"lovesoftfun at Finnegan's Wake"

(605.4-607.16)  It's not an exaggeration to say that a book could be written about either of the two paragraphs in today's reading.  They're loaded, plain and simple.  My secondary sources do fairly well in breaking down these complex passages, so, for today, I'll just try to do a brief synopsis to keep these pages fresh in my mind when I return to them.

To put it most simply, the first paragraph tells the story of Saint Kevin, an Irish monk who contemplates "the primal sacrament of baptism or the regeneration of all man by affusion of water" from a bathtub inside a "honeybeehivehut" on an island in a lake.  This basic narrative can be explored through any number of depths, however.  Within this single paragraph, McHugh notes that Joyce sets forth and explores the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the celestial hierarchy (looking into the levels of religious and transcendent being), the liturgical colors and canonical hours (looking into the daily and seasonal cycles of human beings), and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and sacraments (looking into the way that human beings align themselves with the eternal).  Also contained in this paragraph are the practices of monks and the official path to canonized sainthood.  At the moment, it's tough for me to think about anything to say about this paragraph in this space, except to note that this is Joyce at his absolute best.

The second paragraph in the reading takes a step back from the direct focus on Kevin and looks at him in relation to his father and at the family unit in general.  HCE, as the original form of Kevin, was the "first exploder to make his ablations in these parks" and "was indeed that lucky mortal which the monster trial showed on its first day out."  Together, HCE and ALP formed the "fairypair" that formed Kevin.  The motto of this "MacCowell family" (the family of Finn MacCool) is, "Great sinner, good sonner."  Somehow, the father-son relationship becomes a great sort of cuckoo clock, in which the Biblical brothers Jacob and Esau appear at the quarter hours and lead into "the apostles at every hours of changeover."  And this hourly changeover serves as a signal for the father ("old Champelysied") to move on/pass away (or, "seek the shades of his retirement") and for the new generation ("young Chappielassies") to joyously take the old generation's place ("to tear a round and tease their partners lovesoftfun at Finnegan's Wake").