Olwen Fouere performed riverrrun for the first time during Bloomsday week in Dublin in 2012. Sitting in the third row, spluttering and wheezing from too many late nights propped up by beverages whose names begin with J and G, I nevertheless was thrilled to see Olwen's work brought to life on stage.
I consulted Olwen on her editing of Book IV, the ricorso of Finnegans Wake. We first met at the NSW State Library in Sydney where Olwen read a bit of Molly for a modest Bloomsday crowd the year before. As a doctoral student writing about the Wake, Olwen's request for scholarly elucidation proved irresistible.
Following rounds of tea, talk and mutual enjoyment of all things Joycean, Olwen was happy to be interviewed, and you can hear that discussion by clicking on the interview below.
NOTE: The Interview pixies will be delivering the Interview with Olwen Fouere forthwith.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
September 2013
The challenges continue with our homework, attempted together at Hosty's home. The night lessons of II,2 are proving difficult but nonetheless amusing.
All parties present bar Verry Hummus. Grin Again, Hosty, The Northern Fairlights, Metromyriam and the Taler of the Tub present.
Readings aplenty from 264-268.
Served: tea, Metromyriam apple cake and a disappointingly egg-whitey but ravishing-looking Zumbo cake.
Small amounts of wine were consumed on the premises.
Two new Isa Brown chickens were admitted to the group as egg providores.
Word of the session: "televisible".
All parties present bar Verry Hummus. Grin Again, Hosty, The Northern Fairlights, Metromyriam and the Taler of the Tub present.
Readings aplenty from 264-268.
Served: tea, Metromyriam apple cake and a disappointingly egg-whitey but ravishing-looking Zumbo cake.
Small amounts of wine were consumed on the premises.
Two new Isa Brown chickens were admitted to the group as egg providores.
Word of the session: "televisible".
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
June 2013
A brief update to note that we met on the final day of June, only a fortnight after Bloomsday. Your correspondent has finally learned the words to Love's Old Sweet Song which is really a sweet and sentimental tune, isn't it?
At the twilight of June we gathered, with blueberry cake to start with and osso bucco to finish. The rich stew as our goal, we murmured our way through the final, delightful pages of II,1. The pantomime is over, it's back to school for the twins and little sister.
The following chapter (Night Lessons, II, 2) is that daunting, we are planning to reread close of chapter II, 1 just for fun next time at end of July.
On site for this meeting were all relevant parties up to and including Hosty, this Mitzy, Signor Googlielmo, Tahini G and Michael Arklow. The Northern Fairlights remained Northern due to impassable storms on the harbour. We ate their share of stew.
At the twilight of June we gathered, with blueberry cake to start with and osso bucco to finish. The rich stew as our goal, we murmured our way through the final, delightful pages of II,1. The pantomime is over, it's back to school for the twins and little sister.
The following chapter (Night Lessons, II, 2) is that daunting, we are planning to reread close of chapter II, 1 just for fun next time at end of July.
On site for this meeting were all relevant parties up to and including Hosty, this Mitzy, Signor Googlielmo, Tahini G and Michael Arklow. The Northern Fairlights remained Northern due to impassable storms on the harbour. We ate their share of stew.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
New Title: The Ethics of Cherry-picking Boysenberries
From the tarot deck of possible Joyce topics, Benjamin Boysen has drawn the Lover. Our Danish colleague has taken the devotion of our FW Reading Group and stirred it together with years of dedicated scholarship and "a meticulosity bordering on the insane" (FW, 173.34). Which is to say, Boysen's humble "essay" is far from that bright and precise format, it is an egg - one laid by a gigantic dinosaur's larger cousin - of a book, from which whole worlds hatch.
The Ethics of Love: an Essay on James Joyce features the stylish interiors one might find in any polished doctoral thesis, but the luminosity of these marble halls can be startling. I am wearing sunglasses now as I flip through the pages. Honestly, I cannot recall if Dr Boysenberry (which is what our colleague would become if he Quantam Leaped back in time to ghost-write John Berryman's poetry which, let's face it, he probably could) began this Joyce book as a postgrad thesis, but if so, it serves as a warning to chocolate-fuelled, youtube-cat-video-addicted students the world over. Give up now, unless you are going to try a whole lot harder. If, however, this marvellous Joyce book represents an early-career doorstopper, then it sets the standards for budding academics to forego the fundworthy, predictable and 'ism-branded stodge, and go with what truly moves them.
All great scholars emulate their masters, and Boysen has clearly taken after Joyce is amassing a grat page-count to rival the density (physical and metaphysical) of Ulysses and our favourite Wake. As you can tell from this beaming though shallow precis, I have not ventured very far in the Ethics of Love, but like any good Wake devotee, I have skipped forward to the Wake chapters after a brief soak in the frothing spa ("jacuzzi", for Americans) of the Introductory pages.
These pages hold great promise. They also hold a bookmark of the gym I have not joined (Introduction) and a lurid pink post-it-note on the page where Boysen quotes Margot Norris with one of my "key terms", "environment".
Love is a fitting subject indeed for a scholar whose first words uttered in earshot of this humble reviewer included the scientifically thrilling "cunnilingus". Be not afeared, gentle readers, as such terms are the bread and butter, the bricks and mortar of virtually every FW reading group meetings, thanks to the lust-fuelled, palpitatory great beating heart of Joyce's Wake. Just recently in our April meeting, we discussed the oral sex innuendo in chapter II, ii. As for my tender ears coming into contact with Dr Boysen's descriptive language, this was part of a large group discussion in response to a public lecture on the Anna na Poghue legend, a story that screams desperately for a Freudian reading of mouths and keys, followed by soothing post-Freudian affirmations on the importance of giving pleasure while hugging incriminating secrets to one's self for the good of balanced relationships. For his zesty contribution to that evolving discussion alone, Benjamin Boysen is more than qualified to weigh in on the love debate, "except for that fact that there never really was one", to quote Sinead O'Connor (rapping about the alleged 'famine') - a gap which this book has gone it to gum energetically.
Love-starved but not potato-starved, the debate about love and Joyce have been noticeably sexless since the feminists got to the end of chapter 18 of Ulysses and started writhing and moaning along with Molly. Finally, the queer among us got involved and found the dancing master's lavender gloves especially potent, not to mention the remarkably clubby nature of the 29 Florainbow Girls. Rainbow Girls? Why not just saunter down Oxford Street on a Sunday night in buzzcuts wearing Bonds singlets and be done with it? Issy is gay, she always has been (Jassy, Everbloggy Press, 2013).
Boysen's book appears to be delivering all the scholarly rewards that a Wake groupie could want, but you need to know how to navigate the terrain. If you are keen on reading user-friendly books as cosy and joyous as hand-knitted socks on the first branch-snappingly cold day of winter, such as Epstein's, then take a minute to comport yourself before sailing on your swan-boat into Boysen's tunnel of love. This beautifully-designed hardback complete with flirtatious zebras frollicking across its matte black cover contains helpful signage within. There a major intersections to navigate through a dense and multi-lingual critical review. The critical literature leans generously to the philosophical to uncover evidence of the endless dance between 'self' and 'other' that the French replaced coissants with as their major export. That mirroring-discriminating-ideation of the complementary selves continues apace and through various strains of argument that I encourage others to read so they can tell me more about it; I promise to catch up to them once I have completed reading the Wake-porn that is one's unforgivable pleasure - the unsealed section at the back of the book.
The book dares to define the "ethical" - but I haven't yet found the term 'polyamory' and hope others might spot it in among Plato and Hegel. The cerebral heft of metaphysics, the notion of trascendance and also the pleasantly painful combination of sacrifice and desire that fuel love's great showboat seem to form the basis for Boysen's enticing discussion. Polyamory admittedly is a radical social movement that does not exactly find close correlation with pre-Wake Joyce, unless you count Molly's frequent dalliances as polyamorous. Sadly, Molly wouldn't exactly conform to Easton and Hardy's potrait of an "Ethical Slut". Of the two Blooms, Poldy carried the torch for integrity. That aside, Polyamory in the Wake is my next funded research project, so nobody steal it, right?
Mazel Tov to Benjamin Boysen for having published this promising work. If you haven't minded this desultory cherry-picking - a trailer with no spoilers, though, you have to hand it to me - then award yourself a boysenberry swirl in a waffle cone as you get your tongue around some of the truly fancy argumenting going on in this fine tome. I will now perform the Wake test on this Bosenbookberry, which involves turning to a page at random and selecting the best of the first few observed sentences, knowing it will be delightful and uplifting, here goes:
"First love might be silly, but nevertheless brave;" (Boysen, The Ethics of Love, p220.)
Be brave. Read this beautiful book, and come away from it knowing that your first love for Joyce is shared by other mad(ly), deep(ly) devoted readers and scholars. The more the pages turn, the more quotable Boysen becomes: we must remind ourselves we are thining about the Wake when we read "the sentences become a skin caressed by the gaze of the reader" (ibid, p316.) If your glasses didn't just fog up at that, you may need to check your pulse. Tip. Tap - tap!
Yes, I ibided, and I bid you happy travels through the Ethics of Love, 2013, University Press of Southern Denmark.
The Ethics of Love: an Essay on James Joyce features the stylish interiors one might find in any polished doctoral thesis, but the luminosity of these marble halls can be startling. I am wearing sunglasses now as I flip through the pages. Honestly, I cannot recall if Dr Boysenberry (which is what our colleague would become if he Quantam Leaped back in time to ghost-write John Berryman's poetry which, let's face it, he probably could) began this Joyce book as a postgrad thesis, but if so, it serves as a warning to chocolate-fuelled, youtube-cat-video-addicted students the world over. Give up now, unless you are going to try a whole lot harder. If, however, this marvellous Joyce book represents an early-career doorstopper, then it sets the standards for budding academics to forego the fundworthy, predictable and 'ism-branded stodge, and go with what truly moves them.
All great scholars emulate their masters, and Boysen has clearly taken after Joyce is amassing a grat page-count to rival the density (physical and metaphysical) of Ulysses and our favourite Wake. As you can tell from this beaming though shallow precis, I have not ventured very far in the Ethics of Love, but like any good Wake devotee, I have skipped forward to the Wake chapters after a brief soak in the frothing spa ("jacuzzi", for Americans) of the Introductory pages.
These pages hold great promise. They also hold a bookmark of the gym I have not joined (Introduction) and a lurid pink post-it-note on the page where Boysen quotes Margot Norris with one of my "key terms", "environment".
Love is a fitting subject indeed for a scholar whose first words uttered in earshot of this humble reviewer included the scientifically thrilling "cunnilingus". Be not afeared, gentle readers, as such terms are the bread and butter, the bricks and mortar of virtually every FW reading group meetings, thanks to the lust-fuelled, palpitatory great beating heart of Joyce's Wake. Just recently in our April meeting, we discussed the oral sex innuendo in chapter II, ii. As for my tender ears coming into contact with Dr Boysen's descriptive language, this was part of a large group discussion in response to a public lecture on the Anna na Poghue legend, a story that screams desperately for a Freudian reading of mouths and keys, followed by soothing post-Freudian affirmations on the importance of giving pleasure while hugging incriminating secrets to one's self for the good of balanced relationships. For his zesty contribution to that evolving discussion alone, Benjamin Boysen is more than qualified to weigh in on the love debate, "except for that fact that there never really was one", to quote Sinead O'Connor (rapping about the alleged 'famine') - a gap which this book has gone it to gum energetically.
Love-starved but not potato-starved, the debate about love and Joyce have been noticeably sexless since the feminists got to the end of chapter 18 of Ulysses and started writhing and moaning along with Molly. Finally, the queer among us got involved and found the dancing master's lavender gloves especially potent, not to mention the remarkably clubby nature of the 29 Florainbow Girls. Rainbow Girls? Why not just saunter down Oxford Street on a Sunday night in buzzcuts wearing Bonds singlets and be done with it? Issy is gay, she always has been (Jassy, Everbloggy Press, 2013).
Boysen's book appears to be delivering all the scholarly rewards that a Wake groupie could want, but you need to know how to navigate the terrain. If you are keen on reading user-friendly books as cosy and joyous as hand-knitted socks on the first branch-snappingly cold day of winter, such as Epstein's, then take a minute to comport yourself before sailing on your swan-boat into Boysen's tunnel of love. This beautifully-designed hardback complete with flirtatious zebras frollicking across its matte black cover contains helpful signage within. There a major intersections to navigate through a dense and multi-lingual critical review. The critical literature leans generously to the philosophical to uncover evidence of the endless dance between 'self' and 'other' that the French replaced coissants with as their major export. That mirroring-discriminating-ideation of the complementary selves continues apace and through various strains of argument that I encourage others to read so they can tell me more about it; I promise to catch up to them once I have completed reading the Wake-porn that is one's unforgivable pleasure - the unsealed section at the back of the book.
The book dares to define the "ethical" - but I haven't yet found the term 'polyamory' and hope others might spot it in among Plato and Hegel. The cerebral heft of metaphysics, the notion of trascendance and also the pleasantly painful combination of sacrifice and desire that fuel love's great showboat seem to form the basis for Boysen's enticing discussion. Polyamory admittedly is a radical social movement that does not exactly find close correlation with pre-Wake Joyce, unless you count Molly's frequent dalliances as polyamorous. Sadly, Molly wouldn't exactly conform to Easton and Hardy's potrait of an "Ethical Slut". Of the two Blooms, Poldy carried the torch for integrity. That aside, Polyamory in the Wake is my next funded research project, so nobody steal it, right?
Mazel Tov to Benjamin Boysen for having published this promising work. If you haven't minded this desultory cherry-picking - a trailer with no spoilers, though, you have to hand it to me - then award yourself a boysenberry swirl in a waffle cone as you get your tongue around some of the truly fancy argumenting going on in this fine tome. I will now perform the Wake test on this Bosenbookberry, which involves turning to a page at random and selecting the best of the first few observed sentences, knowing it will be delightful and uplifting, here goes:
"First love might be silly, but nevertheless brave;" (Boysen, The Ethics of Love, p220.)
Be brave. Read this beautiful book, and come away from it knowing that your first love for Joyce is shared by other mad(ly), deep(ly) devoted readers and scholars. The more the pages turn, the more quotable Boysen becomes: we must remind ourselves we are thining about the Wake when we read "the sentences become a skin caressed by the gaze of the reader" (ibid, p316.) If your glasses didn't just fog up at that, you may need to check your pulse. Tip. Tap - tap!
Yes, I ibided, and I bid you happy travels through the Ethics of Love, 2013, University Press of Southern Denmark.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
April 2013
Culturally diverse names for 'pikelets', chicken-snatching foxes and uncomfortable sexual violence statistics. Nothing is off the agenda when it comes to warming up for Finnegans Wake.
Our gathering this Sunday returned us to the Hosty's 'Haunted Inkbottle', arising in lemon yellow hues from the Fields of Ash, an oasis of poetry Brought On up the stairs to our thirsty hearts on a humpy tea tray, with teapot suitably scalded.
Starting Page: 249, from "Luck".
Endpoint: 251, "But listening to the Mockinbird.
Foodie inspiration from today's reading: Sally Lunn's bun, a kind of brioche originally baked in Bath by a French woman.
Here is a history of the Sally Lunn bun.
We sensed at times more than understood, but that is our usual method of reading.
The "house breathings" is (among other things) Issy's mouth.Using McHugh via Fweet, we understood another embedding of the word Heliotrope based on the shape-names of the Hebrew letters.
The children's "singing games" that Joyce studied are studded through the following paragraphs as Shem-as-Glugg continues to flirt with the 29 Girls and defend himself against Shaun-as-Chuff.
The three questions at the top of p250 appear to be collectively asked of Shem. Each question (about his preparedness for sexual encounters) draws some play-acting from Shem who "simules", "makes semblant" and "finges" (feigns", but also makes scissoring motions with his fingers).
Humorous animal imagery comes through in the remainder of the 'magic' aspects of p250. The faun is symbolic of the magic, and Issy and her Florals are sensed by them as a flock of sheep - the invocation of Mary Had a Little Lamb is strongly audible. It could be a further contribution to the sheep/goats motif, but for now seems to contrast the purity of the "verveine virgins" (white) compared with the goaty pan-like male figures (fauns).
The continuing magical symbols of manifestations ("visitation") and demonic babbling ("tubble dabble" and all the Lucifer words) indicate Shem's 'black arts' and the very saucy paragraph at 251.4 indicates the good old male gaze - where has it been? haven't seen it for at least a few pages - in action, using the "imogenation" to conjure up mastubatory fantasy fodder, because that is what the pre- or actually pubescent Shem is busying himself with. Although an extra level of lechery is sensed as the teacher-pupil relationship is invoked.
Mrs Gamp of the Northern Fairlights made a striking proposition, as it were, to consider the very sexual implications of the phrase "hers in the word". The momentum and climax of the 251.4-20 paragraph can be read as a fantasy (or invitation, or experience) of oral intercourse, for the said verveine 29 Girls led by Issy to maintain their genital chastity.
The theme for our reading seemed to be 'temptation' as some great white wine was poured in subconscious honour of Jim's favourite tipple.
So the sun set on another encounter with the tapestry of tales and ascending scales on which we weigh our monthly intelligence quota. All of us know it takes far more than intelligence, which is merely the bread on which the marmalade eventually spreads, for those who are predisposed to Waking. Patience, curiosity, joyfulness and a willingness to sink one's self into someone else's dazzling and dangerously addictive art, to wonder that such a concentric book was the product of one mind.
Our group is about 7 pages away from the next chapter. We read, we talk, we drink tea, and so the pages turn.
Our gathering this Sunday returned us to the Hosty's 'Haunted Inkbottle', arising in lemon yellow hues from the Fields of Ash, an oasis of poetry Brought On up the stairs to our thirsty hearts on a humpy tea tray, with teapot suitably scalded.
Starting Page: 249, from "Luck".
Endpoint: 251, "But listening to the Mockinbird.
 |
| Sally Lunn bun |
Here is a history of the Sally Lunn bun.
We sensed at times more than understood, but that is our usual method of reading.
The "house breathings" is (among other things) Issy's mouth.Using McHugh via Fweet, we understood another embedding of the word Heliotrope based on the shape-names of the Hebrew letters.
The children's "singing games" that Joyce studied are studded through the following paragraphs as Shem-as-Glugg continues to flirt with the 29 Girls and defend himself against Shaun-as-Chuff.
The three questions at the top of p250 appear to be collectively asked of Shem. Each question (about his preparedness for sexual encounters) draws some play-acting from Shem who "simules", "makes semblant" and "finges" (feigns", but also makes scissoring motions with his fingers).
Humorous animal imagery comes through in the remainder of the 'magic' aspects of p250. The faun is symbolic of the magic, and Issy and her Florals are sensed by them as a flock of sheep - the invocation of Mary Had a Little Lamb is strongly audible. It could be a further contribution to the sheep/goats motif, but for now seems to contrast the purity of the "verveine virgins" (white) compared with the goaty pan-like male figures (fauns).
The continuing magical symbols of manifestations ("visitation") and demonic babbling ("tubble dabble" and all the Lucifer words) indicate Shem's 'black arts' and the very saucy paragraph at 251.4 indicates the good old male gaze - where has it been? haven't seen it for at least a few pages - in action, using the "imogenation" to conjure up mastubatory fantasy fodder, because that is what the pre- or actually pubescent Shem is busying himself with. Although an extra level of lechery is sensed as the teacher-pupil relationship is invoked.
Mrs Gamp of the Northern Fairlights made a striking proposition, as it were, to consider the very sexual implications of the phrase "hers in the word". The momentum and climax of the 251.4-20 paragraph can be read as a fantasy (or invitation, or experience) of oral intercourse, for the said verveine 29 Girls led by Issy to maintain their genital chastity.
The theme for our reading seemed to be 'temptation' as some great white wine was poured in subconscious honour of Jim's favourite tipple.
So the sun set on another encounter with the tapestry of tales and ascending scales on which we weigh our monthly intelligence quota. All of us know it takes far more than intelligence, which is merely the bread on which the marmalade eventually spreads, for those who are predisposed to Waking. Patience, curiosity, joyfulness and a willingness to sink one's self into someone else's dazzling and dangerously addictive art, to wonder that such a concentric book was the product of one mind.
Our group is about 7 pages away from the next chapter. We read, we talk, we drink tea, and so the pages turn.
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