OxBlog

# Posted 5:40 PM by Patrick Belton

FOUR QUARKS FOR MISTER OXBLOG:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

[...]

So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bus to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous- endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the

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Comments:

If aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon it would be as close as our chaos could come to the eights of Shakespeare and Dante!

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:51 PM

Nothing so far as I can make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clap can possibly be worth all that circumambient peripherization

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:52 PM

[That's a mighty ellipsis, there]

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:19 PM

I'm convinced that this book is total garbage, and that Joyce completely misunderstood the notion of "stream of consciousness".

# posted by

LTEC : 11:03 AM

I'm afraid I don't know if I agree with the learned opinion of the last commenter, actually. First off, it's not obvious to me that 'stream of consciousness' is really what Joyce is about in the Wake- we wander in and out of minds in Ulysses, yes, but it's more profound travels we're set here, hopping in this circular tale of redemption and recirculation through two principal characters who at one moment are City and River, at another Tristan and Iseult, in a third Eve and Adam, and so on through every primordial literary pairing probing for some continuity and shared chance of redemption among them all. I've been quite taken by it recently, actually, finding reading it an experience that's comparable to listening to Poulenc - the jarring challenging atonal bits, but then the searing lyricisms - the winding around in circle of the entire book, for instance, or the recirculation of mythical McCoul into Finnegan's shoes in 'Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnnagain.'

Humbly and personally, I'm given goosebumps at the recirculation of the daughter-wife-Liffey when the text is wrapped around in its own recirculation, 'Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.'

# posted by

Patrick Belton : 11:39 AM

"Dubliners" is challenging; this book is something else.

And no, I am not "learned" enough to spend the years necessary to appreciate it, and I'm seriously interested if you really like it as literature rather than as a crossword puzzle. And I wonder how many other authors you would spend five minutes with if they tried to pull the same pranks that Joyce did (and with the same success). (And I think there are many people who can do this as well as Joyce. Joyce could write well, but I feel that he eventually gave up and resorted to silly word games.)

# posted by

LTEC : 1:03 AM