Our first meeting for 2012 took place appropriately enough on the first day of the year, with the added joy of celebrating the entry of Joyce's work into the public domain.
Finally, FWRG has arrived at Book 1 chapter 8, the famous Washerwomen scene, which Mitzi has performed snippets of before on Bloomsday and other Joycean occasions - rebel performances, conducted without permission from the Joyce Estate, mind.
This first session for the year also welcomed new group member Gaelic Tahini, whose knowledge of Gaelic language and Joyce is richer than the sesame paste for which he has been subtly re-named (garlic tanihi).
Other members present included The Two Northwegiennes, The Borrowed Beckettian, Hosty (naturally enough, Mr Google (with Joyce filter search activated) and myself Mitzi.
Our session cleared up a few mysteries about the terms littered through the 'washers at the ford' scene, and also perhaps created a few more.
The suggestive language of the two washerwomen comments on HCE's suss sexual behaviour, especially when "he went futt and did what you know"...and 'futt' could mean he escaped, or went forth.
We were prepared for the torrent of river references, but who is the "eld duke alien"? He is the Greek fellow Deucalion, son on Promethus, and a Noah-type who survived a great flood, whose name provides a nice "alienated" pun to remind us of HCE's position as an outsider.
The Latin-flavoured term "nicies and priers" is a version of 'nisi prius', urging us to "ignore previous" reports, as this bit of "newses" is the latest on the "illysus distilling, exploits and all". We agreed the illicit distilling of "Ulysses" was hinted at here.
"As you spring, so shall you neap", a cute play on the sow and reap of spring (season) and the tides, new terms for me - with the added idea that what goes around comes around (something floated away on the tide will return on the incoming tide.)
Accused quite meanly of "making loof", an innocent enough activity really, "loof" also suggests "leaves" in Dutch (make like a tree, and leave?) as well as life (that which is occasioned from making love), or the "oof" of money (language?!) suggests something entirely more sinister (loot!)
The left and right banks of the Liffey are referred two by the two "reve"s, which incidentally suggests the French dream of "reve".
Lictor Hacket, someone contributed, carries the fasces into somewhere official - parliament? Court? Hacket being an amusing references to the fasces (ceremonial axe).
The pun on "huges caput earlyfouler" is particularly funny, suggesting an 'earlybird', as well as unpleasant, 'foul' actions.
A majority of our conversation turned to marriage and Joyce, given that a substantial part of the washerwomen's talk is on the legality of HCE and ALP's marriage. A reference to Blacksmith refers to elopements in Scotland just beyond the English border. The marriage of 'Flowey and Mount'; suggests the marriage of river (flowing) and mountain (our two principle characters.) This led to brief side chit-chats about Joyce's late marriage to Nora Barnacle in England, for the benefit of their children. This kind of scandal (partners in life, unmarried) is echoed in the incredulity of "not a grasshoop to ring her, not an antsgrain of ore!" (no gold ring.) (Hello there, Ant and Grasshopper!)
The wedding march from Wagner is echoed in the chords "Dom Dom Dombdomb" with a range of epiphanies sparked by the phrase "and his wee follyo": a wee folio (FW, a small book really), and 'we follow you' (down the aisle), the ultimate "oui" folio/book, Ulysses.
Is the Irish sea harbourless (the 'harbourless iverniken okean)?
When HCE loosed "two croakers from underneath his tilt", we were reminded of Noah sending two ravens out into the rain in search of a landfall. The third try (a dove) succeeded.
"By the smell of her kelp they made the pigeonhouse" ... a diversion prompted the thought of sailors who navigated by scent. Impressive! The Pigeonhouse is a Dublin landmark, an electricity works mentioned on page 34 of Ulysses (in French, a la Dedalus.)
The great little word "timoneer" refers to a helmsman, an HCE's role as the sailor from the north arriving on Ireland's shore is broadly discussed.
A brief diversion here is about coffee: G Tahini mentioned an Irish coffee outlet that boasts its baristas trained "in the Australian method of coffee-making". An interesting example of reverse Antipodeanism.
What does it mean to be "suivied"? How is it even pronounced? It's from the French, suive - to follow. A set of dramatic phrases shows HCE as a 'marchantman' embarking towards Ireland with great flourish, following "their scutties right over the wash"; he's wearing a billowing cameleer's cloak (it could have something to do with his hunchback's hump) and crashes into a Dublin sandbar with some suggestive violence: "he borst her bar!"
Whose "scutties" are they? Scutties I imagine as some smaller kind of seagoing vessel. The Wash is an estuary, an indentation rather much larger than a harbour on the eastern coast of England. Joyce is clearly having a bit of fun here with geography, and it's possible that this isn't an arrival at Ireland at all, but the washerwomen recalling many different seafaring tales of HCE, another Odysseus of sorts.
"He erned his lille Bunbath hard, our staly bred, the trader."
I have performed these line many times, and always without knowing entirely its actual meaning, but rather its range of meanings: my tone has always been: sly, suggestive, saucy and knowing. There's an implicit criticism of sexual deviance, or dishonesty, or both.
The Bath Bun is a baked treat from the city of the same name, and the puns on 'daily bread', 'stale bread' and someone being 'bred' from HCE's sexual activity are dizzying. HCE is both a "trader" and "traitor". As always, his status is mixed, perilous, uncertain.
More puns follow on sweat and wet, brow and prow ('in this wet of his prow'), so that it seems as HCE has become the ship he sailed in (as well as marking the clothes now being washed.)
"HCE has a codfisk, ee" ... like Bloom compared with a cod, HCE is accused of having a "codfish eye", an appropriately pescatorial image for such a seaborne episode; although it's quite an insult to HCE, as having a codfish eye means a glazed and gormless expression (with much collective admiration for the terms 'gorm', 'gormful' and 'gormless'...
Genders are collapsed when one of the washerwomen comments, "shyr, she's nearly as badher as him herself", with a sonorous mix of personal pronouns. "Badher" is also an Irish word for deaf/mute, adding to the previous image of gormless (not that deafness is associated with stupidity in our contemporary context.) One washerwomen questions the other, how often was ALP left aside/ignored (how loft was she lift a lattery extro - a fabulous, musical phrase). This suggests more gossip about what could be HCE's infidelity or even something more scandalous, ALP procuring him lovers (although with the boundless energy and reincarnations of HCE, perhaps she deserves a rest by chapter 8?)
There is so much going on in this most sparkling chapter. It's witty, worldly-wise and overflowing with intrigue. We ended with a series of our own epiphanies, considering the question of whether music itself is a language. It is not clear how we arrived at this perplexing question, but a celebratory bottle of chardonnay may have helped.
Hooray for a creatively free future in which artists can reflect and recreate their own Joycean awakenings.
Our next session in February glitters with promise, and the visit of a Queenslander, a chap as high as a howeth in our estimation, on stilts still, as St Patrick hasn't been by below the equator on desnaking duty.
This blog post must serve as another mere milestone on the meandering road that we follow for fun again (and again), with Wakeful anticipation (this time) until February.
Finally, FWRG has arrived at Book 1 chapter 8, the famous Washerwomen scene, which Mitzi has performed snippets of before on Bloomsday and other Joycean occasions - rebel performances, conducted without permission from the Joyce Estate, mind.
This first session for the year also welcomed new group member Gaelic Tahini, whose knowledge of Gaelic language and Joyce is richer than the sesame paste for which he has been subtly re-named (garlic tanihi).
Other members present included The Two Northwegiennes, The Borrowed Beckettian, Hosty (naturally enough, Mr Google (with Joyce filter search activated) and myself Mitzi.
Our session cleared up a few mysteries about the terms littered through the 'washers at the ford' scene, and also perhaps created a few more.
The suggestive language of the two washerwomen comments on HCE's suss sexual behaviour, especially when "he went futt and did what you know"...and 'futt' could mean he escaped, or went forth.
We were prepared for the torrent of river references, but who is the "eld duke alien"? He is the Greek fellow Deucalion, son on Promethus, and a Noah-type who survived a great flood, whose name provides a nice "alienated" pun to remind us of HCE's position as an outsider.
The Latin-flavoured term "nicies and priers" is a version of 'nisi prius', urging us to "ignore previous" reports, as this bit of "newses" is the latest on the "illysus distilling, exploits and all". We agreed the illicit distilling of "Ulysses" was hinted at here.
"As you spring, so shall you neap", a cute play on the sow and reap of spring (season) and the tides, new terms for me - with the added idea that what goes around comes around (something floated away on the tide will return on the incoming tide.)
Accused quite meanly of "making loof", an innocent enough activity really, "loof" also suggests "leaves" in Dutch (make like a tree, and leave?) as well as life (that which is occasioned from making love), or the "oof" of money (language?!) suggests something entirely more sinister (loot!)
The left and right banks of the Liffey are referred two by the two "reve"s, which incidentally suggests the French dream of "reve".
Lictor Hacket, someone contributed, carries the fasces into somewhere official - parliament? Court? Hacket being an amusing references to the fasces (ceremonial axe).
The pun on "huges caput earlyfouler" is particularly funny, suggesting an 'earlybird', as well as unpleasant, 'foul' actions.
A majority of our conversation turned to marriage and Joyce, given that a substantial part of the washerwomen's talk is on the legality of HCE and ALP's marriage. A reference to Blacksmith refers to elopements in Scotland just beyond the English border. The marriage of 'Flowey and Mount'; suggests the marriage of river (flowing) and mountain (our two principle characters.) This led to brief side chit-chats about Joyce's late marriage to Nora Barnacle in England, for the benefit of their children. This kind of scandal (partners in life, unmarried) is echoed in the incredulity of "not a grasshoop to ring her, not an antsgrain of ore!" (no gold ring.) (Hello there, Ant and Grasshopper!)
The wedding march from Wagner is echoed in the chords "Dom Dom Dombdomb" with a range of epiphanies sparked by the phrase "and his wee follyo": a wee folio (FW, a small book really), and 'we follow you' (down the aisle), the ultimate "oui" folio/book, Ulysses.
Is the Irish sea harbourless (the 'harbourless iverniken okean)?
When HCE loosed "two croakers from underneath his tilt", we were reminded of Noah sending two ravens out into the rain in search of a landfall. The third try (a dove) succeeded.
"By the smell of her kelp they made the pigeonhouse" ... a diversion prompted the thought of sailors who navigated by scent. Impressive! The Pigeonhouse is a Dublin landmark, an electricity works mentioned on page 34 of Ulysses (in French, a la Dedalus.)
The great little word "timoneer" refers to a helmsman, an HCE's role as the sailor from the north arriving on Ireland's shore is broadly discussed.
A brief diversion here is about coffee: G Tahini mentioned an Irish coffee outlet that boasts its baristas trained "in the Australian method of coffee-making". An interesting example of reverse Antipodeanism.
What does it mean to be "suivied"? How is it even pronounced? It's from the French, suive - to follow. A set of dramatic phrases shows HCE as a 'marchantman' embarking towards Ireland with great flourish, following "their scutties right over the wash"; he's wearing a billowing cameleer's cloak (it could have something to do with his hunchback's hump) and crashes into a Dublin sandbar with some suggestive violence: "he borst her bar!"
Whose "scutties" are they? Scutties I imagine as some smaller kind of seagoing vessel. The Wash is an estuary, an indentation rather much larger than a harbour on the eastern coast of England. Joyce is clearly having a bit of fun here with geography, and it's possible that this isn't an arrival at Ireland at all, but the washerwomen recalling many different seafaring tales of HCE, another Odysseus of sorts.
"He erned his lille Bunbath hard, our staly bred, the trader."
I have performed these line many times, and always without knowing entirely its actual meaning, but rather its range of meanings: my tone has always been: sly, suggestive, saucy and knowing. There's an implicit criticism of sexual deviance, or dishonesty, or both.
The Bath Bun is a baked treat from the city of the same name, and the puns on 'daily bread', 'stale bread' and someone being 'bred' from HCE's sexual activity are dizzying. HCE is both a "trader" and "traitor". As always, his status is mixed, perilous, uncertain.
More puns follow on sweat and wet, brow and prow ('in this wet of his prow'), so that it seems as HCE has become the ship he sailed in (as well as marking the clothes now being washed.)
"HCE has a codfisk, ee" ... like Bloom compared with a cod, HCE is accused of having a "codfish eye", an appropriately pescatorial image for such a seaborne episode; although it's quite an insult to HCE, as having a codfish eye means a glazed and gormless expression (with much collective admiration for the terms 'gorm', 'gormful' and 'gormless'...
Genders are collapsed when one of the washerwomen comments, "shyr, she's nearly as badher as him herself", with a sonorous mix of personal pronouns. "Badher" is also an Irish word for deaf/mute, adding to the previous image of gormless (not that deafness is associated with stupidity in our contemporary context.) One washerwomen questions the other, how often was ALP left aside/ignored (how loft was she lift a lattery extro - a fabulous, musical phrase). This suggests more gossip about what could be HCE's infidelity or even something more scandalous, ALP procuring him lovers (although with the boundless energy and reincarnations of HCE, perhaps she deserves a rest by chapter 8?)
There is so much going on in this most sparkling chapter. It's witty, worldly-wise and overflowing with intrigue. We ended with a series of our own epiphanies, considering the question of whether music itself is a language. It is not clear how we arrived at this perplexing question, but a celebratory bottle of chardonnay may have helped.
Hooray for a creatively free future in which artists can reflect and recreate their own Joycean awakenings.
Our next session in February glitters with promise, and the visit of a Queenslander, a chap as high as a howeth in our estimation, on stilts still, as St Patrick hasn't been by below the equator on desnaking duty.
This blog post must serve as another mere milestone on the meandering road that we follow for fun again (and again), with Wakeful anticipation (this time) until February.
