Like most works of literature, Finnegans Wake rewards close reading, a method of textual analysis that involves close attention to language, structure, and literary devices. The Wake generally requires far more demanding and involved forms of close reading than most literary texts because of the complexity of its style and content.

The Wake also rewards what we might call “far reading,” where the reader has to draw together information from different parts of the text, often signaled by echoes. Again, this is true of other works of literature, but the complexities of the Wake also introduce difficulties here.

For example, in my last post, I discussed a passage on page 62 in which the people of Ireland acted “to condemn [HCE] so they might convince him, first pharoah, Humpheres Cheops Exarchas, of their proper sins.”

As I wrote in that post, “The people project their guilt onto HCE (for good reason: because he is all of them). Yet it is not enough that they accuse him and try to convict him legally: they also wish to convince him that their own sins are “proper” (this word here is an archaic way of saying their “own sins,” but it also suggests that they want to convince him that their own offenses are appropriate and thus not really offenses in the way that his sin was). The sentence suggests the psychology of people trying to alleviate themselves of guilt by condemning the fault of another instead of looking at their own (perhaps as a means to avoid experiencing guilt at their own shortcomings). Another way to say this is that they condemn their own sins by finding fault in another, not realizing that he and they share in a basic human fallibility.”

In my copy of the Wake, I have scrawled in the margins here 557 and 615 – these are page numbers on which I found moments that resonate with this passage.

Let’s look at them briefly. The passage on 615 comes from the Letter of ALP: this is the document that ALP writes (or, rather, dictates to her son Shem, the artist; the other son, Shaun, claims credit for the letter and delivers it to the people). The Letter is a symbol for all of literature (including especially Finnegans Wake itself) as well as for all of the world’s holy scriptures.

The Letter both seeks to clear HCE’s name and further incriminates him, much as his own protestations of his innocence do.

In IV.1, almost at the final pages of the Finnegans Wake, we finally encounter a version of the letter after being tantalized by it for most of the book [snippets of alternate versions appear throughout the book, notably in ALP’s section in III.3]. In the first paragraph of the Letter, ALP condemns those sneaks who lie about HCE, and she says,

> So may the low forget him their trespasses against Molloyd O’Reilly, that hugglebeddy fann, now about to get up, the hartiest that Coolock ever!

The bolded phrase is a variation on “forgive us our trespasses” from the Lord’s Prayer. It’s been altered here – first, to “forgive him his trespasses,” and then again to “forgive him their trespasses,” and then once more to its appearance in the text: “forget him their trespasses.”

While “the low” is a variation on “the Lord,” it also works as a reference to the commoners of Ireland, and Molloyd O’Reilly is a version of HCE (who is called “Persse O’Reilly” throughout the book [M’Lord O’Reilly, here?]), to whose resurrection ALP looks forward. It is almost the end of the book, and he is about to get up from sleep.

In the passage on 62, the people convict him of their own sins, and here ALP hopes the people will forgive him for their own sins. That is, she hopes they will be mature enough to stop using him as a scapegoat. Interestingly, this is presented in the same sentence that looks forward to his resurrection, implying a connection between the two: the resurrection of HCE (the redemption of each of us) involves our maturing to the point that we cease to scapegoat others. This is one way we can begin to “wake” from our fallen tendency to blame others for our own transgressions, or in place of examining our own transgressions.

But Joyce’s alterations of language introduce further layers of meaning: the people additionally sought to “convince” him that their sins were “proper,” which suggests a process of self-justification that may be tied up with a tendency to scapegoat others. And the Letter hopes not merely that the people will forgive but that they will forget. This plays on the phrase “forgive and forget,” but it also suggests that the forgiveness ALP advocates here is a kind of forgetting, a maturing of consciousness so that the people stop obsessing over these “proper sins” and just forget about the whole thing.

The word “forget” is employed several times in IV.1 to signal the end of the dream. On one level, when the dreamer wakes up, he will forget the content of the dream. On another level, our “waking” up from our fallen state involves us forgetting the grudges of the past. At the same time, these human tendencies will always remain with us:

Begin to forget it. It will remember itself from every sides, with all gestures, in each our word. Today’s truth, tomorrow’s trend.

Forget, remember!

Have we cherished expectations? Are we for liberty of perusiveness? Whyafter what forewhere? A plainplanned liffeyism assemblements Eblania’s conglomerate horde. By dim delty Deva.

Forget!

Even if we don’t forgive and forget by the process of maturing, it doesn’t matter – time will wipe us out, and we will forget it all. But the tendencies of human nature will live on after us, to repeat the same stories in different forms. “Today’s truth, tomorrow’s trend.” [Four words, perhaps corresponding to the 4 ages of Vico that structure Finnegans Wake]

That’s humanity for you, signified by Eblania’s conglomerate horde by the Liffey…the people of Dublin.

*

On 557, there is a paragraph in III.4 that is part of a survey of the characters in HCE’s household. This paragraph describes how the 12 citizens – patrons of HCE’s tavern who are simultaneously his jury (as well as the twelve apostles, the twelve hours of the clock, the twelve zodiac signs); they might signify HCE’s superego or conscience – found HCE guilty.

[The citizens are always signaled in the text by the repetition of words ending in -tion. The paragraph is packed to the brim with -tion words, making it quite amusing as a long sentence goes on and on and on with these words building to his condemnation]

One of the sentences contains this bit:

by reverendum they found him guilty of their and those imputations of fornicolopulation

The reason I connected this to page 62 is that they found him guilty of a crime, but these words could also be read as saying that they found him guilty of their own crime (“their [own] fornicolopulation” in addition to “those imputations of” fornicolopulation). And indeed, it was their own crime because they, like everyone else, are HCE.

He was found guilty by a referendum of these reverend citizens, and his crime was of a sexual nature – here a mix of fornication and copulation, with possibly an echo of “cul” (ass). The word also sounds like “population,” calling to mind again the people of Ireland who turned against him.

At the same time, the word recalls Felix Culpa, the happy fault. Whatever his offense was – whatever offenses each of us commit to despoil our own personal Paradise – the Fall necessitates the greater good of redemption and forgiveness.

Of course, on page 557 – especially in the context of a chapter where HCE and ALP are interrupted during their unsatisfying sexual intercourse by the cry of their child – redemption has not yet been fulfilled. The paragraph goes on to describe how the sentence (of “corporal amputation”) will be carried out against HCE “tomorrowmorn.”

*

Altogether, these passages could be taken to be sketching out a progression:

Page 62 establishes the psychological mechanisms of scapegoating and self-justification

Page 557 echoes these mechanisms more specifically within the guilty psyche of HCE, blaming himself and dreading his coming punishment. But at the same time, it suggests that the hope of redemption is intertwined with offense.

Page 615 proposes a means of achieving that redemption: that forgetting and forgiving is the way to overcome our toxic tendencies toward ourselves and others.

Further, the phrase “forgive us our trespasses” recalls a moment in II.3, during the Butt and Taff radio or television performance, in which the patrons of HCE’s tavern watch or listen to the routine of two vaudeville comedians who represent Shaun and Shem.

At a key moment, the performer representing Shem, the artist (Taff), is described as the “foregiver of trosstpassers” as he offers his brother communion (reconciling the brothers and beginning the process of their reunification into the next HCE).

I’ll be looking at this scene in a later post about II.3.

Anyway, my point is – deep close reading is necessary to extract meaning from Finnegans Wake, but the book also greatly rewards “far reading” that detects echoes and recurring themes from all over the book.

The only way to perform this “far reading” is to read the book multiple times. The first time through, you will be completely lost and, with luck, just barely keeping your head above the surface. On a first trip through, you’re just trying to see the shape of the landscape, as it were. Each successive read fills in more and more details and gives you the ability to catch more and more references and callbacks, enriching the experience of the whole work.