DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "The Boarding House"

So I've attempted this post three times and three times scrapped the attempts, have I.  So--  Here's number 4, likely to be uncommonly brief, if unlikely to be finished.

First:  I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, much like "Two Gallants," and think that, perhaps, it's even my favorite of the lot thus far.  Like the previous story, there's not quite as much literary meat to sink your teeth into here as "Araby" or "The Sisters," but in a different way--a moralistic way, and all character-driven (whoa!) --there is more here than to any of the stories I so far examined, not to mention the presence of that elusive spark that I just keep kicking and kicking.

Two:  There is an absolutely fantastic balancing act going on under the motives and actions of the three primary characters, the Mother, the Daughter, and the Beau, as well as the menacing local current of the the bulldog Brother.  And this is where the best of the story sits--or leans and sways; among them: why does the Mother bring the Daughter to the house to work?  How does the Beau really feel for the Mother's Daughter?  Is the Daughter an independent contractor, so to speak, or is she working right alongside her otherwise subversive Mother?  The best part of these questions is the same as one of Joyce's primary and greatest (of several) strengths, here realized more fully (and because there is life here!): dichotomy.  No question has but one answer; and any question can be answered in a variety of directions (at least two, but generally more).

Three:  There's a recurrent theme, among others, of sexism in Dubliners, which I haven't really talked about much.  Maybe I was remiss.  Maybe I assumed it a given hallmark of Joyce's writing and wrote it off.  Here, however, faced finally with a contrast and thus bringing it forth from the shadows, there is potential--unanswered, of course--for the typical power of misogyny to be transferred to the narrower, though no less able, shoulders of the story's women.  The Beau is as characteristically impotent as so many of Dublins young men, but if any intentions existed to take advantage of the story's weak young woman, they are not realized.  Of course (and this is one of the reasons I failed the first three attempts of this post) this simple matter doesn't preclude misogyny or, more generally, sexism, in Dubliners, much less Joyce; what we do see is that Joyce, at worst, is equally antipathetic to both sexes--a potentially complete misanthrope, at least for the "anthrops" of Dublin.

Fourth:  Typical of Joyce, there is a novel's worth of substance here in these three thousand-or-so words.  He paints in short strokes with a shockingly broad and expertly wielded brush.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then one of Joyce's is worth three of any other's.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "Two Gallants"

I almost didn't read this story.  If it weren't for this blog, and the duty I feel to follow through on what I say I'll do, I likely would have put this back on the shelf and let it go for a long time.  But I read it.  And I'm glad I did!

Sundays are parties on the streets not only in the cities of Italy but, apparently, Dublin, too!

Of all the things I miss about Italy, the weekend extravagance might be the biggest.  Not that I'm a partier--quite the contrary, in fact; I hate crowds! --but there was always something quintessentially satisfying about taking a spot on a bench on the sideline of an especially buzzy piazza (maybe with a street band and some sidewalk artists), grabbing a slice of pizza, cup of hot chocolate, or an aranciata and watching.  Not even busy airports can compete with an Italian Saturday or Sunday night for the avid people-watcher.  This--this conflux of bodies, noise, music, and foggy effluvia (human and city) --was my first impression of "Two Gallants."  (I wonder if my objectivity has been tainted--and after just the first paragraph!)

Further, the description of the two young men (so not gallant!), beginning in just the second paragraph,  reminds me uncannily of a man I regularly saw while out and about the city of Modena--one Pimp-Daddy Man, immortalized here (sorry--no picture), and a pillar of slouch humanity.

As I mentioned just a second ago, I'm concerned for the sake of my objectivity.  And I wouldn't be so concerned if the last story I'd read of Joyce's weren't "After the Race," and if I didn't like this story so much.  It is my favorite of the Joyce stories so far.

At the technical level, "The Gallants" is very much alike the others up to this point in the collection.  "The Gallants" is complexly layered, heavily Irish, and fraught with Ugly.  We even get back to a taste of Joyce's old penchant for lasciviousness.  While it's not as complicated or layered as "Araby," there's yet a great deal of metaphor and allusion here and all as brilliant as usual; but I'm not going to take the time and space to set them all up for discussion.  As I said, most are typically Joycian, and why waste space discussing the same thing over and over again?

When all is said and done, this is a story about the young men of Dublin: lost, aimless, mooching, and impotent.  As Joyce sees it.  And he doesn't pull any punches.  He has very little good to say about his people, no matter the potentially positive outlook to be presumed by the colorful, though muted, first paragraph and the momentary hope we (I) feel for Lenehan.

Here are a few things I picked out that happened to help pull the whole thing together for me (in no particular order):

• gallant:  I'm curious about whether Joyce was aware of the etymology of this or not.  While the immediate impression of "gallant's" usage here is ironic, look instead at the "probab[le]" background of "gallivant."
• the lamps:  In the first paragraph of the story, the lamps through the city are described as "illumined pearls" atop their posts.  Pearls have intrinsic value, and these, all the more so by way of with their brightness so stark against the city's gray, are treasures beyond the common reach of Dublin's citizenry.
• age:  In each story, the protagonists get a little older.  Young boys, pre-teens, a teenage boy, a late teenage girl, collegiate young men, and now a couple of early thirty-somethings.
• women:  If ever a story (or its characters) were misogynistic, this is it!  From the general objectivization of the female characters to that of the sex in general, to the specific treatment of the "slavey" at Corley's direct hand to the more passive "handling" by Lenehan: notice the girly carving of the harp's base and column, and the suggestive state of its clothing.  The notes--musical--of the harp seem to chase after Lenehan, who ends up tapping them out with hands and feet, sweeping his fingers along the railings as if the metal were a harp and he the musician at her back.  It suggests a parallel to Lenehan's general impotence; it's not really a harp, he not making any music, and that harp isn't even a real girl anyway.
• Lenehan walking:  Speaking of Lenehan's impotence, notice the position of his feet as he walks with his so-called friend.  He is regularly shoved from the sidewalk to the street--one foot on, one foot off.  If there is a "true path," which may be the direction of his ambition for comfortable hearth and home, then he is equally afoot the other, less savory road.
• peas and ginger beer:  As with other characters through the first five stories, Lenehan and Corley (more the former, as far as I can tell) are types for their countrymen in general.  The colors of Lenehan's meal are the colors of his flag, and worth no more than the most meager of pocket change.

While I appreciate all these fine and nuanced details (of which, like I said, there's a lot more!) --as powerful and ingenious as those of any other story thus far--they are not the reason I love this story.  Finally, and much more so than even for dear Evaline, I have a character I am rooting for.  Again, it's possible that this is derivative of my misplaced nostalgia within the context of the gray, late-summer evening, but I don't think that's all of it.  The reader--if I may so speak--wants Lenehan to make something of himself.  His end is not predestined here.  He is capable of making the change!  You can feel that--sense it--somewhere, no matter how deep, within him.  He does have one foot on The Path.  The most powerful device of this effect is that of Corley and Lenehan's secret and despicable plan, which we don't fully get until the very last sentence (such timing!).  We know it's probably not very nice, we know that Lenehan thinks he wants the plan to succeed, but you, Reader, get the inkling that some part of him wants it to fail, as if he's aware of his reputation and he wants an out--like the shoplifter who wants to get caught, or the closet alcoholic who wants his bottles to be discovered.  Unfortunately, this is Joyce, and as far as he, as the author, is concerned, these stories have all already been written, and they are nothing if not tragedies.  Right along those lines, this story would only require one additional sentence (which, by the way, I'm infinitely glad is not there) to concretely reveal what we already suspect: Lenehan, though relieved, is also--even equally--disappointed that the plan succeeded.  

You want proof that there is spark, finally, to a Dubliners story (and maybe--though I hope not--it really is just me, so I'll favor the change of you/we to I)?  I was disappointed.  I was sad (not surprised) that Lenehan didn't stand up, didn't push Corley out of the way and walk firmly on the sidewalk, and far from the edge.  I am empathizing with a Joycean character!  Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I honestly thought that maybe--just maybe--Joyce was going to give us something positive and even happy.  

Well, no.  He didn't.  But he gave us--me--a spark of hope, as well as evidence that there might yet be a spark of hope--a spark of life--somewhere in Dublin--and in Dubliners.

And with that--with "Two Gallants," that is--I'm no longer turned off this book.  

*

Please excuse the zealous use of italics in this entry.  Consider it typographical affect of my enthusiasm for this story.

SPARKS OF LIFE: HELP!

OPEN QUESTION:

What is the value of the "Spark of Life" in literature?  

This is weighing on me as I just finished my wholly-negative consideration of Joyce's flat "After the Race" from Dubliners, and amidst a casual reading the reputedly terrible The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (full review with photographs coming within a week or so) by the once-famous (quite some time ago and not for so very long) Harry Stephen Keeler.

I can only describe Keeler's book as ecstatically bad.  The writing and subject are ridiculous--ridiculous as in freaking absurd--so far over-the-top as to disappear into the stratospheric yellow glare of its own blinding, cloudless hyperbole.  Joyce, on the other hand--well, we all know about Joyce.

Keeler's book, as bad as it is, is impossible to put down and virtually trembling--crackling--with that spark of life.  I can hardly believe that I'm caring as I do about these absurd characters and their absurder plights.  Meanwhile--  Well, read my review of "After the Race."

My functioning definition of the "spark of life" comes from the preface of Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "After the Race"

I am often--nearly always--very interested in the author behind a text, sometimes so much so as to let the actual text fall under shadow of a perhaps unmerited eclipse.  I want to know what the author's life was that brought about or at least influenced the work; I want to know which elements are autobiographical, which are more Freudian (inasmuch as such elements, unintentionally or subconsciously and then later permitted to remain, reveal the writer's psyche), and which are, well, anything else.  Basically, I want to know the why and how that made the work what it is: why it's so great, and how did he/she do it?  My "thing" for this is on full display in my current reading of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Why is it such a big deal?  I think it's most likely because I want desperately to be a "successful" writer myself, and I think (random extended metaphor approaching) that the fountain, the tectonic pressures, and mineral content are so much more validly inspected than the water that issues from them.  I think this might be why "After the Race" is, so far, my least favorite of Joyce's Dubliners tales: balance of intranational power and political posturing have never borne any kind of interest in me (yeah, yeah, I know: not very responsible) --less so still, the politics that don't necessarily affect me or within which I have no personal history.

"After the Race" is not a bad story.  It's every bit as sharp, I think, as, say, "An Encounter."  Topically, I just don't like it, and this point of author-behind-the-text in general, and specifically here, does make me think, in this case, about Joyce the author.  Does he display himself through the text of this story?  Creative writing--expressive writing--of any kind is, after all, a personal razing of the walls and masks, a rendering vulnerable of whatever some astute reader may be able to cull from the words.  Does Joyce hide timidly behind his words, or flagrantly streak before the world's crowded, ogling literati.

More than any of the others thus far, "After the Race," is an allegory, its title contextualizing perfectly the contents: various countries involved, some directly (France and Germany), some indirectly (the USA), and some not at all (Ireland).  What kind of race?  That of POWER!  And now that the race is over, what are the socio-political effects for the countries' citizenries?

The story begins and ends with the compromise of the Irish family--Doyle's family (and that's the big breakdown here: each family behind the individuals in the car are the respective countries and their histories; the boys in the car are the current citizens of each).  It's important to note that the value (self-perceived) of this Irish family's station will never hold comparable intrinsic valuable as that of any of the Continent's or English families, for the Doyle's homeland is forever second-rate.  Such a position among the social strata makes those who care care all the more because they'll never have what they want (for example, Seguoin doesn't even consider money, because he's never worried about it): the potential class position of the rich French, or the rich British, or the brute strength of the USA.  Meanwhile, the poor who accept their poverty, like Villona, are a bunch of happy, positive out-looking pianists.  Money and influence (translation: freedom) come from the powers; art from the poor-yet-positive; and the middle--the ascendant Irish--are but nothing, and since they'll never be more than nothing, no matter how strong the family business or anything else, they get drunk and stagger around until morning.  (So what then of the "gratefully oppressed" who are indeed Irish?  I see them as Villona, and I think that there's some derision here from the hiding Joyce.  Is he Doyle?)

This is an over-simplification, I know, but I think it gets to the core of the issue here: Ireland is repressed and poor, and it's all their own fault.  Any liner notes, no matter how brilliant the sentences and allusions they indicate (and certainly there are some true gems here--as brilliant as any), will do nothing, as far as I can see, but emphasize those famous trees in the forest, and we know already how Joyce paints his trees: from genius, certainly, but I just can't bring myself to care.  I don't feel sorry for Ireland.  I don't feel sorry for Doyle.  I don't blame the French or the Germans or the British or the Americans or the Hungarians.

I've talked before about that required "spark of life" that is so absent from Joyce.  I started to get my hopes up in "Evaline," but all hope for life is lost in "The Race," which is as devoid of it as an audit.  Joyce--the objective, albeit metaphoric, reporter--by all evidence, doesn't care.  Why should I?

As always I invite your thoughts and critique.  I know this is a very negative review.  I would love to be wrong.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "Eveline"

cretonne

Finally my Dubliners experience has found a heart in Joyce!  So far (1) the stories, while undeniably, blindingly brilliant, have done virtually nothing to draw the reader--or me, anyway-- "into" the characters and "feel" for them.  Here in "Eveline" --well, how can you not feel sorry for this girl, stuck as she is between this rock and a hard place, understand why she chooses in the end what she does, and yet fervently wish she'd chosen the other?  Also (2) --and I wonder if this is related at all to, and even facilitates, the former (1) --this is the simplest of the stories thus far in the collection, at least as far as layers and symbols are concerned, or else I'm totally (and this is certainly not unlikely) missing the boat here.  Does the general simplicity of this story encourage its pathos?

The story is divided into, not the obvious two (obvious by marker of a printer's dividing line in my copy), but three sections.  The division between one and two is less superficially obvious--more a tonal division between act one and act two, if "acts" there may be in so short a story.  The dividing "line" here, I believe is the long descriptive paragraph for Frank.  Pre-Frank, the prose is markedly negative; the contrary, of course, is the case post-Frank.

Act I, samples of the negative: the evening invades; she was tired; dead, dead, dead; the more distant from the present, the more ideal; the brown and yellow, as opposed to the new and, by contrast, more ideal red; Miss Gavan; the arguments and abuses of her father.  The transition into something less negative is that very last sentence leading into Frank, and Act II:

"It was hard work--a hard life--but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life."  (Nice cadence here, by the way.)  Earlier, Joyce says, or has the girl think, "Everything changes."

The implications of these two sentences speak for the entire story--conflict, character, setting, everything.  The girl has before her a drastic change, and a change for the unknown.  The unknown is a typically scary place, and the known, often regardless of however miserable, is pretty much always preferable to the unknown, at least inasmuch as, again, the unknown is scary (and those naysayers who claim that the unknown--adventure--is not scary but exciting, well, if it were not scary it could in no wise create the adrenaline that verily lends the sensation of excitement in the first place; adrenaline junkies just like to get scared), and it is this that holds the intrigue.  Eveline is torn between, on one hand, staying where she is, despite its monotony, is discomfort, and its potential danger (her father's abuses, particularly as she increasingly gains similarity to her mother), and, on the other hand, embarking (literally) for the greener side across the sea.

Act II, examples of the positive: the white envelopes, indicating how she at least wants to feel for the coming adventure; "but she liked Harry too"; the distinct and abiding good of her father; the new connotation of the "odour of [the] dusty cretonne"; but we quickly slide back to the negative as memory of that good in father leads to his defense of his wife against the "damned Italians."  Eveline is stifled by recalled death and stands in eager/anxious anticipation of her escape.  ("Dereraun Seraun" is most likely--I had to look this up--invented by Joyce; however, the wide variety of implied "definitions" offer pretty idea for what he might have intended.)

Of course, she doesn't escape.  Wracked with fear, she opts for the grayish-brown constance of Dublin over the green adventure of Buenos Ayres (sic).

The theme of the story, I believe, is not change, but a derivative thereof: "the more things change the more they stay the same."  Cliche', sure, but in wording only, not application, and that simple, apparently oxymoronic sentence applies across the entire span of the story, much like the two sentences from before.  Nearly every line of the story holds indicator of something having changed, changing, or awaiting change.  In the end, however, and despite all this change all over the place, really, nothing changes: Eveline stays right where she is, and, interestingly, the things that drive her to seek change in the first place are, tit-for-tat, the very things she can't bear to leave behind.

*

There are two other items that I want to point out (not the only potentially point-worthy, as there are many (though these others are generally indicative of trends and referents we've already dissected at length), but, I think--forgive me--the point-worthiest), one of foreshadowing, the second of contextualizing; both, however, are perhaps zoomed-in a little too far:

1. "Damned Italians" -- aside from the irony of racial abuse here (Joyce lived in Italy for most of his life--though this could be scorn from the one-eyed man in the form of mockery toward an assumed bigotry of his countrymen), I think the words from Eveline's father and where/how (from within the happy-ish Act II) they're written/remembered indicate a prejudice against if not travel then foreigners in general.  If she possesses any of the same bigotry of her father, then her fear of this adventure heightens;
2. "Eveline!  Evvy!" -- maybe I'm slow (likely), but I didn't notice until now the girl's similarity of name to Eve of Old Testament fame.  Hmm.  Is Joyce saying that if Eve had not been pushed out by God for her transgression....  No.  He's saying that Eveline is perhaps missing out on the knowledge and experience that simply cannot be had from within her little, well, garden, no matter how dark and dreary.  And maybe all of Dublin is an Eveline, not an Eve.  Perhaps Joyce sees himself as, by contrast and in context, a masculine incarnation (not an Adam, however) of the more laudable of the two women.  I expect he would see Eden as a prison; also he, in no way, sees himself as a holy or righteous man; so Eve, indeed, is the better woman, and Dublin is a, Eveline: a cowardly failure.

*

As I said at the beginning, I really see this as the first of the stories thus far to have some spark of life.  Despite the gray tragedy of it, it is a tragedy!  Whatever the other stories were, they were not tragedies, as--for me--a story for whose characters I care not can never come across as tragic.  This poor girl, Eveline!  What a hand she get dealt!  I wonder, and perhaps this is the most salient question: is it her fault?

SATELLITE versus LITERARY INSPECTION

My eyes and technical expertise are inadequate to determine if Google Earth's resolution across the planet is impartial.  Not so long ago, my hometown of Dover, Ohio seemed to have a much lower level of detail than did, say, cities like Venice, Chicago, and Sydney; and it makes sense: it's like pharmaceutical research.  Why would a company invest money to interest a mere twelve thousand people when they could put the exact same money to use and satisfy twelve million.  Apparently time has done what beta money could not, and my former fellow citizens have finally received the leviathan's attention.  As far as I can tell, Venice and Dover have--at least almost--equal resolution (though I doubt anything like a 3D tour will ever be available for anything labeled "small-town Midwest").

Dover, Ohio

Regardless of the catholicity of Google's eye--and regardless of how fair it now and finally is--it is not perfect.  There is not a place on the entire planet where a viewer can zoom in so close as to inspect the wear and tear of a child's swing set or count fish--or rats, for that matter--in the Grand Canal.  This isn't to say it's not possible; it just isn't the case currently as commercially available by Google.  I do expect, however, that it's only a matter of time before comparable giant like Home Depot manages to gain sufficient access to satellite imaging to target customers for roof replacement and foundation repair.  But no matter how fine the possible detail available through Google Earth or whatever else, never (dangerous word) will it be perfect ("perfect" used here as "complete").  Never will it examine the souls (or even the soles (haha! -- sorry)) of those who traverse these or any other locale.  Look too closely--zoom in too much (and why does the software even permit such closeups if there's nothing to be gained by them?), and all you see are increasingly large (or decreasingly small) squares of color.  Look too closely for information and detail is lost and interpretation is no more than feeble guess work.

Venice, Italy

So it is with literature.  I am Google Earth.  The text is the planet and its places.  My problem is one of self-awareness and an ever loosening grip on reality: I often forget that when I look too closely all I see is a blur of pixels--that I've gotten too close, and that this close, there's just nothing left to see.

So goes the old saying, which I believe has been used here before, at least in comment: "Can't see the forest for the trees," and this is my biggest difficulty--or fault--in my attempts to interpret James Joyce and his Dubliners.

The picture is so often so much prettier from a distance.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "Araby"

only darker -- and Irish

I have read "Araby" at least six times now (I haven't carefully kept track), and I think I'm finally ready to write up my thoughts, though I am not going to do so the same way I've done the previous two entries.

My understanding of this one--such as it is, and as it did with the other two, of course--came incrementally, but also revealed a second potential interpretation--or, more likely considering it's Joyce (a fact one must always bear in mind), an additional interpretation.  In order to make this all make sense--at least for me, as I struggle to bring cohesion to my many, many thoughts here--I'm going to first list the points of discussion, interest, and question that all occurred to me while reading, then go back and fill in my interpretations.

1. the uninhabited, two-story house, which never seems to come up again, at least not directly, anywhere later in the book -- and it's gotta be there for more than just context/setting and perspective's sakes;
2. another dead priest;
3. brown;
4. the third story of three so far in the collection built on childhood, but this time verging on maturity--at least physical maturity;
5. Sir Walter Scott makes a second appearance, this time with specific works ascribed to him and no competing authors, as was the case in "An Encounter";
6. the swinging dress and other physical descriptors of the girl, Mangan's sister;
7. the leaping of the heart, the unbidden tears, the soft chanting ("O, love!  O, love!"), and all the solitude;
8. "All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves;"
9. O'Donovan Rossa;
10. the chalice;
11. "Araby," as a title, a symbol of exotic romance, as a word;
12. the day-dreaming allocation of his fantasized girl to a convent;
13. "fighting for their caps;"
14. the appearance of the second non-familial adult, Mrs. Mercer;
15. "who collected used stamps for pious purpose;"
16. the tardy and indulgent uncle;
17. "The Arab's Farewell to his Steed;"
18. the lonely train ride, its purveyance of continued solitude, and the zombie-like fervor of the pressing crowd at the stops on the way to the bazaar;
19. "silence like that which pervades a church after a service;" 
20. "the fall of coins;"
21. "remembering with difficulty why I had come;"
22. the English girl and her beaus; 
23. the vases/jars and how she turns one of them; 
24. Eastern guards;
25. her rejection/his denial;
26. looking up into the darkness;
27. "[burning] with anguish and anger."

1, 2 -- The house threw me off on the first go-through (it's not too encouraging to be so thwarted in the first paragraph of so short a story), because I couldn't see any reason for it being there.  Speaking literally, it was not the home of the narrator nor that of the priest, as he was a border of the narrator's family.  As I dug in, however, solitude rose as one of the dominant themes of this particular story, and what says solitude more than a house so lonely as to be empty-- "uninhabited" --despite its occupants' physical presence?  The dead priest, as former tenant of the empty house, only elevates the solitude, as his absence may very well represent (additional to what I'll mention next) an absence, or leaving by the wayside, the morality or moral code of religion, especially where it overlaps with the primary theme (just above that of solitude, and hand-in-hand with it) of newly discovered sexuality.

2, 3 -- There are numerous similarities between this third story and the first two of the collection, color scheme being one, religious undertones as points of internal conflict being another.  Like the first two stories, the brown here serves as a a fairly derogatory descriptor for Joyce's hometown.  But there's an additional use of the color that comes up later in the story, as he uses it for the color of the girl's dress.  To me, this could indicate the publicly-recognized dirtiness of the boy-narrator's fantasies, though he alone knows what those fantasies truly are.

4, 5 -- Not that big a deal.  These--the boy's age and the author's presence--are motifs, and I'm curious to see if they will persist through the further stories in the collection.  I have a lingering question regarding the authors, however, Walter Scott here, but also the others from the "An Encounter," which I haven't been able to answer yet.  There are potential religious applications, of course, but without familiarity with a greater portion of these men's collected works, I can't really dig into it.  Even without this particular answer, however, I think I've got a pretty good hold on this story.

6 -- The swinging dress is a beautiful description and suggests there's more going on here than strictly sexual attraction.  The narrator finds the girl beautiful and elegant.  Joyce's line reminds me of another's, which author I've discussed here at The Wall at length already (and I expect some will tire of it).  The line is Hulme's fragment, "The flounced edge of a skirt // recoiling like waves off a cliff," which, if it were intentionally applicable, would add a great deal of support (though ultimately unnecessary) to the general distance and behavior of the girl, not to mention the falling of the boy for her.  While this description (Joyce's) is potentially clean, pure, and forever distant (except for what I mentioned earlier about the brown--but I think Joyce has no problem with dualities), there's an immediate sensuality to that of the girl's neck, which holds sway over the boy's "other" eyes and is repeated twice through the story (three times?).

7, 8 -- The paragraph that holds these lines heavily indicates the extent the discovered sexuality, not to mention (as it's coming more thoroughly later) the loneliness of it.  I don't think it's necessary to explicate thought for thought, impulse for impulse what's passing through this boy's mind, heart, and body.  More importantly are his feelings of shame, isolation, and confusion.

9 -- check out Rossa at Wikipedia. I think this somewhat supports my second interpretation (coming up -- but don't get excited; it's not earth-shattering nor in anyway expounded).

10 -- While I was aware of the narrator's youthful infatuation from the arrival of the girl, the chalice was the lens that really began to bring everything else into focus.  The narrator describes his regular trips to the market with his aunt as jostling, distracting affairs--a lot of stimulus--but he carries his fantasy's name with him like a chalice.  The chalice, of course, is one of many ancient symbols for the womb.  This boy is utterly obsessed with Mangan's sister.  This symbol, repeated later, emphasizes the sexual undercurrent (of course, the more I read and review and think it over, the less under- it seems, and more blatant; in fact, keep reading and the "unmentionables" from 7 and 8 become more and more dominant), as well as maybe an additional point of internal conflict as he is perhaps split between the desire to ravish her and protect her.

11 -- "Araby," the name of the bazaar, comes from an archaic English name for Arabia.  There's a lot of interesting stuff here.  At it's most superficial, the word evokes distance, beauty, and the mysterious and exotic (and commonly used as such in literature--and likely so by inspiration from Joyce's usage here--by a variety of authors, including "S. Morgenstern" (William Goldman) in his The Princess Bride).  That's a pretty heavy task load already for a single word, and Joyce, of course, chose wisely--brilliantly.  But even more than that, and phonetically and scriptologically, he taps into both our psyche and our ancient roots.  The sounds are the first sounds of not just our, but many, alphabets.  There's a newness and youth connoted by As and Bs, as well as, at least with the A, something ancient and agrarian, and therefore earthy and visceral--inevitable.  I'm not an expert, but I've read a bit about it from various sources (Wikipedia touches on it here): the beginnings of the letter A include the image of a bull's head and, more than just this shape, indicates the repeating path the bull makes with the plow, up one row, turn, back another row, and so on, ad infinitum.

12, 13 -- Religion and the shame that accompanies the failure to adhere to communal religious zeal crops up in spades right here.  The first (12) is obvious: Mangan's sister (and I love that she remains nameless!) is so pure that she can only exist--and upon the tallest of metaphoric pillars--in a convent, forever far away and untouchable.  Like Timbuktu, only pure.  (This allusion is adequate to nullify any once-potential need for some like Hulme's fragment.)  "Fighting for their caps" is a little more elusive, and I think I've got the connection right via the appearance of the spikes of the fence mentioned just a sentence later, and the girl's upon them.  Put the religiosity together with spikes and you get Christ's crucifixion.  Go back and supply a fight for--or over, perhaps, in our vernacular--caps, and perhaps these are the crown of thorns.  And while this is very unlike me, let me say that I don't think it's entirely necessary to understand what Joyce intends by this (more than his usual brown distaste for the Catholic church), because these are the very sort of obscure images that would accompany confusion like that of the narrator, who is very unlikely to understand his own impressions, and thus emphasizing the pervasive loneliness here.

14, 15 -- I don't have Mrs. Mercer figured out.  I've got some thoughts, but only that.  First, in my mind, she pairs up with the dead priest (and since we're dealing in repetitions one story to the next, and we're at three-for-three along that line, perhaps--and I'm going out on a limb here--she is his sister) as a non-familial visitor to the narrator's "empty" home.  She seems to have little to do more than be a piece of the setting when regarding the first interpretation of sexuality.  However, her name fascinates me and seems to indicate the latter (together with Rossa) interpretation: mercer shares root with mercantile which comes from trading in fabric, specifically, if memory serves, plaid, which, of course, connects directly to Scotland (but not Ireland!).  (Rossa was Irish, but Sir Walter Scott, who has a higher point reference in "Araby," is a Scott.  This side of the interpretation is difficult--at least for one who, like me, is not an Irish/Scottish/English scholar and historian.)  Also, her name connotes mercy, which also shares root with that of merchandise and mercantile and perhaps draws further connection to the priest--or to religion.  Second to this, however and regarding the woman: the issue of piety in philately totally eludes me, particularly as the dominant fictional text I associate with the use and study of stamps is The Crying of Lot 49, perhaps the least pious book of literary significance I know.

16 -- The uncle, likely a drunk and certainly a point of earthy, unholy contrast to Mrs. Mercer, manages, in his clumsy forgetfulness and mildly hedonistic generosity, to both facilitate and frustrate the narrator's trip to romantic, dreamy, and beautiful Araby.

17 --  http://www.babsonarabians.com/Readers_Corner/Arabs_Farewell.htm  Goodbye civilized restraint and piety; hello utter animal freedm, even bestial (issue of connotation more than denotation).  Escape to Araby, your good uncle sets you free and sees you off.  Release your civilized inhibitions!

18 -- There is a distinct phallic power, independence, and ego to the lonely train ride, particularly as it inevitably enters the station and delivers its pubescent payload.

19 -- Interesting the comparison here between church service and sexual activity.  A chapel is indeed a lonely place after the meeting has finished and all but the stragglers are gone.  Of course, this being Joyce, the question becomes is he condemning the type of sexual activity that's already at subject here (at least via the morally conservative context of the time and place), or is he condemning the church and its patronage by labeling them prudish?

20 -- I'm probably tending toward the over-thinking of this one, so I'll leave it at two simple allusions: the dropping of two coins is a little like the toll paid to Charon at the river Acheron, for admittance to Hell--the payment or, more enigmatic and broader, the price, for/of sex.

21 -- Is the presence of the girl and her boys, not to mention the other distractions (but mostly the first, as we'll see in a second), so distracting that he forgets why he's come?  Literally he came to get a gift for the girl--his object as much so as a transitive verb requires an object--which he likely imagines as the gate to opening the mystery of a possible relationship with her.  Figuratively, however, he's come to Araby for the romance, mystery, and, well, sex of it.  He's forgotten her--or having a hard time remembering her--because he's left her behind.  Perhaps she is indeed pure, and by his descent into the dirt and hell of something more, again, earthy (which, in reality, and by context of the church, is most likely the dark loneliness of masturbation), he's truly left her behind, alone in her convent, where he will never arrive, unless he joins her brothers, fighting for their caps.

22, 23, 25 -- The narrator is jealous of the boys talking to the girl.  He sees her.  He sees her.  She comes over to see him, but she doesn't see him, and she turns one of the jars, or vases--really, just like a chalice, only less pure (vases and jars are everyday items, while a chalice has that lofty beauty and sanctity to it, especially if we go as far as the Cup of Christ, the most noted of chalices) --away from him.  Clearly, this jar is unavailable, maybe even already spoken for.  Finally, and in support of the sub-theme of loneliness, the exotic, and the foreign, there's really nothing more foreign and strange and exotic, and therefore lonely, than sexuality to someone just discovering it.

24 -- Maybe this is a slant against those of the East, but I don't think comparing these two young men to anybody is any kind of a compliment.  More likely, this is just further emphasis for the tone of the setting of Araby and the sad realization that it's not all it's cracked up to be.

26, 27 -- In the end, Araby has had nothing for him.  It's an ugly, dirty place--not beautiful, not exotic, and utterly frustrating, just like the sexual development of any young teen.

My second interpretation, which really isn't an interpretation at all because I've got virtually no way of justifying it and no time to do the otherwise required research is that this story is really (or additionally) about the politics--religious and civil--of Ireland at the time.  There are several things present here that indicate the socio-political while pretty much leaving alone the dominant issue of puberty and sexuality.

***

Additional thought:  If you haven't watched Disney's Pinocchio lately, I recommend picking it up or pulling it out and watching it.  "Pleasure Island" is a euphemistic representation of the bazaar, Araby.  While I haven't read it yet (I realize that this is a seriously pathetic admission, especially considering my love for all things Italian), Collodi's translated text is HERE.

***

"Araby," the story, I think is the strongest of the three stories so far, but this could just be for reason of my understanding it more thoroughly than the previous two.  While none of these stories is bounding with heart and soul, number three seems to have a bit more than the others.  This boy is truly aching, and I feel sorry for him, but my sympathy is more because I'm terribly grateful I'm done with that part of my life.  Regardless of the general sterility of passion here, however, the genius of Joyce, once again, cannot be denied.  In just four or five pages, he effectively takes us through months of this boy's tortured infatuation and struggle (indulgence versus abstinence) until he pretty much gives it up in the dark of his disillusion.  Hale the mighty pen of the master, but I'm still craving the spark of life.  It makes me really want to pick up some Salinger with all its crackling vitality.

*

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "An Encounter"

The problem with high expectations and deeply layered writing is that the simple enjoyment of reading the surface story is often lost.  Not so with "An Encounter."  Reading it was easy, quick, and enjoyable; and not until I reached the last two paragraphs or so did I remember that I was dealing with an author who doesn't write with entertainment at top priority.  In fact it's evidently quite possible that Joyce didn't write for readers' enjoyment at all.  His eventual  publisher even whined that Joyce never wrote anything simple, direct, and fun.  Maybe "An Encounter" fooled the publisher, too, at least until those last paragraphs.  It's the second read-through that permits--encourages, even frustratingly--a second and third guess of every single detail: "Does that mean something?  What about that?  Could even that mean something?"

Basically, "An Encounter" is about a boy, the narrator, who is motivated by stories of the Wild West, brought to his attention by one of his friend's older brother, to skip school in the name of adventure, since adventure cannot be found anywhere but abroad.  Apparently, the docks and the "pigeon house" are adequately abroad.  The friend and another make the plan to leave, each planting a lie, or excuse, through someone else--Mahoney (friend no.2) with his obliging older sister, and Dillon with his likely less indulgent older brother; (we don't have information on how the narrator secures his alibi) --the following morning.

The narrator sleeps badly and so arrives early; Mahoney turns up shortly thereafter; Dillon never shows.  His brother--bent on the clergy--clearly didn't post the lie to the Fathers of the boys' Catholic school.  Mahoney's big sister, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind engaging in the assistance of sibling vagrancy, which likely levels the young lady right up there with the fantastic "unkempt fierce and beautiful girls" of the narrator's preferred American detective stories, while the older Dillon, I'm guessing, is posting up a personal preference of Joyce's against the Catholic church.  By contrast to the restrictions of the two Dillons, Mahoney, who by appearance is Protestant, is entirely free, even wreckless, which independence is caste as beautiful, and the narrator clearly envies him and his ability to find that mysterious American adventure.  In short: Dillons = Catholic and imprisoned; Mahoney = Protestant and free.  It is the narrator who seems to be sitting the fence.

When toward the end of their day away they meet the green-eyed man--a wandering pervert--in the field by the harbor, the narrator pursues an intent of courtesy.  Supporting his insecurities while sitting and talking, he boasts of reading three authors the man mentions, though he knows essentially nothing about them.  The man is enjoying himself and asks about Lord Lytton; the narrator appears not to understand why it is that young boys should not read Lord Lytton.  Mahoney, on the other hand, doesn't care what the queer old man thinks, and jumps up to chase a cat.

The boys succeed, it seems, in finding their adventure, despite the quick passage of time and its preclusion of reaching the pigeon house.  I believe there's more to the chasing of the girls, the chivalrous local boys who defend them; the dock workers, the adjectives around the food, and so forth; but I don't know what it is yet.  The telling moment of the story, however--at least for me, comes in the moment at the very end when the narrator jumps up and hollers, "Murphy!" hoping to escape the old man, and using the code name he assigned Mahoney in interested of escaping potential pursuance by the pervert.

We know that Joyce isn't thrilled with his city or country.  Perhaps the story would show a more favorable light on the latter, at least, had the boys indeed found their green-eyed sailor, rather than a green-eyed creeper.  Alas, the typical color for the country is not affiliated with the wandering freedom and exotic adventures of the seaman, but in the hobbled squint-eye of the degraded.  In the end, whether by courtesy or indecision, the narrator (code name: Smith) is yet sitting with the old man who continues to talk and ramble, lost in the circling, deeply internalized gravity of his fantasies, while Mahoney runs and chases the cat--a very boyish thing to do.  Finally there's a pause in the speech, and the narrator seems finally to arrive at his decision--or the decision, epiphany-like, comes to him.  And a mighty collision!  He jumps to his feet and shouts at his friend, who comes to help him out.

But what of that last line: "And I was penitent; for in my heart I had always despised him a little"?

I can't help thinking that a lot of this story has to do with nationality.  Does the narrator have a twinge of guilt that maybe he's expatriating himself by leaving the national scumbag (and "scumbag" matches the color profile from the previous story, which was there used to represent city and country), and the spoken dislike is just empty validation for his further moment of doubt?  I don't know, but it fascinates me.

I will come back to it after further context is read.

Two down; thirteen to go.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "The Sisters"

"Synesthesia," by Kandinsky

One of my favorite experiences via reading comes only every once in a while, generally after multiple readings of a single work, and maybe that only after a significant piece of time has permitted the buildup of nostalgia, in which case it has to be a book or story I've really enjoyed.  It's synesthesia, which, in this case, is the sensation of a sense (sight, smell, touch, etc.) triggered via the triggering of another sense.  Example: while reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and sitting there with the Buckets in their ratty little room, I smell (really smell--not just the imagining of smell) the yellow age and the brown decrepitude and general despair.  Know what I mean?  Surprisingly, to me at least, I got this same sensation, with those very same colors and smells no less, from my first reading of "The Sisters," the first story of Joyce's collection, as well as the first piece he ever published.

Aside from synesthetic pleasure, I was--and to coin the noisome gobbledygook--underwhelmed, and that despite getting it all the more (though certainly not completely) upon the second go 'round, at which point I was still underwhelmed, though less so (good sign).  Thus the problem of unrealistically elevated expectations.  See, when I read All the Pretty Horses (which is still too close to my heart to objectify for a decent review), I started thinking, "Come on, it can't really be as good as all that!"  I was wrong.  Woefully, pathetically, dismally wrong.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I read the introduction to the collection before I read the first story.  Usually this is a good thing, and at the very least I did gain some perspective on Joyce and Dublin, but man!  Either this lady totally hero-worships Joyce, or Joyce truly is the greatest writer ever to put pen to paper.  Blindly, and with mounting excitement hell-bent for certain disappointment, I turned to the first story, "The Sisters."

At its most basic: a boy's Catholic priest mentor dies, the boy's unsure whether to be sad or not, he has a dream where her flits off to Persia, and the next day goes, under escort of his aunt, to the dead priest's place to pay his respects, where the priest's two sisters talk about the deceased, who apparently went a little off plumb toward the end of his life.

Despite the story's size--or lack thereof--there's a heck of a lot here, the problem is I don't know how to put it all together, nor do I have a context, generally lent by a title, with which to frame it. The context of the whole thing is Dublin, the place, about which I should be able to draw a mental landscape (indication of needed research!) for the stories; one story isn't enough, but I should be able to gain something of the city--or potentially so--from these eight pages.  Not much.  But if so, then, well, it's unlikely Joyce thought much of his hometown, especially if Charlie Bucket's pathetic Dahl-ian home is my first point of comparison.

For example, the whole story smells like crap.  Really.  It's dirty--brown and yellow--and redolent as the old priest's snuff-laden teeth and for-surely charnel-house breath.

While the overall significance of this story is, to me, ambiguous--especially the title, which, for crying out loud, references two entirely ancillary, or so-seemingly, characters--there are two particularly telling elements:

The Dream: After a long walk, during which the boy reminisces at length ("length," anyway, compared to the overall brevity of the story) on the dead man, and wondering why he "felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death," he goes to bed and dreams of the old man's gray face, swinging lamps, and Persia.  And perhaps here we get an early glimpse at the great skill involved in the story's composition: this dream is told in two segments.  In fact (and it's only in looking back for the sentence referring to the gray face that I make this separation), it's the previous night and before he goes for the walk that he dreams; it is toward the end of his walk that he remembers the dream, including portions he'd earlier forgotten.  All of this, flashbacks, etcetera, flow together seamlessly, as if the entire story were also, surprisingly, a dream--a really morbid dream.

The Priest's Decline:  I get the sense that Father Flynn (made me think of Doubt, by the way, and I wonder if there's a tribute there from Shanley to the one-eyed author) wasn't much of a priest; and the sisters say this outright in the end, and that he was nervous....  The family friend, Old Cotter, speaks poorly of Flynn and no one--not a soul--attends the funeral, not even Father O'Rourke, who came to help the sisters clip off the loose ends, which he likely did not for the good of the deceased by for the sisters.  It turns out that Flynn's gone a bit off the twist, which started, apparently, with the dropping and breaking of a chalice, which he happens to hold on his chest now in death.  I'm guessing he dropped it during the throws of an early stroke, the same ailment that ended up doing him in.  The last sentence we get in the story includes the puzzling information that one of his last appearances in the church was sitting in his confessional laughing.  Death and paralysis indeed!  And he was a simoniac to boot, apparently.  Hmm....  Perplexities....  (Pointedly placed ellipses....)

A couple other tidbits:  1, Both the sisters and Old Cotter have a tendency, deplorable to the boy in Old Cotter, though left unmentioned regarding the old girls, to drop their sentences off in ellipses; and 2, three words the boys mulls over as he watches Father Flynn's window in the opening: gnomon, simony, and paralysis, all of which sound "strangely in his ears."

I don't have any great "therefore-what."  I've got a lot of thoughts--and more than what I've got put down here--but I can't draw a conclusion, not without putting it in context of the rest of the book, or at least another story or two.

Interesting, though: just the effort and second/third looks it's taken to write out this little entry has piqued my curiosity and interest--both appetizingly held at bay against a future read (during which time some nostalgia might even set in?) --for what more there might be between the lines here that I haven't seen, let alone comprehended, yet.  Like I said before, there's a lot here, most of which I can't even see; but I just don't know how in the world to put it all together.  What's my context?  My framework?

And I'm not going to cheat!  I will discover it for myself!

One story down, fourteen to go.

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: my tentative and personal adventure

James Joyce (and yes, I posted him
looking away on purpose)

I've never read any Joyce before.  Pathetic?  Yep.  I've even actually assigned the reading of Joyce to students before, though I hadn't read him myself!  But I've got a good excuse.  Mostly.  

Intimidation.

Let me explain:  I didn't really "get into" reading, not like I am now anyway, until after I'd finished my bachelor's degree.  I read, sure, but I didn't (this is going to smack of hyperbole) require it as sustenance to my mind and soul like I do now.  I enjoyed it, but passively.  Considering I only graduated nine years ago, I don't really have all that much experience.  Take that relative inexperience and mix it up with my gained and tremendous respect for the truly great writers, especially as I've attempted to become somewhat of a writer myself (see my issues with some of my favorites authors here), and I just haven't exactly garnered the guts necessary, for me at least, to pick up the reputedly greatest writer of the English language.

Is it all in my head?  Most likely.  I'm not stupid.  But it's emotional, and, as we all know, powerful emotions manage to supersede all sense.

Back to Joyce.

I've got a copy of Ulysses downstairs on my shelves.  It looks nice there--thick and intellectual, like its very presence elevates its owner.  I recently disinterred my copy of Dubliners: less intimidating, of course.  Short stories.  The first stuff he published.  Easy.

I'd steeled myself to make the jump.  I had the book in hand with the name of the eponymous author a-cover.    I sat in my beautiful, comfortable reading chair, opened the book, and--

Well, and I read the introduction by Brenda Maddox and all was... well, not "lost," but intimidation grew, much to my chagrin, and that mixed with the great difficulty of focusing for more than a minute or two with little kids around led to the book shutting, nearly on its own, and me standing to make dinner.  I've tried three more times to get through the first story, "The Sisters," and it's only eight and a half pages long!  Tonight, three weeks after the book's initial resurgence, I've finally succeeded.

So this is what I'm going to do, and may the public--though little-read--nature of this display encourage me against past repeated itself: I will read each story one at a time, approximately one per week, and attempt to understand it without relying on some other critic's or scholar's thoughts and discussion.  I want this for me.  I want this to maybe prove to myself that I am actually a better reader than I think I am--or that I will become a better reader for the experience (and any of you who may think "Hey, you're a great reader!" well, I think I know how to ask the right questions to help others get more out of their reading, but their answers to my questions almost unequivocally better than any answer I myself could give).

This also brings me to my optimistic theory of The Classics (the pessimistic side being that there's a conspiracy bridged between scholars and publishers to keep resurrecting the same old piffle and fooling the public into buying and pretending they've read it because someone else says it's great lit):

Any book of the "canon" wouldn't still be here and interesting and in the canon at all, and therefore bought and read, if that book weren't of interest to contemporary culture.  That means I should be able to garner an enjoyment, appreciation, and/or new/refined perspective from the given book without having to dig into the historical, political, cultural contexts of the work, because that's what scholars do, and I'm no scholar; I am, this time, a passive reader.

Of course, the context from within which the work in question was written is always sure to increase the potential for enjoyment, appreciation, and perspective, and I will likely do a little research for each story, but only as much as I can infer is necessary from the text itself--not from what someone else wants to tell me.

So there it is.  My challenge to myself, the results of which I will post here faithfully and serially.  Join me if you'd like; there is nothing like good discussion to crack open a text.

Here goes....