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Concerning Puns

All right-thinking people hate puns. And our hearts all share the same image of the wretched punster, a characterless character afflicted by a surplus of education which has left him bereft of humour, save for the heaving chortles that belch forth from his unkempt beard as he repeats to some hapless, cornered victim – in the office Christmas party or the line for the post office – his discovery of two different words that happen to sound the same. James Joyce was, apparently, exactly this sort of person. According to his biographer, Richard Ellmann, the young Jim not only collected puns, but worse yet, he would reel them off at parties. And so it makes sense that some people might dismiss Finnegans Wake, as Martin Amis did in an article on the novel, as a book written in puns, a “reader-hostile, reader-nuking immolation.” But regardless of whatever regrettable behaviour might have marred Joyce’s personal life, the wordplay of Finnegans Wake is completely different from that of newspaper headlines and your pedantic uncle. It is a book that you cannot read without reorganising your approach to finding meaning.

In a normal sentence, ideas are connected in a logical structure to create a more or less coherent message. But in phrases like “the fall of a once wallstrait oldparr,” and “the length of the land lies under liquidation” (an eerily fitting description of Ireland today), the reader is adrift in a sea of ambiguous meanings. The banal abuts the divine, pleas of innocence turn into confessions and sermons into seductions. As communication goes, it’s perhaps a little inefficient. But once you get into it, it has a wonderfully disorienting effect on your brain. I could be wrong, of course. Possibly the greatest effect that reading Finnegans Wake has on the brain is that of forcing you to rationalise the time spent reading it...

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This style is not playing to my strengths, I’m afraid. Roll on chapter three!

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Chapter Two

f all the techniques that Joyce used to write Finnegans Wake, the most useful to the poor hapless reader must be that of repetition. Every story told through the course of the book essentially reiterates a single sequence of events. So the rise and fall of the great Finnegan which dominated chapter one was the primeval, mythic expression of a story that will recur again and again throughout the rest of the book. And so we come to chapter two, one of the most approachable sequences of the whole book, which begins the story of Finnegan’s replacement, alluded to at the end of the previous chapter. This is Mr. H.C. Earwicker, part-publican, part-politician, all-round eminent Dublin gentleman, popularly known as Here Comes Everybody (“constantly the same as and equal to himself and magnificently well worthy of and all such universalisation”). But no sooner has Earwicker’s tenure begun than does he begin to relive the sorry fate of his predecessor, assailed by enemies both real and imagined. Despite his good breeding and heroic reputation, Mr. Earwicker is plagued by rumours of a mysterious crime that supposedly took place in Dublin’s conveniently-named Phoenix Park, possibly involving two urinating young women, or three soldiers, or perhaps all five together.

It remains unclear exactly what this crime was, as well as whether HCE actually did it, although he certainly seems to feel guilty about something. When he is confronted in the park by a young “cad with a pipe” who asks him the time, he unaccountably takes the question as a threat, and launches into a confused defense of his character. This eccentric performance proves his downfall, however. Later that day, the cad tells his wife of his encounter. The next day, she tells her priest, who tells a professor at the races. Before long, the entire town is spreading the gossip. When it reaches the ears of a disreputable type of poetic tendencies named Hosty, he loses no time in penning and publishing a satirical song at Earwicker’s expense. Entitled “The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly”, it’s an instant hit, it seems to spell the end for our hero. WHATEVER WILL HAPPEN NEXT?! I know, I know, it’s a nailbiter. But you’ll just have to wait. CHAPTER TWO INDEX

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Update

It’s been intolerably quiet around here of late, but not for no reason, I promise. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m planning something a little different for the next few chapters. Because chapters two to four tell a fairly linear and even rather intelligible story, I want to use a consistent style to match it. Unfortunately, that means I have to at least roughly plot out the next 73 pages before I begin, and I’ve had a few false starts. But on the plus side, once I’ve worked out what I’m doing, it should hopefully go a lot faster.

In other news, I have joined Twitter, although I’m still not really sure what it’s for. Anyone who cares to can find me as @invisibledot.

I’d also like to thank all the blogs that mentioned this project in the past few weeks! It’s really gratifying to see that people are interested in it!

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