This post discusses some images of gorges and voids in Finnegans Wake.

The following sentence appears in I.3:

Now let the centuple celves of my egourge as Micholas de Cusack calls them,—of all of whose I in my hereinafter of course by recourse demission me—by the coincidance of their contraries reamalgamerge in that indentity of undiscernibles where the Baxters and the Fleshmans may they cease to bidivil uns and (but at this poingt though the iron thrust of his cockspurt start might have prepared us we are wellnigh stinkpotthered by the mustardpunge in the tailend) this outandin brown candlestock melt Nolan’s into peese!

In an earlier post, I discussed this section of the novel and gave the following comment: “The ego urge (to sin), embodied by HCE, is also a gorge, a gaping hole out of which emerge the ‘centuple celves’ of the dream (of life, of individuality). Their coincidence — their ultimate containment in the other — is embodied in the dance of life. They reamalgamate and emerge in each new identity in indiscernible ways, and the dance goes on as the past lives in the present and the future.”

Something I did not mention in my earlier post, however, was the structure of the sentence, which is phrased as “Let this happen.” A rough paraphrase of the entire sentence might be, “Let these many selves amalgamate again into an identity where the brother rivalry will cease, and let a candlestick melt the antagonistic brothers into peace (like peas in a pod).”

Some other assorted notes:

Brown and Nolan is a Dublin bookseller, and Girodano Bruno was from Nola, so Joyce called him Bruno the Nolan. The names Nolan and Bruno/Brown appear as names for the contrary brothers throughout the Wake.

Peese is peace, peas (in a pod) and pee. It’s a reference to the Prankquean’s riddle.

The brothers are referred to as a pot of peas in the crossexamination of I.4:

Two dreamyums in one dromium? Yes and no error. And both as like as a duel of lentils? Peacisely.

Further, the text implies that sex — perhaps between the brothers — is a way to heal the division, to figuratively fill the gap/gorge (egourge) of division:

though the iron thrust of his cockspurt start might have prepared us we are wellnigh stinkpotthered by the mustardpunge in the tailend

I remember the first time I read this, I actually said, “Oh geez…” out loud. As ever, the sexual impulse is both the cause of the Fall and the source of the redemption. These words accordingly gesture both to the fallen world (where people are bothered and act like a bunch of stinkpots [associated with pungent, gross smells, such as emanate from tail ends]) and to the redemption (the parables of the mustard seed and the talent from the Gospels).

The Biblical parables indicate the importance of faith and action, and I see no reason why we could not interpret these stories in the secular sense of having confidence in oneself and taking action in the world instead of hiding one’s gifts out a misplaced sense of modesty.

*

Another reference to a gorge or emptiness occurs in I.2.

After HCE’s encounter with the Cad, the Cad’s wife spreads rumors about HCE, and it spreads all over Dublin, where it is heard by three men (the three soldiers who are aspects of HCE: Shem, Shaun, and their combined form as the Cad).

Among these three men, the one who takes the role of the combined form is Hosty, who composes and sings a ballad about HCE.

So the introduction of these three characters is like HCE coming apart and breaking into separate beings after the fall. 

Hosty is described as

suspicioning as how he was setting on a twoodstool on the verge of selfabyss

This phrasing indicates that HCE is dividing into two in the abyss of self (the two brothers emerging out of the egourge).

Amusingly, the word “selfabyss” is a version of “self abuse,” another term for masturbation, much as “sitting on a toadstool” (“setting on a twoodstool”) can be a euphemism for engaging in anal sex. That is to say, HCE’s division is the product of whatever sexual offense happened in the Park.

After all, HCE “has been repreaching himself like a fishmummer these siktyten years ever since” his arrival (I.1), and later HCE even says he has been “peaching […] the warry warst against myself” (II.3) (the two girls in the Park are his peaches).

HCE — and the conflict between his aspects — is built on an ego-gorge/urge, a gap in the self, the absence of HCE in sleep/death out of which the characters of the Wake pour forth. Hence, HCE is a “rude breathing on the void of to be” (I.4). [And “rude breathing” further suggests heavy breathing during sexual activity]

During the encounter with the Cad, after he hears HCE’s stuttering defense, the Cad is called Gaping Gill. Gaping Ghyl is a vertical cave in Yorkshire…it’s a deep pit. A gorge, an abyss.

He thanks HCE for the time and goes, “upon humble duty to greet his Tyskminister and he shall gildthegap Gaper and thee his a mouldy voids.”

The Taskmaster was mentioned by HCE, and it refers to God. But I wonder if the Tysk-minister is the Cad’s wife, who would be, under this interpretation, a nag.

The Cad goes home to his dinner and his wife, and this corresponds to the feast of Finnegan’s Wake after the Fall. It further corresponds to the son (Cad, from the French “cadet,” youngest son) cuckolding the father (HCE) by claiming the wife character for himself.

Perhaps the phrase “gildthegap Gaper” is a sex joke indicating that the Cad is going home to “fill her gap.” Under this interpretation “thee his a mouldy voids” could be a garbled version of “see his moldy void.” Or perhaps “thee” is being used as a verb…I guess “to thee” it would be to treat it familiarly, like the word “thee” (being the more intimate “you” in English).

“Mouldy voids” is also “mighty voice,” a reference to Psalm 68…I think the passage simultaneously means to pay respects to God and to cuckold HCE by sleeping with his wife. It also means to go forth to encounter the fallen world (with its decay and mold) that emerges from the abyss of self, the void of the egourge.

But the Cad will also “gild the gap” later when the brothers reconcile by…filling each other’s gap:

In II.2, after Shaun slugs Shem, the latter thanks him, and tells him that the “salubrated sickenagiaour of yaours [his punch] have teaspilled all my hazeydency” (dispelled all my hesitancy), adding that “I’m only out for celebridging over the guilt of the gap in your hiscitendency.”

“Hesitancy” is a key word in the Wake — Shem, Shaun, and HCE all display hesitance because of their guilt. “Hesitance” was also a key word in a scandal surrounding Charles Stuart Parnell, the Irish politician who was a hero to the Joyces. One of his enemies forged a letter from him supposedly applauding the Phoenix Park Murders, and the forgery was exposed because of a misspelling of the word “Hesitancy.”

Anyway, Shem continues in that passage at the end of II.2, “I plant my penstock in your postern, chinarpot.”

Talk about filling the gap! And that’s how the brothers are reconciled.

Interestingly, the word “penstock” here in II.2 echoes the “candlestock” from the quote in I.3 I discussed at the beginning of this post. That earlier passage looks forward to this later moment where the brothers begin to merge together.

*

One more reference to filling a gap:

In II.4, when the Four Old Men are spying on the lovemaking of Tristan with Isolde (Tristan is the younger HCE, who is cuckolding the older and taking his place to start the cycle again), they see the moment of union

For it was then a pretty thing happened of pure diversion mayhap, when his flattering hend, at the justright moment, like perchance some cook of corage might clip the lad on a poot of porage handshut his duckhouse, the vivid girl, deaf with love, (ah sure, you know her, our angel being, one of romance’s fadeless wonderwomen, and, sure now, we all know you dote on her even unto date!) with a queeleetlecree of joysis crisis she renulited their disunited, with ripy lepes to ropy lopes (the dear o’dears!) and the golden importunity of aloofer’s leavetime, when, as quick, is greased pigskin, Amoricas Champius, with one aragan throust, druve the massive of virilvigtoury flshpst the both lines of forwards (Eburnea’s down, boys!) rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.

A note I wrote myself is sufficient commentary on this passage: “Lol, Christ almighty.”

The word “disunited” here reminds me of Shaun’s condemnation of Shem in I.7, which also contains a void:

you have reared your disunited kingdom on the vacuum of your own most intensely doubtful soul.

“Disunited kingdom,” that’s cute. On the level of the individual, this kingdom is the fall into Selfhood, in which Shaun also ironically participates in his tendency to condemn others and exalt himself. On the national/international level, Selfhoods collectively produce political oppression, like the subjugation of Ireland and the forcible incorporation of it into the UK via the Act of Union.

Although Shaun is just as responsible for the Fall, he puts all the blame on Shem, as he does in that part of the book (since he represents the part of the mind that condemns others, focusing on the motes in his neighbor’s eye instead of on the beam in his own).

This “disunited kingdom” stands for the “disunited” fallen world (in its individual, national, and international levels) that is remedied when the combined form of the brothers (Tristan) makes love to Isolde and becomes the next HCE. This moment of Tristan with Isolde is the exact same moment as the Cad going home to his wife, just seen from another point of view. The difference is that the Cad going home causes or completes the Fall, while Tristan making love to Isolde remedies it. The Fall is the Redemption. All potential is contained in all actuality, and every moment of history is layered on top of this very Moment, ever accessible. This Moment right here — right now, this Moment of you reading this post — is simultaneously the lowest Hell and the highest Heaven. It all depends on how you turn your eyes to look at it.

And one more reference to disunited: earlier in that same chapter (II.4) there is an anticipation of the reunion. During a long sentence on pages 394-95, which will be the subject of a future post, there is what may be a description of manifestation (the Fall) and mystical union (Redemption), in which “memostinmust egotum” (my inmost ego, or highest self, which is a “must” or Necessity or Destiny)

exteriorises on this ourherenow plane in disunited solod, likeward and gushious bodies with (science, say!) perilwhitened passionpanting pugnoplangent intuitions of reunited selfdom

We (and the world) manifest(s) as solid, liquid, and gas bodies (alone [solo-d], with desires [likeward]), and with juicy, gooey parts [gushious]), though we have intuitions — which we have access to in every Moment — of “reunited selfdom.”

Cleverly, the phrase “reunited selfdom” is split by a page break. “Reunited” appears as the last word on page 394, while “Selfdom” appears as the first word on page 395. I feel confident that this was intentional on Joyce’s part (or it is one hell of a coincidence). It suggests that here in the fallen world, we must conceptualize such a non-dual idea through the lens of dualistic thought.