Author Archives: Matthew Leporati

It Belongs in a Museyroom: Artifacts (and Alphabet) in Finnegans Wake

Leave a reply

In Finnegans Wake I.1, the Wellington Monument becomes a museum that is also a “museyroom”: a phallic mushroom as well as the home of the muse. It reminds us that history as well as sexuality can inspire art.

I’ll eventually be posting my thoughts on the “Willingdone” paragraph of I.1, but until inspiration strikes, I’ll write a little about artifacts in Finnegans Wake. I’m always put in mind of Indiana Jones declaring to would-be graverobbers that an artifact “belongs in a museum!” The fact that one of the Indiana Jones sequels named his son “Mutt” also amuses me because of the Mutt and Jeff passage in I.1.

In a way, Finnegans Wake itself is a kind of museum, gathering together and displaying linguistic artifacts and cultural references from all around the world. Like real museums, the Wake might be considered either a benevolent display of such objects or a cynical, colonial appropriation of them. In a Wakean spirit, we might regard it as both at once.

At various points in the book, artifacts appear, left behind by HCE from his Fall and gathered up by ALP. Read on for my thoughts, especially about the ways that the letters of the alphabet can be seen as such artifacts.

Continue reading →

Up and Atom

Leave a reply

I’ve been laughing for decades at a joke on The Simpsons in which Rainier Wolfcastle (a fictional analogue of Arnold Schwarzenegger, complete with a thick German accent) is coached on how to pronounce “Up and atom!” He is playing comic book hero Radioactive Man, so it’s a pun on the saying “Up and at them!” (You can watch the scene here)

Plays on the phrase “Up and at them!” appear many times in Finnegans Wake, so imagine my surprise when I went to look it up the other day and found that it is a saying attributed to the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo (!).

Read on for brief reflections on Waterloo and Finnegans Wake.

Continue reading →

Your Own Finnegans Wake?

1 Reply

My favorite comedian, George Carlin, once poked fun at the expression “your own words.” You hear it especially often in classrooms and courtrooms, he noted. “Tell us in your own words….” And then he joked, “Do you really have your own words? I’m using the same words everyone else is using!”

That’s cute. In a way, Finnegans Wake is an attempt to create Joyce’s “own words,” in that comically literal sense. It is unique in literature, in that it’s an example of an author communicating a message in this kind of “his own words.”

But here’s a related question: as an interpreter, do you have your “own Finnegans Wake“? I was talking to someone once who suggested that everyone who reads the Wake has “their own novel,” their own unique book, and he contrasted the reading of the Wake with the watching of a popular movie, where there is one obviously correct and direct narrative that all viewers share.

But is that the case? *Do* you have your own Finnegans Wake? Read on to find out!

Continue reading →

Sierre But Saule: Better Call Saul and Finnegans Wake

1 Reply

I recently finished watching the television series Better Call Saul. It was an excellent show that, in my estimation, exceeded its predecessor, the acclaimed Breaking Bad. Neither show is on the level of The Sopranos, but Better Call Saul had more interesting character moments than Breaking Bad and more compelling acting (especially from Rhea Seehorn, who was outstanding).

Concentrating on these elements of the show, I could not help but think about Finnegans Wake as I watched the “Brother Battle” — which is so central to Joyce’s novel — play out in Jimmy McGill’s (Saul’s) conflict with his brother, Chuck. And the role of Kim reminded me of the function of Anna Livia Plurabelle in the Wake, she who “gave him keen and made him able” (a pun that unites a reference to the battling brothers Cain and Abel with the keening of a widow and the encouragement of an enabler).

This post will discuss Better Call Saul in the context of the archetypes of Finnegan Wake. As such, it will contain spoilers for the show, and I recommend you view the entire series before reading the remainder of this post.

Continue reading →