhymes with Shawn/Saun, Shem's nemesis and bossy-boots brother (that's my bit of "b" alliteration.) Part of the "b" confrontation has another bird reference, "I'll brune this bird or Brown Bess' bung's gond bandy". Brown Bess is a musket and reminded me of a huge canon in some sailing ship story, and the canon was named Bess. An interesting side issue here of the names of weapons, and when gender applies. Yet the roasting of a bird in favour of firearms again revisits the slaying of a peace symbol (hen/dove) for war.
What follows in a jolly "talkingto", a lengthy, hectoring lecture by Justius/Brawn to Shem who is now recast as Nayman of Noland. Wonderfully inventive interrogation of literary voice as the brackets (which we usually allow ourselves to ignore, which you may feel free to ignore by ignoring this bracketed rule) indicate that the "Judge" voice is going to speak in the imperative which is "the empirative", a too-clever wielding of colonialist authoritarian power trippery.
Shem is made to account for himself, but the lecture continues in the judge's voice. Where has Shem been "in the uterim"? As if in the interim, poor Shem has regressed. Knowing what we do now about Shem and his corprocentric ways, I am not surprised. The judge changes tack and adopts a paternal tone to his "little friend".
Shem is given the surname "McAdamson" as if he is Cain (the marked son of Adam.) Shem is advised to trust in the judge and deliver or confess a "nightslong homely little confiteor", which I also like to imagine could be another sigla for the Wake itself, it being a night long confession, though not always homely, and much longer than one night in the reading, so perhaps not at all. Yet Shem will need all the "elements in the river" to get himself clean of his sins and wrongdoing.
A sneak preview that begins with the delightful phrase "Let Us Pry" on page 188 shows that the hectoring of poor Shem continues more avidly, but that Mercius will provide Shem's defense later on. These passages remind us all keenly of the courtroom scenes in Circe. Once we got through the meanderings of the blond cop, we were mightily impressed by the ensuing slamming of Shem and wondering just how he is going to get out of this.
Next session is slated for November 27ish. Attendants are asked to sneak a peak at "Let Us Pry" on p188 or simply turn up and hope for more of the best.
