Two of my favorite sentences in Finnegans Wake are among the shortest.
At the end of the book, during ALP’s magnificent final monologue, in which she (as the River Liffey) prepares to rush out to the ocean, she anticipates her daughter dropping like rain to become the next ALP. The cycle is going to begin again. She recalls when she herself fell from her mother, as she addresses the resurrecting HCE, the next iteration of her husband:
Continue readingBook I, Chapter 8 of Finnegans Wake is the ALP chapter. It starts like this:
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tell me all about
Anna Livia! I want to hear all
This post continues to look at instances of clothing in the Wake, building on my discussion in my last post.
Continue readingIn one version of HCE’s story, he is attacked by three soldiers and/or is witnessed committing his unnamed crime by them.
These three figures symbolically correspond to HCE’s two sons, Shem and Shaun (his introverted and extroverted aspects), plus their combined form. This combined form appears as a Cad in the Park who accosts HCE in other versions of the story (he additionally corresponds to Tristan, who cuckolds HCE after his fall and then becomes the next HCE in the next cycle).
The three soldiers are also called three tailors. They spread stories and rumors about HCE, so they are tale-ers, but they are also the energies that weave the “suit” of life for him, the circumstances of his life, and his body (which is also the court suit brought against him, representing our tendency to attack ourselves for our guilt and to scapegoat others).
In their aspect as tailors, they are like the Three Fates in Greek mythology, weaving the thread of existence until the appointed time comes for it to be cut.
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The Suspended Sentence 