"Damb! he was dud. Dumb!"

(I think I'm going to start each post now with a parenthetical reference to what part I read each day, so here goes:)

(5.5-7.3) As I alluded to in my introduction post, I've read some criticisms of Campbell and Robinson's Skeleton Key and Tindall's Readers Guide, at least from the standpoint that they offer selective "translations" of the Wake in a manner that reflects each individual author's interpretation, and that the works often can (perhaps by their intrinsic nature) be incomplete, out-of-date, or -- in a worst-case scenario -- erroneous.  I recognize that there are some inherent limitations in these guides, but two days into this endeavor, I'm thankful that they're on my bookshelf (along with McHugh's Annotations).

On my first pass through today's passage, I found myself stumbling on the first part of the first full paragraph on page five (describing Finnegan's family crest) and the parenthetical at 5.30 through 6.7 (describing what I guess I'll call civilization's horrors).  McHugh's Annotations were helpful in unpacking these parts, but everything seemed to fall into place when I reread the passage and kept in mind that these bits may be more "ornamental" then "narrative."

Anyway, this passage furthers the story of Finnegan, "the first . . . to bare arms and a name."  At various points he merges here with (probably among others) the legendary Finn McCool (who I first learned about, appropriately enough, while sitting beside a campfire in rural Ireland) and HCE, the book's "hero."  But mostly we're getting the Finnegan narrative: he's a heavy-drinking guy who falls to his apparent death from a ladder while at work.  His body is taken to his house, where a group of people gather for his wake.  On another level, his body is the Dublin landscape, and the passage is moving toward that direction (heralded by some watery language and the introduction of a number of musical instruments) at the point where I left off.

I feel like I'm starting to get a bit of a feel for the way Joyce is using the language, and I'm hoping that (sort of like with Ulysses), I'll hit my stride once I get through this first chapter.  For the time being, though, I'm at least having fun.