Over the last decade, I have been adamant that a necessary part of education is instruction in grammar: it is the very structure of thought. What people often overlook, especially in an age of “AI” slop, is that writing is not just a delivery system for ideas but a tool for generating and refining thought. The process of writing — and particularly revising drafts — helps writers sharpen their own ideas. And a working knowledge of grammar greatly aids in that process.

One point I made on the “How to Read Finnegans Wake“ page is that even though the vocabulary of the book is obscure, the structure of its sentences, their grammar, can be a guide to understanding it.

This post comes from notes that I wrote years ago on my third read of the book, where the grammar of a passage helped me to grasp its meaning.

In II.1, Shem runs off each time he is rejected by the girls. He writes and creates, coming and going three times like the Prankquean — with echoes of and references to that episode. The third time, he returns to battle his extrovert brother.

The third time, Issy — caught between the battling boys and trying to choose between them — has a fantasy that Shem becomes her tutor, teaching her all about the “book of the dark.” This short post will look briefly at this moment.

I was reflecting recently on a paragraph in in II.1, after Shem/Glugg’s second failure, where Joyce describes night falling on the zoo in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. This post will contain a few of my musings.