"Paw! Once more I'll hellbowl!"

(58.23-60.22)  While today's passage was somewhat confusing at first (shocking, I know), this one was a lot easier to go through on subsequent reads.  It's lots of fun, too.  The basic premise here is that we're getting to hop around town and listen to a boatload of Dubliners give their opinions on HCE.  For those of you who have read Ulysses, this passage is sort of like a lightning-round version of that novel's Wandering Rocks chapter (at least that's what it looks like if you squint).  The confusion in this passage arises from the way Joyce mashes all of the characters' statements together, back-to-back-to-back, without much indication of when we're switching voices.  On first reading, it's hard to distinguish where one character's account ends and another's begins, but once you get a sense for each character's distinct language, it's smoother sailing.

I'm not going to go through and summarize each individual's thoughts here.  By Tindall's count in his Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake, we hear from 12 different colorful characters or groups of characters over the course of these two pages.  I'll just hit on some of the ones I found amusing or interesting.

The passage starts off pertinently enough with the three soldiers -- "three tommix, soliders free" -- who allegedly witnessed HCE's misdeed.  We hear the sounds of them marching down Montgomery Street -- "[t]ap and pat and tapatagain" -- then hear the narrator encourage them to dish out the dirt:  "fire firstshot, Missiers the Refuseleers!  Peingpeong!"  (As an aside, McHugh identifies Montgomery Street as a street in Dublin's Nighttown.  I wonder if these soldiers have a connection to the soldiers in Ulysses who clash with Stephen Dedalus in Nighttown.)  The soldiers concur in assigning the blame for the fall of HCE, the new new Adam, to a woman who tempted HCE in Phoenix Park, the new new Eden:  "It was the first woman, they said, souped him, that fatal wellesday, Lili Coninghams, by suggesting him they go in a field."

Some of the people we meet here are sympathetic to HCE.  Mrs F . . . A . . . , for instance, hopes he gets Christmas gifts because "the worryld had been uncained (in one sense, "the world has been unkind," but in another "the world has been freed from the despicable Cain").  Others have some harsh words.  Kevin the dustman says his buddies all say "he is a cemented brick, buck it all."  As McHugh points out, this can be "translated" to "he is a demented prick, fuck it all."

Another bawdy figure is Brian Lynsky, "the cub curser," who delivers the misogynistic line, "I am for cavemen chase and sahara sex, burk you!  Them two bitches ought to be leashed, canem!  Up hog and hoar hunt!"  (I think ol' Lynsky's thoughts are pretty self-explanatory.)

Not wanting to end on a completely brash note, I'll leave for today with the kind words of the Daughters Benkletter.  (McHugh writes that "benklaeder" is Danish for "drawers."  I guess this wouldn't be a book written by Joyce without some references to panties . . . )  These daughters, who again are on the sympathetic side, murmur in "uniswoon" "Golforgilhisjurylegs!"