(192.5-195.6) Today brings the conclusion of the Wake's seventh chapter, which has detailed one of HCE's sons, Shem. The passage begins with the final two paragraphs of Justius/Shaun's address to Shem. He discusses the gifts Shem has squandered (such as "all the hamilkcars of cooked vegetables, the hatfuls of stewed fruit, the suitcases of coddled ales") and the indulgences granted him (such as "to give you your pound of platinum and a thousand thongs a year" and "to let you have your Sarday spree and holinight sleep"). As Shem continues to recount his "hornmade ivory dreams," the people will "wallow for a clutch of the famished hand." Addressing what seems to be one of his bigger complaints, Justius asks, "Where is that little alimony nestegg against our predictable rainy day?" It seems that Shem, like the prodigal son, has squandered this nest egg. Justius concludes the paragraph by ordering Shem to take his medicine.
But medicine for what? In the next paragraph -- which begins, "Let me finish!" -- Justius asks Shem to lean in so that he can tell him a secret, or "tell you a wig in your ear" (recalling HC Earwicker, the earwig). This secret, which been passed down to Justius through a number of sources (enumerated here, much like the chain of people who spread the rumors about HCE) comes out with Justius's final words: "Sh! Shem, you are. Sh! You are mad!" With Justius's part of the dialogue finished, "He points the deathbone and the quick are still." Following this action, there is an invocation: "Insomnia, somnia somniorum." McHugh translates this Latin as, "sleeplessness, dreams of dreams," which is a great summary of the Wake itself.
Now we get Shem's response, delivered in his persona of Mercius (the Mercy to Shaun's Justice). Mercius begins with a more apologetic tone: "My fault, his fault, a kingship through a fault!" He admits his kinship to Justius and his abandonment of his home: "I who oathily forswore the womb that bore you and the paps I sometimes sucked." This conciliatory tone feels appropriate, for Mercius states that the brothers are at their final hour: "now ere the compline hour of being alone athands itself and a puff or so before we yield our spiritus to the wind . . . ." Although they may be facing their respective ends, Mercius realizes that this is all part of an unending cycle. History has not happened yet, nor has it yet inevitably repeated itself: "all that has been done has yet to be done and done again, when's day's woe, and lo, you're doomed, joyday dawns and, la, you dominate."
The stalemate between these brothers, which has been detailed in both the previous chapter and this one, cannot continue. Mercius realizes this, and he notes that something is drawing toward both of them: "our turfbrown mummy is acoming, alpilla, beltilla, ciltilla, deltilla running with her tidings, old the news of the great big world, sonnies had a scrap, woewoewoe!" Their mother, ALP, is coming in response to her sons' dispute, which is old news that's been repeated since the beginning of time. In an exhilarating passage, Mercius traces ALP's journey in her incarnation as the River Liffey, "little wonderful mummy, ducking under bridges, bellhopping the weirs, dodging by a bit of bog, rapidly shooting round the bends," and so on. She is "as happy as the day is wet, babbling, bubbling, chattering to herself, deloothering the fields on their elbows leaning with the sloothering slide of her, giddygaddy, grannyma, gossipaceous Anna Livia."
At the conclusion of Mercius's reply, "He lifts the lifewand and the dumb speak." So, whereas Shaun brings wields death and causes the quick to be still, Shem wields life and causes the dumb to speak. And what do they say? "Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq!" "Quoi" is French for "what," so this would indicate that the formerly speechless are now repeating "what." As the previous chapter ended on the subject of Shem, it looks like the next chapter's "what" will be the final subject of this chapter, ALP.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
"another thing occurs to me"
(190.10-192.4) Today we pick up with Justius/Shaun discussing Shem's intended professional vocation. His "birthwrong" was "to fall in with Plan." He was supposed to stay in Ireland -- "our place of burden, your bourne of travail and ville of tares" -- and take a secure job, perhaps with Guinness, or maybe with the church. Instead, Shem "beat it backwards" and became "an Irish emigrant the wrong way out." Instead of being a good "nationist," Shem became a man of the world, the "Europasianised Afferyank!"
Justius then moves his focus toward Shem's brother, who is another version of Justius/Shaun. The brother, "Immaculatus" or "Altrues," is as high and good as Shem is low and bad. He was a "handsome young spiritual physician" destined to be Shem's counterfoil and "a chum of the angelets." Shem, however, killed his brother because, as Justius tells Shem, "he mussed your speller on you or because he cut a pretty figure in the focus of your frontispecs." Just as Adam is a version of HCE, the warring brothers Cain and Abel are versions of Shem and Shaun.
Shifting gears again, Justius asks Shem if he ever read "of that greatgrand landfather of our visionbuilders, Baaboo, the bourgeoismeister," if he ever thought of "that hereticalist Marcon and the two scissymaidies," and if he ever heard of "that foxy, that lupo, that monkax and the virgin heir of the Morrisons." These three are all incarnations of HCE: the father, the heretic brought down by two young women, and the clever husband of ALP. The language from today's passage recalling the archetypal roles of the Wake's family unit functions to bring this chapter toward its conclusion, and tomorrow I'll read through its final pages.
Justius then moves his focus toward Shem's brother, who is another version of Justius/Shaun. The brother, "Immaculatus" or "Altrues," is as high and good as Shem is low and bad. He was a "handsome young spiritual physician" destined to be Shem's counterfoil and "a chum of the angelets." Shem, however, killed his brother because, as Justius tells Shem, "he mussed your speller on you or because he cut a pretty figure in the focus of your frontispecs." Just as Adam is a version of HCE, the warring brothers Cain and Abel are versions of Shem and Shaun.
Shifting gears again, Justius asks Shem if he ever read "of that greatgrand landfather of our visionbuilders, Baaboo, the bourgeoismeister," if he ever thought of "that hereticalist Marcon and the two scissymaidies," and if he ever heard of "that foxy, that lupo, that monkax and the virgin heir of the Morrisons." These three are all incarnations of HCE: the father, the heretic brought down by two young women, and the clever husband of ALP. The language from today's passage recalling the archetypal roles of the Wake's family unit functions to bring this chapter toward its conclusion, and tomorrow I'll read through its final pages.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
"your new Irish stew"
(188.8-190.9) In yesterday's passage, Justius/Shaun called upon Shem to make his confession. In keeping with the tone of the chapter, however, in today's passage Justius begins a new dissertation on Shem's history instead of allowing Shem to deliver his confession. The reading begins with Justius's twisting of the priest's familiar invocation ("Let us pray") when he says, "Let us pry." He then recalls how Shem was brought up the right way but has become an self-centered outcast, a "condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, hiresiarch." Much like Lucifer, whose fall was rooted in pride, Shem "will neither serve not let serve, pray nor let pray," and has founded a "disunited kingdom on the vacuum of [his] own most intensely doubtful soul."
Justius goes on to tell Shem that Shem was given a set of working genitals ("a handsome present of a selfraising syringe and twin feeders") in order to "repopulate the land of your birth and count up your progeny by the hungered head and the angered thousand." Instead of carrying out this mission, however, Shem "thwarted the wious pish of [his] cogodparents." Justius then discusses the multitude of eligible women in Ireland that Shem spurned.
Justius begins the next paragraph with more choice epithets for Shem: "Sniffer of carrion, premature gravedigger, seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word." Shem is now described as a type of prophet who "cutely foretold . . . death with every disaster, the dynamitisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot of sweetempered gunpowdered didst unto dudst." But, Justius tells Shem, Shem never considered that the more prophecies and atrocities he dreamed up -- "the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel" -- the more gas or hot air he let out into the world: "the merrier fumes your new Irish stew."
Justius goes on to tell Shem that Shem was given a set of working genitals ("a handsome present of a selfraising syringe and twin feeders") in order to "repopulate the land of your birth and count up your progeny by the hungered head and the angered thousand." Instead of carrying out this mission, however, Shem "thwarted the wious pish of [his] cogodparents." Justius then discusses the multitude of eligible women in Ireland that Shem spurned.
Justius begins the next paragraph with more choice epithets for Shem: "Sniffer of carrion, premature gravedigger, seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word." Shem is now described as a type of prophet who "cutely foretold . . . death with every disaster, the dynamitisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot of sweetempered gunpowdered didst unto dudst." But, Justius tells Shem, Shem never considered that the more prophecies and atrocities he dreamed up -- "the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel" -- the more gas or hot air he let out into the world: "the merrier fumes your new Irish stew."
Saturday, September 20, 2014
"It is looking pretty black against you"
(186.19-188.7) The police officer we met at the end of yesterday's passage is now identified as Petty constable Sistersen. The narrator explains that Sistersen was sent to save Shem "from the ligatureliablous effects of foul clay in little clots and mobmauling on looks." He encountered Shem "reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left, on his way from a protoprostitute." Upon Shem's addressing Sistersen, it became pretty clear that Shem was pretty drunk, and the narrator accordingly notes that Sistersen "was literally astundished over the painful sake, how he burstteself, which he was gone to."
Perhaps reflecting Shem's drunken, low state, the language on the first half of page 187 gets looser and makes less and less sense as one progresses through it. Eventually, the narrator gives up: "We cannot, in mercy or justice nor on the lovom for labaryntos, stay here for the residence of our existings, discussing Tamstar Ham of Tenman's thirst." In other words, we can't sit here for the rest of our lives talking about Shem.
This leads immediately into a dialogue, in which Sistersen -- now called "Justius" (after the "mercy or justice" in the preceding sentence) -- first addresses Shem, now called (in a stage direction), "himother." The juxtaposition of the law-upholding Sistersen/Justius and the law-flaunting Shem provides us with a pretty big clue that Sistersen/Justius is a form of Shaun, and this clue is confirmed when we learn that Justius is addressing "himother," or his other twin, Shem.
Justius begins the dialogue by boasting of his "brawn." "I'm the boy to bruise and braise," he says. He then addresses Shem directly, saying, "Stand forth, nayman of Noland." (The pitting of Justius/Brawn vs. Shem/Noland recalls Giordano Bruno and indicates that Shaun and Shem are both Bruno of Nolan and thus confirm Bruno's theory of a whole embracing diametrically opposed opposites.) After this direct address, we get a parenthetical that I think sheds some light on this chapter:
Justius goes on to say, "Shem Macadamson [son of Adam, the first man, and another version of HCE], you know me and I know you and all your shemeries." Justius then calls upon Shem to make his confession, noting that "[i]t is looking pretty black against you." In a reference to the restorative powers of their mother, ALP, who is represented by the River Liffey, Justius says, "You will need all the elements in the river to clean you over it all." It will be interesting to see what becomes of this latest clash between brothers.
Perhaps reflecting Shem's drunken, low state, the language on the first half of page 187 gets looser and makes less and less sense as one progresses through it. Eventually, the narrator gives up: "We cannot, in mercy or justice nor on the lovom for labaryntos, stay here for the residence of our existings, discussing Tamstar Ham of Tenman's thirst." In other words, we can't sit here for the rest of our lives talking about Shem.
This leads immediately into a dialogue, in which Sistersen -- now called "Justius" (after the "mercy or justice" in the preceding sentence) -- first addresses Shem, now called (in a stage direction), "himother." The juxtaposition of the law-upholding Sistersen/Justius and the law-flaunting Shem provides us with a pretty big clue that Sistersen/Justius is a form of Shaun, and this clue is confirmed when we learn that Justius is addressing "himother," or his other twin, Shem.
Justius begins the dialogue by boasting of his "brawn." "I'm the boy to bruise and braise," he says. He then addresses Shem directly, saying, "Stand forth, nayman of Noland." (The pitting of Justius/Brawn vs. Shem/Noland recalls Giordano Bruno and indicates that Shaun and Shem are both Bruno of Nolan and thus confirm Bruno's theory of a whole embracing diametrically opposed opposites.) After this direct address, we get a parenthetical that I think sheds some light on this chapter:
(for no longer will I follow you obliquelike through the inspired form of the third person singular and the moods and hesitensies of the deponent but address myself to you, with the empirative of my vendettative, provocative and out direct)Justius says that he will now move from addressing Shaun in the third person to addressing him in the second person. This is interesting, because it's actually the first time Justius has addressed Shem. I think this statement indicates that Justius not only is a form of Shaun, but also is a form of the narrator in this chapter. The narrator in this chapter has consistently referred to Shem in the third person, which would explain why Justius notes the shift in the parenthetical. If Shaun is actually the chapter's narrator, it explains the particularly harsh tone toward Shem (beyond Joyce playfully denigrating the figure most clearly aligned with Joyce in the Wake) throughout the chapter.
Justius goes on to say, "Shem Macadamson [son of Adam, the first man, and another version of HCE], you know me and I know you and all your shemeries." Justius then calls upon Shem to make his confession, noting that "[i]t is looking pretty black against you." In a reference to the restorative powers of their mother, ALP, who is represented by the River Liffey, Justius says, "You will need all the elements in the river to clean you over it all." It will be interesting to see what becomes of this latest clash between brothers.
Friday, September 19, 2014
"a dividual chaos, perilous, potent, common to allflesh, human only, mortal"
(184.11-186.18) Once again, the Wake throws me a curveball. Today's passage was as tough to plod through on the first go-round as yesterday's passage was "easy." Most of the challenge today came from the fact that there's a lot of foreign words here (yeah, I know, maybe a majority of the Wake's words are foreign, but today there was a lot of French and Latin). One paragraph on page 185, for example, is written primarily in Latin. It's days like these that McHugh's Annotations (and the Google Translate app, for what McHugh doesn't get to) is absolutely necessary for people like me, whose foreign language proficiency comes from two years of high school German, two years of high school Latin, a semester of college Italian, and a good number of hours of having sat through Latin masses and French films.
Today's reading starts off with Shem -- "our low hero" -- cooking eggs (because he's his own valet "by choice of need"). There's a lot of detail about the ingredients he mixes in with his eggs and the variety of egg-based dishes he makes, but one of the key lines of this section is found in a parenthetical: "the umpple does not fall very far from the dumpertree." This variation of the saying, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," calls to mind Shem's father, HCE, who is also Humpty Dumpty (another cracked-up egg). So, like father, like son here.
But it's not all cooking and singing for Shem. He's got his detractors, and we learn that two of them, "Robber and Mumsell, the pulpic dictators," once "boycotted him of all muttonsuet candles and romeruled stationery for any purpose." With his writing material sgone, Shem "winged away on a wildgoup's chase across the kathartic ocean and made synthetic ink and sensitive paper for his own end out of his wit's waste." So, once again, we get a parallel between Joyce and Shem, as Joyce, who found Ireland antithetical to his vocation as a writer, fled for the European continent to engage in the solitary pursuit of that vocation.
How does Shem make these writing materials? The narrator tells us in Latin as a sort of jab in the direction of any "Anglican ordinal" who might be listening in. The Latin paragraph, as translated by McHugh, basically says that Shem . . . get ready for it . . . shat into his hands, put his excrement into an urn, urinated into the urn, mixed up the waste, chanted a psalm, baked the mixture, and let it cool. When his work was complete, he had indelible ink. (This paragraph begs the question, how much of this paragraph is Joyce having fun, and how much of it is Joyce writing from experience?)
The narrator compares the ink Shem produced from his body with the "obscene matter not protected by copriright in the United States of Ourania" that Shem produces with his pen. Here's another Joyce-Shem parallel: During the time that Ulysses was banned in the United States as obscene, it wasn't protected by copyright and was accordingly pirated until it began to be lawfully published. Shem used the ink to write a work akin to Finnegans Wake, which Shem "wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body." The work written on his body "slowly unfolded all marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history," just like the all-encompassing Wake. Eventually, Shem made his "last public misappearance," where, "circling the square" (both walking around the public square and amazingly transforming a square into a circle), he fell under the watchful eye of a blond cop, who seeing the tattooing on Shem's body, thought that the the markings were ink. The narrator says that the blond cop "was out of his depth but bright in the main."
Today's reading starts off with Shem -- "our low hero" -- cooking eggs (because he's his own valet "by choice of need"). There's a lot of detail about the ingredients he mixes in with his eggs and the variety of egg-based dishes he makes, but one of the key lines of this section is found in a parenthetical: "the umpple does not fall very far from the dumpertree." This variation of the saying, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," calls to mind Shem's father, HCE, who is also Humpty Dumpty (another cracked-up egg). So, like father, like son here.
But it's not all cooking and singing for Shem. He's got his detractors, and we learn that two of them, "Robber and Mumsell, the pulpic dictators," once "boycotted him of all muttonsuet candles and romeruled stationery for any purpose." With his writing material sgone, Shem "winged away on a wildgoup's chase across the kathartic ocean and made synthetic ink and sensitive paper for his own end out of his wit's waste." So, once again, we get a parallel between Joyce and Shem, as Joyce, who found Ireland antithetical to his vocation as a writer, fled for the European continent to engage in the solitary pursuit of that vocation.
How does Shem make these writing materials? The narrator tells us in Latin as a sort of jab in the direction of any "Anglican ordinal" who might be listening in. The Latin paragraph, as translated by McHugh, basically says that Shem . . . get ready for it . . . shat into his hands, put his excrement into an urn, urinated into the urn, mixed up the waste, chanted a psalm, baked the mixture, and let it cool. When his work was complete, he had indelible ink. (This paragraph begs the question, how much of this paragraph is Joyce having fun, and how much of it is Joyce writing from experience?)
The narrator compares the ink Shem produced from his body with the "obscene matter not protected by copriright in the United States of Ourania" that Shem produces with his pen. Here's another Joyce-Shem parallel: During the time that Ulysses was banned in the United States as obscene, it wasn't protected by copyright and was accordingly pirated until it began to be lawfully published. Shem used the ink to write a work akin to Finnegans Wake, which Shem "wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body." The work written on his body "slowly unfolded all marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history," just like the all-encompassing Wake. Eventually, Shem made his "last public misappearance," where, "circling the square" (both walking around the public square and amazingly transforming a square into a circle), he fell under the watchful eye of a blond cop, who seeing the tattooing on Shem's body, thought that the the markings were ink. The narrator says that the blond cop "was out of his depth but bright in the main."
Thursday, September 18, 2014
"pure mousefarm filth"
(182.30-184.10) Today our attention shifts slightly away from Shem and focuses upon Shem's house, which is known, appropriately enough, as the "Haunted Inkbottle." This passage, which is one long paragraph, is actually fairly easy to read (once you've taken some time to digest it) and, as with much of the Wake, pretty entertaining.
The narrator rates the Haunted Inkbottle as "the worst, it is hoped, even in our western playboyish world for pure mousefarm filth." This is the place, after all, where Shem, "the soulcontracted son of the secret cell groped through life at the expense of the taxpayers," so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that it's the worst, or as the narrator adds, "a stinksome inkenstink." Much of the paragraph is devoted to the narrator's catalog of items littered on the warped flooring, soundconducting walls, support beams, and shutters. Among these cataloged items are full works of literature ("burst loveletters" and "telltale stories"), fragments of literature ("alphybettyformed verbage," "once current puns," and "quashed quotatoes"), food remnants ("doubtful eggshells," "amygdaloid almonds," and "rindless raisins"), and garters from a secondary catalog of women (which includes "schoolgirls," "merry widows," "ex nuns," and "super whores").
Quite a mess, right? If you can stand the "chambermade music" (another reference to Joyce's collection of poems, Chamber Music) of the house, the narrator says that one might -- "given a grain of goodwill" -- stand a fair chance of seeing Shem himself. Here, Shem is described as "Tumult, son of Thunder, self exiled in upon his ego." At night, he shakes "betwixtween white or reddr hawrors," and at day he's terrorized "to skin and bone by an ineluctable phantom," while he's "writing the mystery of himsel in furniture." As the chapter progresses, the narrator (and Joyce, by extension) seems to paint a gloomier and gloomier picture of Shem (and Joyce, by extension).
The narrator rates the Haunted Inkbottle as "the worst, it is hoped, even in our western playboyish world for pure mousefarm filth." This is the place, after all, where Shem, "the soulcontracted son of the secret cell groped through life at the expense of the taxpayers," so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that it's the worst, or as the narrator adds, "a stinksome inkenstink." Much of the paragraph is devoted to the narrator's catalog of items littered on the warped flooring, soundconducting walls, support beams, and shutters. Among these cataloged items are full works of literature ("burst loveletters" and "telltale stories"), fragments of literature ("alphybettyformed verbage," "once current puns," and "quashed quotatoes"), food remnants ("doubtful eggshells," "amygdaloid almonds," and "rindless raisins"), and garters from a secondary catalog of women (which includes "schoolgirls," "merry widows," "ex nuns," and "super whores").
Quite a mess, right? If you can stand the "chambermade music" (another reference to Joyce's collection of poems, Chamber Music) of the house, the narrator says that one might -- "given a grain of goodwill" -- stand a fair chance of seeing Shem himself. Here, Shem is described as "Tumult, son of Thunder, self exiled in upon his ego." At night, he shakes "betwixtween white or reddr hawrors," and at day he's terrorized "to skin and bone by an ineluctable phantom," while he's "writing the mystery of himsel in furniture." As the chapter progresses, the narrator (and Joyce, by extension) seems to paint a gloomier and gloomier picture of Shem (and Joyce, by extension).
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
"this rancid Shem stuff"
(180.34-182.29) The description of Shem's lowness continues with the narrator explaining how Shem used to "boast aloud alone to himself with a haccent on it" that he he had been kicked out of all the "schicker" (McHugh notes that this is based on the German "schick," which means elegant or stylish) families that had settled in Dublin from surrounding countries and lands. Why was he kicked out of these families? "[O]n account of his smell which all the cookmaids eminently objected to as ressembling the bombinubble puzzo that welled out of the pozzo." Or, in other words, because he smelled like the abominable stench that came out of the toilet. What's worse is that instead of doing something respectable before getting booted from those households, he spent his time studying "with stolen fruit how to cutely copy all their various styles of signature so as one day to utter an epical forged cheque on the public for his own private profit." His scheme was ruined, though, when the Dustbin's United Scullerymaid's and Househelp's Sorority got rid of him altogether.
The narrator's description (or take down) of Shem is again interrupted by an advertisement, this time apparently placed by Joyce himself. "Jymes," the advertisement states, "wishes to hear from wearers of abandoned female costumes." More specifically, he's looking for ladies' undergarments "to start city life together." Say what you will about Joyce, but he wasn't timid about making himself the butt of the joke, and he relished in his own reputation for lewdness.
Getting back to Shem, the narrator says it's hard to tell exactly how many forgeries he's sent out into the world. Regardless, the narrator asserts that Shem never would've been able to write a word if it weren't for the "light phantastic of his gnose's glow as it slid lucifericiously within an inch of its page." In one sense, this means that Shem has a wicked gnostic muse, and, in another, it means that he's got a Rudolph-like nose that illuminates the page on which he writes. "By that rosy lampoon's effluvious burning," the narrator says that Shem "scrabbled and scratched and scriobbled and skrevened nameless shamelessness about everybody ever he met." He'd also draw "endlessly inartistic portraits of himself" in the page margins. The narrator says that these self portraits feature Shem as a handsome, talented, rich, and well-dressed man. Predictably, the thought of Shem's delusions of grandeur elicit a hearty "Puh!" from the narrator.
The narrator's description (or take down) of Shem is again interrupted by an advertisement, this time apparently placed by Joyce himself. "Jymes," the advertisement states, "wishes to hear from wearers of abandoned female costumes." More specifically, he's looking for ladies' undergarments "to start city life together." Say what you will about Joyce, but he wasn't timid about making himself the butt of the joke, and he relished in his own reputation for lewdness.
Getting back to Shem, the narrator says it's hard to tell exactly how many forgeries he's sent out into the world. Regardless, the narrator asserts that Shem never would've been able to write a word if it weren't for the "light phantastic of his gnose's glow as it slid lucifericiously within an inch of its page." In one sense, this means that Shem has a wicked gnostic muse, and, in another, it means that he's got a Rudolph-like nose that illuminates the page on which he writes. "By that rosy lampoon's effluvious burning," the narrator says that Shem "scrabbled and scratched and scriobbled and skrevened nameless shamelessness about everybody ever he met." He'd also draw "endlessly inartistic portraits of himself" in the page margins. The narrator says that these self portraits feature Shem as a handsome, talented, rich, and well-dressed man. Predictably, the thought of Shem's delusions of grandeur elicit a hearty "Puh!" from the narrator.
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