"an eddistoon amid the lampless"

(126.1-128.19) So, we begin the sixth chapter of Finnegans Wake.  As we almost immediately find out, this chapter is comprised of a "quisquiquock" (or quiz) that consists of 12 questions (or "apostrophes").  These questions are answered by HCE's son, Shaun.

Interestingly enough, the question-and-answer format of this chapter, which follows the chapter on ALP's letter, invites an interesting comparison to the last two chapters of Ulysses.  In that novel, the penultimate chapter also has a question-and-answer format (albeit with considerably more than 12 questions), and that chapter leads into the long soliloquy of Molly Bloom (wife of Leopold Bloom, the hero of Ulysses).  Here, the order is reversed.  The wife's monologue (or, in ALP's case, the letter . . . which, remember, bears significant similarities to Molly's soliloquy) leads into the question-and-answer chapter.  This is a bit of digression, I know, but I doubt this structure was completely unintentional on Joyce's part.

After nine lines of introduction, the questions (and answers) begin.  The first question is a long one.  I'm not joking -- the question itself takes up almost 13 full pages of the Wake.  For you non-math majors out there, that means that a full two percent of this 626-page book is taken up by this question alone.

The question itself is another long catalog, asking:  "What secondtonone myther rector and maximost bridgesmaker" was/is/did this whole list of things?  The answer is instantly clear:  It's HCE.  So, as with the two long catalogs we've previously encountered (the cad's insults and the titles for ALP's letter), this list deals with an aspect of HCE.  Here, it could be said, are listed his defining qualities and deeds.

The next week or so of posts here will be on the shorter side, because the list is pretty self explanatory and I can't think of much to write about it (at least for the moment).  With that said, here's a couple of the list's greatest hits (or, as the Cramps would somewhat appropriately say, gravest hits).

We get a callback to Wellington Monument right away, with "was the first to rise taller through his beanstale than the bluegum buaboababbaun or the giganteous Wellingtonia Sequoia."  Immediately following that is a reference to ALP and her incarnation as the Liffey:  "went nudiboots with trouters into a liffeyette when she was barely in her tricklies."  The Adam-Eve/HCE-ALP parallel is emphasized soon after with "thought he weighed a new ton when there felled his first lapapple."  You can get the picture:  Joyce is reiterating, reenforcing, and revitalizing all of the multiple themes of his book.

I'm particularly fond of the reference to the great Ohioan Thomas Edison:  "towers, an eddistoon amid the lampless, casting swannbeams on the deep."  McHugh notes that aside from Thomas Alva, this phrase also references Eddystone lighthouse and Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (who invented an early light bulb).  Since Joyce's light burned -- and still burns -- brighter than mine, I'll sign off for the evening on this note and let you enjoy more items from the list on your own voyage through the Wake.