This post extends my discussion of gaps in Finnegans Wake, which I first wrote about here. I want to look at a few instances of the word “blank,” as well as another instance of horseracing that describes HCE in terms of absence.

In I.1, there’s a brief catalogue of all the goods that go into ALP’s “nabsack.” This includes

boaston nightgarters and masses of shoeset

I always just took this to be a reference to Boston, Massachusetts, a place that many Irish people emigrated to, mixed with garters and shoes.

But it’s also, the annotations inform me, chaussettes, the French word for socks.