(66.10-68.11) This past week got pretty hectic, so now I'm way behind pace. I've resolved to get back at it, though, so here's hoping that this week will be different.
Today's passage begins with two short interludes. First, we hear about a post officer delivering a letter. The narrator asks whether the day will ever come when the post officer will hand in "a huge chain envelope" (H-C-E, again) signed by "A Laughable Party" (A-L-P, again) to "Hyde and Cheek, Edenberry, Dubblenn, WC?" More questions abound. Will the letter be clear, speaking in terms of black and white, or will it just be mixed-up confusion? Will it be a blight upon us, or will it bring brightness upon us? Will the "litterish fragments" (this calls to mind the literary fragments of Work in Progress, Joyce's serialized draft of Finnegans Wake) of this letter (Finnegans Wake?) lurk dormant in the postbox until it's found by some locals (to whom it's not addressed)?
The second interlude involves a coffin, "a triumph of the illusionist's art," that's been stolen from a funeral parlor. Why was it stolen? In one sense, it's for the attendees of some warped fairy tale ball who, after a night of fornicating, collapse into ashes. The secondary sources indicate that there's more talk of letters and coffins to come.
Those secondary sources also indicate that the second page of today's reading is the beginning of HCE's trial. The elements in the air are altered, and a police officer named Long Lally Tobkids takes the stand. Tobkins describes an encounter with "a right querrshnorrt of mand," a butcher who, after making his deliveries "hickicked" at a door (this could be either kicking at the door or drunkenly hiccuping at the door). When Tobkids accosted the butcher about the "pretended hick," the butcher said, "I appop pie oath, Phillyps Captain." I believe it's Tobkins replying in the next sentence: "You did, as I sostressed before." This passage is a bit perplexing to me. Is this the same man as in the story on page 63, and if so, is it HCE that's approached by the officer (rather than the Cad, as I had suspected earlier)? This is all something for me to ponder more, but maybe it doesn't really matter so much, because Tobkins' testimony is interrupted by someone (who may be a relative of the butcher) who says, "You are deepknee in error, sir, Madam Tomkins . . . ."
The next paragraph begins with the words, "Now to the obverse." So it looks like we're going to get the rest of (or at least another side of) the story. In one sense, the narrator notes that from the teenage years to dementia is barely a five decade span, "and hence these camelback excesses" (H-C-E, again) are thought to be caused by one of the two young women ("hollow heroines" -- McHugh notes that the Hollow is in Phoenix Park) in the park. The women are now painted as prostitutes. The first, Lupita Lorette (McHugh identifies "lorette" as French slang for "whore"), killed herself. The second, the soiled dove Luperca Latouche (McHugh identifies "soiled dove" as slang for "prostitute") discovered that she could make an easy living as a stripper. She soon began to really rake in the cash (she "soon found her fruitful hat too small for her") engaging in all manner of lascivious behavior: necking, partying, and selling favors in hay piles, closets, parks, and even church yards. Before we judge her too harshly, though, the narrator notes that she's doing the same thing that our mutual grandmother did for Oscar, the grandson of the legendary Irish hero Finn McCool (or is it Oscar Wilde?).
I can't say it enough. The Wake is as entertaining as it is bewildering.
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