"Was liffe worth leaving?"

(229.17-231.8)  After reciting the Ulysses-like chapters Glugg planned to write after his exile, the narrator tells how Glugg decided that he would "bare to the untired world" (both the world that isn't tired and the entire world) the story of HCE ("wholefallows, his guffer") and ALP ("her Lettyshape, his gummer").  This story -- the Finnegans Wake that would follow Glugg's Ulysses -- would be written on Glugg's "fleshskin" with his "quillbone," recalling the Wake-like tale Shem wrote on his own skin using ink made from his own waste.  This "most moraculous jeeremyhead sindbook for all the peoples" would be "thoroughly enjoyed by many so meny on block," perhaps envisioning the success that Joyce wished for his Wake.  The story written by Glugg would tell of his own lost innocence; his suffering at the hands of his family, the angels, and the devils; his exile from his home (relayed in Wakeian Humpty Dumpty language:  "why they provencials drollo eggspilled him out of his homety dometry narrowedknee domum"); his sufferings; and finally his tryst in paradise after torments of a thousand years.

With his work completed, Glugg would sit through several centuries, during which time he would receive payment in music and personal company.  Glugg would let Izod have all the music, while he would have "recourse of course to poetry."  He wouldn't be satisfied, though.  Instead, he would have "tears for his coronaichon, such as engines weep."  With his reverie concluded, Glugg asks the critical question:  "Was liffe worth leaving?"  This asks both whether the Liffey (his homeland) is worth leaving, as well as whether life is worth living (and, presumably, whether life is also worth leaving).  Glugg's answer?  "Nej!"  (McHugh notes that this is Danish for "No!")

Glugg then briefly looks back over his own life and his family's history.  He concludes his thoughts on the family's downfall by remarking, "Ones propsperups treed, now stohong baroque," in one sense echoing the tree/stone dichotomy by saying, "Once prosperous tree, now stone broke."  He then asks his own riddle:  "where was a hovel not a havel?"  No one answers, so he says, "while itch ish shome."  So, a hovel is not a hovel (or a "havel," which McHugh notes is a term of reproach) when it is home.  This echoes the riddle young Shem asked his playmates in chapter seven:  "When is a man not a man?  When he is a Sham."

The passage ends with a four-line poem that looks forlornly on Glugg's "dear olt tumtum home."  Does this mean Glugg's going to return to his tormentors?  Maybe we'll see tomorrow . . .