This series of posts looks at the famous closing monologue of Finnegans Wake.

Just as Ulysses ends with the rush of Molly Bloom’s thoughts — 40 pages barely interrupted by any punctuation — Finnegans Wake ends with a monologue from the feminine portion of the dreamer, ALP: Anna Livia Plurabelle.

She’s the feminine portion of the cosmos. The part that breaks apart the male energy and then gathers it up to spread it forward into the next generation, which is simultaneously a putting the pieces back together into the next HCE to start the cycle again.

Here at the end of the novel, we read a version of Anna’s letter — the document that has been hinted at throughout the text that both incriminates and absolves HCE of his crime. It is a representation of Finnegans Wake itself.

And then following her letter, signed “Alma Luvia, Pollabella,” we get a monologue from her as the River Liffey, the river of life itself, the blood of the sleeping body, all rivers that have ever existed — the river that runs through Dublin and gathers leaves, which are all the pages of all the literature ever written, until we get to the last page of the Wake, where one leaf remains.

[Curiously, the name “Anna Livia Plurabelle” never appears in Finnegans Wake, in precisely that form, with the names directly next to each other. The closest the text gets is in I.8: “Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle’s to be.”]

It’s interesting that ALP does not really speak very much at all in the Wake. We do hear from her avatars — Issy has a monologue in 1.6 and writes all the footnotes in II.2, the washerwomen speak 1.8, and ALP herself appears to speak in III.3, along with Issy here and there. But other than that, we mostly hear *about* her.

Here, she takes center stage.

In this monologue, here at the end of the dream, having gathered up the pieces and passed on the business to the next generation, she calls her sleeping husband to wake up and bids him to go on a walk with her. In the dream logic of the Wake, she talks about doing it and does it simultaneously or dreams of it. They’re taking a journey, and it appears to be a journey through their lives together. And then, on the last two pages, she realizes that her fantasy of the walk is just that — a fantasy. The actual HCE awakening is a younger version, who’s going to turn to a younger version of ALP. The cycle will repeat, but she won’t be a part of it. It is a “bitter ending” as she rushes out to the salty sea, her Father beyond (the HCE of an older cycle).

It’s worth noting that ALP is a distinct character with a distinct way of speaking. She has a working-class Irish accent, and she speaks in sentences that tend to cut off. That is, she has lots of partial sentences that invite the reader to supply how they ought to end. It’s appropriate for the passage right at the end of the book. It also fills the whole passage with an energy of anticipation, or such energy of longing and emotion that the speaker can’t bring herself to finish her thoughts. She swallows all her feelings, and the river is washing it all away, out to sea.

ALP represents a dying person, a person undergoing great change (we’re all changing, all the time), a person looking back with fondness on their life. A person looking forward to the future and recognizing, in a bittersweet way, that ideal futures don’t exist.

As is often the case in Joyce’s literature, ALP has an epiphany, which is a moment when a character has a sudden realization about themselves or their lives. All the stories of Dubliners are built around such epiphanies, and it will be worth my writing a post about sometime.

We begin:

Soft morning, city! Lsp! I am leafy speafing. Lpf! Folty and folty all the nights have falled on to long my hair. Not a sound, falling. Lispn! No wind no word. Only a leaf, just a leaf and then leaves. The woods are fond always. As were we their babes in. And robins in crews so. It is for me goolden wending. Unless? Away! 

I love this opening. Folty is 40 (days and nights of the flood, the Fall). Thinking back to the woods when we were babes. A reference to Robinson Crusoe, sent off like HCE. But also crews of birds: ALP is the gathering bird, as in I.1 (“there’s that gnarlybird ygathering”). The “golden wending” is golden wedding, but also to wend, to travel like the river does and like ALP is about to do.

I also like “just a leaf and then leaves,” with “leaves” a pun on leaving. Here today, gone tomorrow. Tomorrow will be something new, but similar to today. “Today’s truth, tomorrow’s trend,” Joyce writes in the last chapter. “The Seim anew,” from I.8. Except…we won’t be there to see it. That’s part of the new.

She asks “Unless?” Maybe a moment of doubt. And then she chases those thoughts “Away!”

Next, she summons HCE:

Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long! Or is it only so mesleems? On your pondered palm. Reclined from cape to pede. With pipe on bowl. Terce for a fiddler, sixt for makmerriers, none for a Cole. Rise up now and aruse! Norvena’s over. I am leafy, your goolden, so you called me, may me life, yea your goolden, silve me solve, exsogerraider! You did so drool. I was so sharm. But there’s a great poet in you too. Stout Stokes would take you offly. So has he as bored me to slump. But am good and rested. Taks to you, toddy, tan ye! Yawhawaw. Helpunto min, helpas vin. Here is your shirt, the day one, come back. The stock, your collar. Also your double brogues. A comforter as well. And here your iverol and everthelest your umbr. And stand up tall! Straight. I want to see you looking fine for me. With your brandnew big green belt and all. Blooming in the very lotust and second to nill, Budd! When you’re in the buckly shuit Rosensharonals near did for you. Fiftyseven and three, cosh, with the bulge. Proudpurse Alby with his pooraroon Eireen, they’ll. Pride, comfytousness, enevy! You make me think of a wonderdecker I once. Or somebalt thet sailder, the man megallant, with the bangled ears. Or an earl was he, at Lucan? Or, no, it’s the Iren duke’s I mean. Or somebrey erse from the Dark Countries. Come and let us! We always said we’d. And go abroad. Rathgreany way perhaps. 

Plenty to comment on here. He’s an “exsogerraider” — exaggerator — but also a “raider” (Viking) with a…exoskeleton, exterior? It has the sound “soak” in there, too. He was the Norweigian Captain, remember.

Anyway, she is calling to him and giving him all of his clothes and accessories. His iverol recalls his “ivoroiled overalls” on page 4, and his umbr[ella] is a phallic implement that’s been referred to throughout the Wake.

She’s putting together the pieces to wake him.

She comments on his “buckly shuit” — the suit he’s wearing. Recall the Norwegian captain buying a suit in II.3 from the tailor(s), the tale-er, which is the parallel to Buckley shooting (suiting) the Russian General (echoed here as “buckly shuit Rosensharonels”). ALP calls him “Budd,” an echo of Butt, who shoots him in the radio play in II.3. HCE is all of these characters. Shoot = suit = shit. Being fitted for a suit is like a soul being fitted for a body. By the three fates/tailors. But also a “suit” is a court case, like the one brought against HCE for his indecent crime. This is also the Fall, represented as excretion.

The suit has a “bulge” — HCE is described as having a hump (his name, Humphrey, and of course the joke on “humping”). His suit needs room for his hump.

Ok, onwards. It’s time to sum up the characters in the text:

The children:

The childher are still fast. There is no school today. Them boys is so contrairy. The Head does be worrying himself. Heel trouble and heal travel. Galliver and Gellover. Unless they changes by mistake. I seen the likes in the twinngling of an aye. Som. So oft. Sim. Time after time. The sehm asnuh. Two bredder as doffered as nors in soun. When one of him sighs or one of him cries ’tis you all over. No peace at all. 

I just love that — when one of him sighs or one of him cries ’tis you all over. The past is repeated in the present. The father in the sons.

Maybe it’s those two old crony aunts held them out to the water front. Queer Mrs Quickenough and odd Miss Doddpebble. And when them two has had a good few there isn’t much more dirty clothes to publish. 

The washerwomen gossips from I.8, two sides of ALP who transform into stem and stone, Shem and Shaun.

Now the daughter:

From the Laundersdale Minssions. One chap googling the holyboy’s thingabib and this lad wetting his widdle. You were pleased as Punch, recitating war exploits and pearse orations to them jackeen gapers. But that night after, all you were wanton! Bidding me do this and that and the other. And blowing off to me, hugly Judsys, what wouldn’t you give to have a girl! Your wish was mewill. And, lo, out of a sky! The way I too. But her, you wait. Eager to choose is left to her shade. If she had only more matcher’s wit. Findlings makes runaways, runaways a stray. She’s as merry as the gricks still. ’Twould be sore should ledden sorrow. I’ll wait. And I’ll wait. And then if all goes. What will be is. Is is. But let them. Slops hospodch and the slusky slut too. He’s for thee what she’s for me. Dogging you round cove and haven and teaching me the perts of speech. If you spun your yarns to him on the swishbarque waves I was spelling my yearns to her over cottage cake. We’ll not disturb their sleeping duties. Let besoms be bosuns. It’s Phoenix, dear. And the flame is, hear! 

Down came Issy, the same way ALP came down from her own mother. The cycle, the way of things. [I notice that “Is is” is the goddess Isis, in addition to being a tribute to existence. The image of Issy falling out of the sky, like a raindrop, recalls the ending of the Mookse and the Gripes, as well as the penultimate page of the novel. The phrase “if all goes” will be repeated at a crucial moment on that page as well: “Thinking always if I go all goes.”]

And now their walk begins:

Let’s our joornee saintomichael make it. Since the lausafire has lost and the book of the depth is. Closed. Come! Step out of your shell! Hold up you free fing! Yes. We’ve light enough. I won’t take our laddy’s lampern. For them four old windbags of Gustsofairy to be blowing at. Nor you your rucksunck. To bring all the dannymans out after you on the hike. Send Arctur guiddus! Isma! Sft! It is the softest morning that ever I can ever remember me. But she won’t rain showerly, our Ilma. Yet. Until it’s the time. And me and you have made our. The sons of bursters won in the games. Still I’ll take me owld Finvara for my shawlders. The trout will be so fine at brookfisht. With a taste of roly polony from Blugpuddels after. To bring out the tang of the tay. Is’t you fain for a roost brood? Oaxmealturn, all out of the woolpalls! And then all the chippy young cuppinjars cluttering round us, clottering for their creams. Crying, me, grownup sister! Are me not truly? Lst! Only but, theres a but, you must buy me a fine new girdle too, nolly. When next you go to Market Norwall. They’re all saying I need it since the one from Isaacsen’s slooped its line. Mrknrk? Fy arthou! Come! Give me your great bearspaw, padder avilky, fol a miny tiny. Dola. Mineninecyhandsy, in the languo of flows. That’s Jorgen Jargonsen. But you understood, nodst? I always know by your brights and shades. Reach down. A lil mo. So. Draw back your glave. Hot and hairy, hugon, is your hand! Here’s where the falskin begins. Smoos as an infams. One time you told you’d been burnt in ice. And one time it was chemicalled after you taking a lifeness. Maybe that’s why you hold your hodd as if. And people thinks you missed the scaffold. Of fell design. I’ll close me eyes. So not to see. Or see only a youth in his florizel, a boy in innocence, peeling a twig, a child beside a weenywhite steed. The child we all love to place our hope in for ever. All men has done something. Be the time they’ve come to the weight of old fletch. We’ll lave it. So. We will take our walk before in the timpul they ring the earthly bells. In the church by the hearseyard. Pax Goodmens will. Or the birds start their treestirm shindy. Look, there are yours off, high on high! And cooshes, sweet good luck they’re cawing you, Coole! You see, they’re as white as the riven snae. For us. Next peaters poll you will be elicted or I’m not your elicitous bribe. The Kinsella woman’s man will never reduce me. A MacGarath O’Cullagh O’Muirk MacFewney sookadoodling and sweepacheeping round the lodge of Fjorn na Galla of the Trumpets! It’s like potting the po to shambe on the dresser or tamming Uncle Tim’s Caubeen on to the brows of a Viker Eagle. Not such big strides, huddy foddy! You’ll crush me antilopes I saved so long for. They’re Penisole’s. And the two goodiest shoeshoes.

There’s a ton here. She recalls the 4 Old Men, who are older forms of HCE. The four elements, the four cardinal directions, Blake’s Four Zoas.

She looks forward to having fish at breakfast (“brookfisht,” fished right out of the brook…HCE is compared to a caught fish throughout the novel, the salmon of knowledge that was consumed, in Irish folklore, by the hero Finn MacCool).

She tells him to give her his great big hand, and there’s a lot of talk about his gloves and his hand. Maybe it’s the talk of his hand — with which he committed that sexual indiscretion — that leads her to talk about his Fall.

“And people thinks you missed the scaffold. Of fell design.” People think you just barely missed being punished for your crime (the scaffold of a hanging). But it’s also Tim Finnegan taking a wrong step on the scaffolding of a construction project and dying. Of fell design = both “awful design” (there was something wrong with the system that causes the Fall) and “designed to produce evil/fell results”…or, designed to produce Falls. But maybe it also suggests awe-inspiring, the wonder of existence.

Falling and rising is the way of the world. Is it designed to be that way? Is it a mistake? Is it wonderful? The Fortunate Fall, as ever.

This next bit moves me: “I’ll close me eyes. So not to see. Or see only a youth in his florizel, a boy in innocence, peeling a twig, a child beside a weenywhite steed. The child we all love to place our hope in for ever. All men has done something. Be the time they’ve come to the weight of old fletch. We’ll lave it.”

She seems to be saying she’ll deliberately ignore his wrongdoing and focus on her mental image of him as innocent. The child next to the white horse recalls Wellington and his white horse (compared to HCE extensively on page 8).

“All men has done something” — she’ll look the other way because we’ve all committed some kind of offense to others. By the time they come to old age…we’ll leave it (leave behind our grudges, leave behind our mortal forms) — but also, we’ll wash it (lavar, to wash), as the river washes everything away.

Not such big strides! she tells him. Don’t walk so fast. Maybe hinting at the ending, where he will leave her behind.

To be continued in part 2.