I’m back from my trip to Dublin and will put up some pictures on this blog soon. But until then, here’s a small post about a phrase that’s been in my mind.
Continue readingHis Scutschum Fessed
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Tag Archives: Close Reading
“We’re Not Gonna Talk about Judy at All”
The first time I saw the word “pentschanjeuchy” in Finnegans Wake I.1, I thought it simply referred to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Thanks to my days in Catholic school, I had memorized the names of these books in order (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), and I recognized references to them in the lines just before “pentschanjeuchy” appeared. Why the weird spelling? Eh, who knows, I figured. Joyce can be weird. The Wake is a weird book.
Years later, I consulted annotations and was surprised to learn that this word is also a reference to a puppet show called “Punch and Judy”: “a traditional British slapstick puppet show; Punch is a hunchback [HCE symbol], Judy is his wife [ALP symbol].”
Okay, I thought. The dreamer’s mind contains both his ego and Anima, the feminine portion of the psyche (cue Buck Mulligan’s dirty joke from Ulysses: “Every man his own wife”).
I didn’t think that much of it, and I certainly never set out to learn much about Punch and Judy. Perhaps over the years I came across the idea that Punch is over-the-top violent, but it never interested me much. Flash forward to just the other week when I was reading The Magicians of Caprona with my daughter. This book is a fantasy story by Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl’s Moving Castle, which I’ve written about here. In this story, the show Punch and Judy plays a rather large role, as one of the characters is a fan and collector of the puppets, and there’s a brilliant chapter later in the book where the show takes center stage.
When a character attends a Punch and Judy show early in the book, I was surprised to see a sentence announce that the character got to the front of the crowd and was “able to watch Punch beat Judy to death at the top of his little painted sentry-box.”
The content of the sentence is horrible, but the casualness with which it is relayed is funny (the essence of comedy is in contrasts, mismatches, and exaggerations). It also made me read up some more on Punch and Judy and ponder their connection to Finnegans Wake.
Read on for a few of my thoughts and my musings about the question of whether HCE is an abuser.
Continue readingAnd Find in Each Calamity / The Cat’s Superiority
One of my favorite characters in all of literature is Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. There is, as far as I am aware, one (1) single reference to Heathcliff in Finnegans Wake. Read on to learn about it!
Continue readingDid Joyce Ever Change My Mind?
I had the privilege of giving a talk for the William Blake Society recently, where I discussed Blake and science. My argument was that much of Blake’s work is compatible with scientific thinking, as defined and developed by scientists like Carl Sagan. During the discussion period that followed my talk, one of the attendees asked an important question pertaining to literature and knowledge: “Did Blake ever change your mind about anything?”
Always wanting to give direct answers to direct questions, I first gave a simple “No.” And then I elaborated that I don’t go to artists like Blake for facts about the world but I *do* go to them for aesthetic experiences. And then, as I yammered about that for a bit, I wandered my way into the idea that aesthetic experiences are personally rewarding and uplifting and can give me not necessarily knowledge about the world, but frameworks for engaging with that world, frameworks that make my everyday life more enriching (like Blake’s idea of a utopia called “Jerusalem”). I wish I had put all of this more succinctly and clearly in my somewhat rambling answer, but I think the gist of what I eventually got at is correct: evidence-based inquiry into the world tells us what is the case, while art and its aesthetic experiences deepen our life and can inform our values, actions, day-to-day experience and the frameworks that guide those values, actions, and experience.
With the benefit of reflection, I think this question is a profound one: what is the relationship between art and knowledge? It’s also a significant question at a time when the Humanities, as fields of study, are under attack. What is it that the Humanities teach us? What does art teach us?
I’d like to write about these question for a bit, using Joyce and this blog to provide examples. Did Joyce ever “change my mind” about anything? Read on to find out.
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The Suspended Sentence 