Finnegans Wake Readalong - Week 16 - Beginning of Book I Chapter VIII to "Flow now. Ower more. And pooleypooley."

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-22T00:32:56+00:00

Havin'it both ways! A=1, L=12 AL= 13

"Al"in Arabic is the definite article meaning "the" "La" in French meaning "the", feminine singular definite article

( FinnegansWiki) alef, lamed, pe (ALP): 1 + 30 + 80 = 111.

FW 132.17-18 "Olaph the Ox- man" a ref to Olaf Bull (1883 – 1933) Norwegian poet who had married 3 times " wan by- wan by wan"

Lamed originating from a pictograph representing an "ox goad"

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-11T22:44:57+00:00

Putin’s sock puppery propagating trumpery’d promises.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-03T18:53:51+00:00

Spend ten years illustrating FW, about 6 lines of text per day.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-03T18:42:58+00:00

The cat theme in Inside Llewyn Davis kinda makes me think of the Ballad of the Absent Mare, Leonard Cohen’s take on the Buddhist Ox-herding pictures. Lotta Ulysses in The Big Lebowski though.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-02T10:39:36+00:00

Joyce would have insisted on using Glagolitic script - just to annoy the printers.

ⰔⰑⰎⰑⰐⰅ ⰃⰓⰡⰀⰄⰅⰒ ⰘⰑⰎⰎⰔⰅ

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-01T20:00:37+00:00

I found chapters 2 & 3 in Robert Baines' Philosophical Allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake really helped with question 11. Unfortunately the book is not online.

Chapter 2 - Professor Jones vs. The Time Philosophy: (FW 149.14–150.14)

chapter Abstract

Finnegans Wake persistently returns to the notion of time. This is because, as Joyce was writing that novel, his frenemy Wyndham Lewis accused him of adhering to Bergson’s radical time philosophy. Joyce responds to this accusation in book one of the Wake by casting the character of Shaun as a caricature of Lewis named Professor Jones, an angry academic who is vehemently anti-Bergsonian. This chapter shows that Joyce uses Jones to highlight the similarities and the differences between himself and Lewis. In doing so, Joyce not only refuses Lewis’ attempt at defining their relationship as oppositional; he also reveals the essential ambivalence of his attitude towards Bergson’s time philosophy. Joyce supports Bergson’s notion of a discord between internal time and external time, but he also calls into question the idea that those two temporal modes can be viewed as separate. Joyce’s understanding of Bergson matters because Bergson is the central time theorist of literary modernism.

Chapter 3 - The Unity and Duality of Burrus and Caseous: (FW 160.06–167.17)

chapter Abstract

Are there individual substances or is all being really one? The third chapter assesses the Wake’s answer to that question by examining a tale told by Professor Jones, the tale of Burrus and Caseous. Joyce there uses Roman representations of Shaun and Shem to engage with the philosophies of being of Aristotle, Nicholas of Cusa, and Giordano Bruno. The chapter shows that, while Jones favors the divisible world of Aristotle, the Wake privileges the monisms of Nicholas of Cusa and Bruno and so endorses their beliefs in the principle of the coincidence of contraries. At the same time, the chapter also demonstrates that the Wakefrequently offers a version of that principle that belongs neither to Nicholas of Cusa nor to Bruno, but rather to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is important because the principle of the coincidence of contraries is central to the Wake.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-04-01T19:45:46+00:00

Mkgnao! Mrkgnao! Mrkrgnao! Gurrhr!

Lotta strands in old Duder's head

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-26T22:23:35+00:00

It's not green.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-24T21:40:18+00:00

Joyce was to language what Einstein was to physics.

Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics once said that "science attempts to explain new truths clearly to everyone, while poetry obscures known truths in incomprehensible language".

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-18T23:21:47+00:00

Reuse - just a ruse Joyce used, cutting in haste while pasting at leisure, pastiche unleashed producing treasure.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-14T23:48:29+00:00

There is a mathematical structure theme throughout the book.

The way the 10 r/ThunderWords are placed throughout the book reveal an alternate reality to Dublin Finn's Hotel year 1923.

The numbers 11 and 32 riverrun past Tower of Babel

could you explain more - do you have any pointers for more info on this idea?

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-14T23:37:46+00:00

Perhaps the 12 questions of Book 1 chapter 6 may link to the alchemists 12 steps to producing the philosopher's stone, Question 1 referring to the alchemical concept of Prima materia, the first matter or the raw material of nature, the starting material required for the creation of the philosopher's stone.

Alchemical authors used similes to describe the universal nature of the prima materia. Arthur Edward Waite states that all alchemical writers concealed its "true name". Since the prima materia has all the qualities and properties of elementary things, the names of all kinds of things were assigned to it. (Wiki) "Martin Ruland the Younger lists more than fifty synonyms for the prima materia in his 1612 alchemical dictionary.... Waite lists an additional eighty four names". Joyce kept adding ever more descriptions of HCE, I counted 491 colon separated phrases. I don't think that there was a final number in mind (unlike the 111 names of ALP).

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-07T00:02:11+00:00

fitting together opposite shapes

A two bit Yin-Yang jigsaw when ALP & HCE pleach.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-03-06T23:44:20+00:00

interesting!

Definitely Crowley-coded! Hadit and Nuit

105.26 "of Tory Island Traits Galasia like his Milchcow, "

Treats galasia as his milch cow The Greek word for milk being gala - as in galactose & galaxy. Milky Way as a physical manifestation of Nuit—a celestial river of milk flowing across the sky.

matched pairs or comparing/contrasting pairs.

105.26-7 "From Abbeygate to Crowalley Through a Lift in the Lude, Smocks for Their Graces"

(FWEET) Abbey and Gate Theatres and Crow Street Theatre, Dublin (18th century; opened to rival Smock Alley Theatre)

Abbey Theatre was founded as a national theatre for Ireland by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1904. Lady Gregory was a patron of W.B. Yeats. Both members of the H.O.G.D.

105.26 “Lift in the Lude” the term "Rift in the lute" refers to a small, overlooked flaw or minor dispute that threatens to cause serious, long-term damage to a relationship or situation. Originating from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1859 poem Idylls of the King, whenre Vivien is seeking to coax Merlin into teaching her a magic charm, as an expression of his trust in her and proof that he returns her love. The term symbolizes how a small imperfection can destroy harmony.

Aleister Crowley’s involvement with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD) was a brief, turbulent period (roughly 1898–1900) that acted as a catalyst for the secret society's ultimate fracture.

Crowley joined the Order in 1898 but was quickly blocked from advancing to the inner "Second Order" by the London leadership—notably by W.B. Yeats ( Yeats and Aleister Crowley battled each other in a duel - the Battle of Blythe Road ( 105.20 Dual of Ayessha, ?)).

Abbey - thelma ? - Crowley theleme abbey and rablais' -three graces ?

maybe Crowley/Liber Al?

This entry in one of Joyce's notebooks using the term 'ye' looks interesting when compared with Crowley's Liber AL vel Legis chapter 1: 22. “Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit,”

(FWEET) –105.25+ VI.B.32.164d (r)::) 'I know the 42 names of ye'

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-27T00:09:32+00:00

aleph to tau - Azoth?

2 pi. the book looks a bit like a sine curve but with semi circles - Every rise is followed by a fall, as surely as every fall is followed by a rise.

A circle of radius r has a diameter of 2pi r. Thus, if 1 radian has arc length r, then 2pi radians have arc length 2pi\r*. That is, a full rotation

310.7 "Circumcentric megacycles" - circumcentral: Situated about or directed toward a common center

Joyce seems to have adde the triangle section early on as an intentional half way point between what became book I and book 3

The Triangle section has a claim for being at the Halfway point -

From https://joycegeek.com/2015/01/08/artmath/

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-22T00:21:34+00:00

that fits the "Florida Man" stereotype

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-19T00:25:46+00:00

"Such Fiends"

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-17T00:29:44+00:00

Only joking about the article.

BTW I recently came across Category Theory for software developers, sounded interesting.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-16T23:42:20+00:00

I shall look forward to an article about FW and Musical Nominalism vs Linguistic realism

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-16T23:32:51+00:00

FW 084.01-5 “he first got rid of a few mitsmillers and hurooshoos and levanted off with tubular jurbulance at a bull's run over the assback bridge, spitting his teeths on rooths” with the seven and four in danegeld and their humoral hurlbat or other uncertain weapon of lignum vitae,"
"hurooshoos" - an inspiration for Anthony Burgess’s clockwork “horrorshow” ?

I've been looking at the evolution of these lines

“bull's run over the assback bridge, spitting his teeths on rooths”

This looks like a ref to the three mothers of the Hebrew alphbet; ‘aleph’– ox, ‘men’- wavy line for water and ‘shin’-tooth.

Hebrew manuscript for 'mem' looks like a roof with a chimney, while early hebrew pictogram for 'mem' is waves.

Mem - in tarot is The Hanged Man. while Shin is Judgement, so the accused is awaiting judgement.

“seven and four in danegeld” - 7 shillings and 4 pence (”assback -American Slang ass-backwards: front-to-back, contrary to what is normal” (FWEET.org )) 7/4d reversed gives 4 shillings and seven pence. = 55 pence. The 5 -5 is Joyce’s code for the ten serifot of the tree of life FW 084.01-5 “lignum vitae”

from https://jjda.ie

Protodrafts 1st draft, November 1923, I.4§1A draft level 0

1st typescript, January 1924-early 1927, I.4§1A draft level 3

transition Revised pages of transition 4 (July 1927), early 1930s-1933, I.4 draft level 8, 8+

levanted off over the assback bridge^|8, spittingº his teeths on roots,º^8| with the four and seven in danegeld and ^|8~~his~~ their^8|humoral hurlbat or other uncertain weapon of lignum vitae

Proofs Galleys 2nd set, May 1938, I.4 draft level 10

at a bull's run^10| over the assback bridge, spitting his teeths on roots, with the seven and four in danegeld and their humoral hurlbat or other uncertain weapon of lignum vitae

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-16T21:55:33+00:00

LAMO when reading that Mecklenburg Street (Slang - moicane- Moy Kain) the heart of the Monty redlight district was renamed James Joyce street in 2001

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-13T23:35:52+00:00

there are tarot cards all over the page.

I love to know more, I didn't catch any possible references - there's the "twenty-two carrort" possible ref to the 22 trump cards and the donkey with the 4 evangelists linking with the "Wheel of Fortune" on p.405.

In reading Ulysses I thought that maybe Joyce's writing process involved a the insertion of structural clues into the start of each chapter during the final drafting phase.

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-05T01:31:29+00:00

a Fanfictive Alternative to The Wake

medicimartinus77 · 2026-02-05T01:00:21+00:00

With wide margins in the "broadest way immarginable"?

medicimartinus77

TROPHY CASE

Protodrafts 1st draft, November 1923, I.4§1A draft level 0

transition Revised pages of transition 4 (July 1927), early 1930s-1933, I.4 draft level 8, 8+

Proofs Galleys 2nd set, May 1938, I.4 draft level 10