As a follow up to my last post, I wanted to look closely at part of a sentence in The Ondt and the Gracehoper. Years ago, I felt compelled to make notes on this sentence — which describes the Ondt “swarming of himself in his sunnyroom” — when I was living in a house with a sunroom.
Continue reading“The Ondt and the Gracehoper” — like The Mookse and the Gripes — is a fable told by Shaun to illustrate the flaws of Shem.
Continue readingIn a gesture of truly shameless (but relevant) self-promotion, I wanted to note that I published an article this past week in The Journal of the Blake Society: you can read my work here, on pages 8-13.
My article concerns Blake’s idea of the “vortex.” Although I don’t discuss Finnegans Wake in that piece, I have written about the vortex and Finnegans Wake here, in a post about doorways. Briefly, the idea that everything — especially each word of each language — is a kind of portal to a rich inner world is also one that inspires my approach to the Wake. I have ideas for further linking Blake and Joyce, which I may sketch out on the blog and which I may develop into other publications and book projects in the years to come.
In the meanwhile, check out the rest of that issue of the journal and consider joining the Blake Society if you’re not already a member!
In an effort to make this blog as popular as possible, I will be discussing here an obscure 1947 film noir and making tenuous connections between it and James Joyce’s little-read and little-understood mysterious final novel.
It’s sure to bring readers in droves!
In all seriousness, I recently viewed Nightmare Alley (1947), and since my brain is obsessed with the structure of Finnegans Wake, I ended up viewing it as a fall, rise, fall story whose themes are addressed by Joyce’s novel. I thought it would be interesting to write about here.
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The Suspended Sentence 