An Ideal Insomnia_Neda Mandic_casopis Reči 2014
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Transcript of An Ideal Insomnia_Neda Mandic_casopis Reči 2014
Неда М. Мандић
STUDIJSKO ISTRAŽIVAČKI RAD NA DOKTORSKIM AKADEMSKIM STUDIJAMA,
MENTOR: PROF. DR. ZORAN PAUNOVIĆ
Objvavljeno u časopisu:
Речи,
часопис за лингвистику, литературологију и културологију, бр. 6, 2014.)
AN IDEAL INSOMNIA: THE STRUCTURE AND TEXTURE ASPECTS OF FINNEGANS
WAKE
The paper deals with several aspects of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: the alchemical texture, network structure and semiotic nature. The book is compared to Great Work of an alchemical adept and the main alchemical symbols are explained. The structure of Finnegans Wake resembles great network structures such as information technology networks and digital media. The main features of the network structure such as repetitions and variations are taken into account. Joyce extracted the essence of many books and formed carefully integrated universe by coining the puns and phrases which are analyzed here from the semiotics’ point of view.
Key words: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, alchemy, network, puns, semiotics.
I n t r o d u c t i o n. Anyone who unintentionally enters the linguistic arena of Finnegans
Wake will suddenly find himself in a chaotic system of references, a network of constantly
changing code names and symbols, in which everything can always mean everything else, and in
which even specialists and scholars provide few clues.
This kind of profusion of diffuse concepts always required simplifying measures. These
might be said to include the influential attempts at interpretation by the scholars such as Umberto
Eco, Anthony Burgess or Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson who were solely
interested in the specific nature of the hybrid form of this book. We should admit at this point that
all these sources are just their authors’ perspectives on this highly cryptic and obscure book,
whose readers need absolutely every perspective they can get. This inevitably leads to the vision
Joyce himself had about his reader: “sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and
a night till his noodle sink or swim by that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia” [Joyce,
2000:120].
The concept of an ideal reader implies either a person with a precious and rare mind,
making efforts to accomplish the spiritual awakening, or just an eccentric with a lot of time. The
ideal insomnia may also be decrypted within the ambiguity between the absolute awareness and
absolute leisure. However, the double meaning of the qualifier ‘ideal’ still does not change the
expectation of the writer. Joyce probably thought that he was in a position to expect from his
reader to be ideal and to have all the time of the world. He himself dedicated more that sixteen
years to writing Finnegans Wake. He abandoned the paths he established in his previous works
which can be recognized as modern novels and indulged himself obsessively in postmodern code
by creating the intertextual web full of symbolism, hermetic passages and pure alchemy.
To complete the equation, just include more than sixty world languages Joyce used to
form the words, puns and phrases, and then add the innumerous references to the whole western
literary tradition, the segments and details of Irish history, the spell of dreams in the superb
storytelling interwoven with word-play, approximations and homophonies. I sympathize with any
reader who just surrenders. On the other hand, I encourage and strongly support each individual
wrestling in this arena. Anyone who attempts more than the literal understanding of Joyce’s
writing will not lose himself in the twists and turns of a labyrinth and he will find the way out.
The Wake presents immense initial cognitive and imaginative difficulties, but it does so
for everyone. It gives a rare equal footing to those unskilled with professionals. In a book about
everything, everyone plays a part. Each new angle provides an increase in the resolution of the
overall picture. It is not easy to circumvent all the roadblocks on an enigmatic journey through
the pictorial world of the Wake, but it is worth trying.
T h e A l c h e m i c a l T e x t u r e. In reference to the divine work of creation and the
plan of salvation within it, the alchemistic process was called the ‘Great Work’ (Opus Magnum).
In it, a mysterious chaotic source material called materia prima containing opposites still
incompatible and in the most violent conflict, is gradually guided towards a redeemed state of
perfect harmony, the healing ‘Philosophers’ Stone’ or lapis philosophorum1. The alchemists
1 Jung, C. G. Psychology and Alchemy. 2nd. ed. (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull). "The Collected Works of Jung" Vol. 12. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press. 1970. (pp. 228-241)
constructed the seven stages of the alchemical transformation from the secret knowledge of the
Emerald Tablet. As they were scientists as well as spiritual adepts, they believed it was essential
to perform the Seven Stages in both the physical and spiritual realms simultaneously. These
stages are known as Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation
and Coagulation2. We can compare the Great Work of an alchemistic adept with the Work in
Progress, as Joyce initially called the Wake. All the phases of transformation3 the adept has to
pass through can be recognized in Joyce’s collecting, arranging and creating the material for this
book. The processes of transformation can be identified with the activities Joyce had undertaken
through his Notebooks in order to establish the system within the Wake.
Joyce’s cryptically infinite work starts with the death and resurrection of a mason, Tim
Finnegan, referred to also as “Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand” [Joyce, 2000:4]. An
association to Ibsen’s The Master Builder gives rise to an implication that we are dealing with the
appearance of the Great Master, the creator of the Great Work. He died when he got drunk and
fell from the scaffolding and was put in his coffin. Thus he was thrown into the darkness of
materia prima chaos. We will follow his transformation from “freemen’s maurer”, “man of hod,
cement and edifices” to HCE (Haroun Childeric Eggeberth) [Ibid.,4]. Actually, his fall
foreshadows the fall of HCE early in Book I.
Finnegan’s resurrection is the final result of numerous transformations like Mister Finn,
Mister Finnagain and Mister Funn. One of the interpretations of the hidden meaning of Joyce’s
invented verb ‘caligulate’ conveys the sense of Coagulation4 in alchemy: “he would caligulate by
multiplicables the altitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin
‘twas born” [Ibid.,4].
Physiologically, this stage is marked by the release of the Elixir in the blood “that
rejuvenates the body into a perfect vessel of health”. In this case, the Elixir is ‘the liquor’. One of
the processes preceding the Coagulation is implied by the words ‘vine’ and ‘vinegar’. If exposed
to air, wine will start to ferment into vinegar on its own. The chemical process that allows wine to
"sour" into vinegar is known as fermentation. The alchemical process of Fermentation starts with
2 Seth Osburn. Seven: The Seven Stages of Alchemical Transformation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10 from
http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1193 C.G.Jung described the stages of the alchemical Great Work in his work Psychology and Alchemy (229). These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts. See also Hoeffner, Mark. The Dictionary of Alchemy: From Maria Prophetissa to Isaac Newton. London: Harper Collins. The Aquarian Press. 1991. (pp. 238)4 Coagulation. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.alchemylab.com/coagulation.htm
“the inspiration of spiritual power from Above that reanimates, energizes, and enlightens the
alchemist”5. The verb ‘fine’ here stands for the purification from extraneous or impure matter: “O
you’re vine! Sendday’s eve and, ah, you’re vinegar! Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you’re going to be
fined again” [Joyce, 2000:5].
Not only does the Wake deal in many places with hermetic motifs, subjecting language
itself to a fundamental process of transformation – its eternal structure is also based on the
alchemistic process. Like Blake and Swift, Joyce used the techniques identified as characteristic
of the language of alchemy. The ‘rotary processus’ [Ibid.,304] designed to transfer the four-
elemental disharmony of the materia prima and four chapters of the book into the perfect
roundness of the lapis is externally accomplished in the well-known effect whereby the closing
words of the book “(…) a long the” are supposed to flow in the opening: “riverrun past Eve and
Adam’s (…)”.
In her thorough analysis of the alchemical aspects of the Wake, Barbara DiBernar in her
book Alchemy and Finnegans Wake emphasizes the most important section of the Wake - [Ibid.,
182.30-186.18] explaining that “Joyce added virtually all the alchemical allusions at one time,
proving that he intended them to form a recognizable and meaningful pattern” [Ibid., 9]. Some of
the most significant alchemical elements are mentioned in this section: “The house O’Shea or
O’Shame, Quivapieno, known as the Haunted Inkbottle, no number Brimstone Walk” [Ibid.,
182].
The Italian phrase qui va pieno (here goes a full one), which forms a compound here,
signifies the process of fullness, including in alchemy both secular and celestial knowledge, the
spiritual and physical being, which lies in the sphere of unconsciousness, according to Carl
Gustav Jung6. We also have an indication of an important alchemical element within the phrase
Brimstone Walk, since brimstone was formerly the common vernacular name for sulphur. The
sulphur is a synonym for materia prima and it is also a part of the process of Coagulation7.
The idea of “cyclewheeling history” [Ibid.,186], which Hiroko Mikami explains as an
influence of both “Giambattista Vico’s theory of the cyclic evolution of history” as well as the
Books of Kells (a mediaeval Irish manuscript illuminated with motifs based on the combination of
multiple circles and spirals) is also an alchemical aspect of the Wake [Mikami, 2007:93-95]. The
5 Fermentation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10 from http://www.alchemylab.com/fermentation.htm6 Jung, K.G. Mysterium Coniunctionis. KD Atos, Beograd, 1999. (17)7 Ibid, (87-100)
Wheel in alchemy is a symbol representing perpetuum mobile and the philosopher’s stone. The
Tunc Page in the Book of Kells, specifically referred to in Finnegans Wake, contains double
serpents, one of which forms an Uroboros-like square. The Uroboros, a serpent biting its own tail,
is also regarded as one of the significant symbols of alchemy for the cycle of death and rebirth.
“Things above are mirrored in the things below” notes the most quoted rule from the
Emerald Tablet or Tabula Smaragdina (1541) of Hermes Trismegistus. Joyce’s version in
Finnegans Wake reads: “The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of
Hermes“ [Joyce, 2000:263]. To Hermes, the cosmos was a unity of interdependent parts,
connected by sympathies or antipathies and arranged in curious paradigm. Things above, such as
the planets or the signs of the zodiac, were connected with things below, such as man and his
parts, by lines of influence, resemblances, and affinities. This correspondence between
macrocosm and microcosm and among all sublunary things is the essential of the Hermitic
tradition and the part of it that was to fascinate men of letters. The correlations and interactions
between the microcosm and the macrocosm so central to the belief systems of Hermes and the
alchemists were also central to Joyce.
The 'Sacred Marriage' was the goal of the alchemical knowledge. In the Wake, HCE and
ALP constitute one body, that of the dreamer. Their conjunction (wedding and marriage) "from a
bride's eye stammpunct when a man that means a mountain . . . wades a lymph" [Ibid., 309]
quite literally plays on the two-in-one theme. This is the symbol of the "Mysterium
Coniunctionis" archetype otherwise known as the alchemical or sacred marriage between Sol (the
sun king) and Luna (the moon queen). The alchemical, sacred marriage is often referred to as the
hieros gamos or the union of opposites. We can also say that the marriage of HCE and ALP is the
biblical motif used in the Catholic Marriage ceremony of two-in-one-flesh. Anna Livia Plurabelle
or the sacred river ALP is the symbol of the Great Mother in alchemy. The Great Mother is
Mother Nature, the archetypal woman in God and the long-lost Goddess. She is the symbol of
fertility and the creative forces in nature.
Alchemy serves not only as a metaphor for the artistic process, but also as a source for
many of the major themes of the Wake, including incest, colors, forgery, death and rebirth, the
dream form, number symbolism, the macrocosm-microcosm theory and the reconciliation of the
opposites.
T h e N e t w o r k S t r u c t u r e. All the complex systems such as information
technology networks (innumerous transistors) or brains (myriad of neurons) are constructed by
using variations and combinations of a limited number of relatively simple elements. They are
also some of the fundamental techniques through which much of the material in the Wake is built
up into the final product. From the very moment these elements start to interact with the text and
develop a formula for dealing with the outside world, the work begins to operate through the
process of decoding and recoding of information, which offers limitless possibilities of
interpretation.
On the most basic level, there are the acronymic variations, the countless repetitions of all
the possible combinations of the initials 'HCE' and 'ALP'. These variations are numerous
beginning with "Howth Castle and Environs" [Joyce, 2000:3] and "He addle liddle phifie Annie"
[Joyce, 2000:4] and they appear on almost every page. Thus Joyce establishes the presence of
the cosmic couple in the Wake.
Joyce also works in standard riddles and riddle forms, upon which elaborate variations are
sometimes made. For example, a conventional riddle, "Is life worth living?" occurs at a number
of points: "that's what makes lifework leaving" [Ibid., 12]; "Was liffe worth leaving?" [Ibid.,
230]; "Is love worse living?" [Ibid., 269]. Like many other catch phrases used in the Wake
("Tom, Dick and Harry," "hide and seek," "an eye for an eye"), these common riddles provide
easily recognizable and malleable material for Joyce's manipulation. The traditional answer to "Is
life worth living?" is "it depends on the state of the liver" and Joyce may be thinking of this in
some of his punning on the word "liver": "Liverpoor?" [Ibid., 74]; Shem has a "loose liver" [Ibid.,
169]; Shaun's "liver too is great value, a spatiality!" [Ibid., 172].
The work, furthermore, contains "the first riddle of the universe: asking, when is a man
not a man?" [Ibid.,170]. The question is repeated in various guises throughout the novel: “where
was a hovel not a havel (the first rattle of his juniverse)” [Ibid., 231]; "first and last rittlerattle of
the anniverse; when is a nam nought a nam whenas it is a" [Ibid., 607].
Describing the technique used in this book, Margot Norris pointed out that “Events in
Finnegans Wake repeat themselves as compulsively as Scheherazade did, spinning her tales, until
there are so many versions of the event that one can no longer discover the “true one” [Ibid.,
120]. It is difficult to say if father seduces daughter or daughter tempts father. Therefore the
Wakean family is in chaos and the roles and relationships are violated in such a way that
identities are unstable and interchangeable. All the formal elements of the plot, character, point of
view or language are not connected to a single point of reference. This condition creates flux and
restlessness in the work and the reader can sense it intuitively.
James S. Atherton explained that “the microcosm of Finnegans Wake is constructed
according to certain fundamental axioms for which Joyce is careful to provide clues, but which is
the task of its readers to discover for themselves”8. Joyce extracted the essence of many books
and formed the axioms acting as the substitutes for the whole in the Wake:
None of his axioms originates entirely with Joyce, although his combination and
development of them is fantastic in its originality, producing an account of a unique
universe that is also unique as a literary phenomenon. It is an original and carefully
integrated universe, but it cannot be understood without knowledge of its basic sources.
[Atherton, 2009: 28]
The structure is based on the cyclic view of the history which Joyce took from Vico. The
references to The New Science can be recognized over the whole of the Wake: "Cycloptically",
"cycloannalism", "vicocyclometer". This method is very similar to the process of data
compression or data compaction in the information theory. The process involves “transforming a
string of characters in some representation (such as ASCII) into a new string (of bits, for
example) which contains the same information but whose length is as small as possible”9 .
However, the recompression is much more common within the structure of the Wake. This
process can be described as stuffing word after word into the same lexical unit to the point of
overflowing.
The modern information theory, computer science and digital media concepts provide
various analogies with the processes integrated into the structure of the Wake. Another such
concept is the decomposition of the basic parts of the system once they enter into the system. The
basic part operates as a template within the computer network, which is altered due to the
combined influences of the other basic parts or inputs and thus contributes to the coherence of the
whole system. This interconnection or correlation can be illustrated by the relationships between
linguistic strings appearing in various shapes through the book. For example, the phrase "by way
8 Atherton, James S. The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Influence in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Faber and Faber. London.1959. (p. 28)9 Debra A. Lelewer and Daniel S. Hirschberg. Data Compression. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dan/pubs/DataCompression.html
of final mocks for his grapes" [Joyce, 2000:72] announces the Mookse and the Gripes story
starting on page 152. The Great Letter motif is woven through every chapter, but it is given its
fullest treatment in Chapter Five of the Wake.
With each word standing in a potential relationship to all the other words, the reader of
the Wake follows the dynamics of computer's central processing unit10 (CPU), until he comes
upon a signal to jump to a different part of the memory of the text. Each time one of the
variations on the Prankquean's riddle comes along, for example, the option of returning to that
section presents itself. The tale of the Prankquean is very short [Ibid., 21-23] in the Wake, but its
echo can be heard throughout the work, especially in other fables and parables. We have a
variation of the riddle in the question of the Norwegian Captain: “Hwere can a ketch or hook
alive a suit and sowterkins?” [Joyce, 2000:311]. The Pranquean’s three journeys are also those of
the Ondt: “He took a round stroll and he took a stroll round and he took a round strollagain”
[Ibid., 416].
By pushing the reader into potentially endless chains of association and meaning at every
juncture, and thus forcing him to draw heavily on his own experience to inform his understanding
of the book, the Wake sets a process in motion that inevitably extends beyond its own pages. In
order to meet the demands of Joyce's "sound seemetry" [Ibid., 17], his "poetographies" [Ibid.,
242] and his "auradrama" [Ibid., 517], the reader has to create his own semantic network with
such an imagination and freedom that it reacts spontaneously when triggered by the Wake. The
reader with enough imagination can infer the image of the world from the word alone or from a
single phrase. For the modern reader the implications of the phrases such as "Putting Allspace in
a Notshall" [Ibid., 455] suggest not only the idea of infinity in a nutshell, but the compression or
even the collapse of the world’s network in a quite restricted area.
S e m i o t i c N a t u r e. Umberto Eco defined a communicative process “as the
passage of a signal (not necessarily a sign) from a source (through a transmitter, along a channel)
to a destination” in his book A Theory of Semiotics [Eco, 1979:8]. It is possible to visualize the
major characters of the Wake (HCE, ALP, the twins Shem and Shaun, Issy, etc.), and the themes
of the Wake (the fall, the resurrection, the creation of the Letter) as the thin ends of a system of
channels into which the entire book is poured. HCE and ALP exist on an archetypal level as a
10 Central Processing Unit (CPU) is a chip functioning as a computer brain. It is able to collect, decode and perform instructions as well as to transfer the information to the other resources (Microsoft: Računarski rečnik. Prevod petog izdanja.CET. Beograd. 2003. (127))
tavern-keeper and his wife. Their family story is also shown from a religious perspective, and on
that religious plane they become Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Abel. These figures are
the symbols of the fall. The story has a mythological layer coloured by the figures of Finn
MacCool, the scenes of King Arthur's Court or the giants that walked the earth. There is also a
historical layer representing Parnell, Napoleon and Wellington. All these figures appear and
disappear, but everyone and everything ultimately flows back into the figure of HCE.
In his analysis of the semiotic structure of the Wake11 within the book The Limits of
Interpretation, Eco explained a textual network of associations that makes the work’s cultural
and psychological context legible. He illustrated a process of decoding the pun within the
Joycean word “meandertale” [Eco, 1994:18]. Eco also traced the possible nodes of association
which link the words: Neanderthal, Meander and Tale from which Joyce formed the linguistic
unit Meandertale. The newly constructed unit meandertale signifies the very name of the process
that forms it - a meandering quest for associations between words where these associations
simultaneously tell the story of their evolution.
As Eco sees it, this process of continual amalgamation creates “a network of
interconnected puns” [Ibid., 140]. Almost every page of the Wake can illustrate the features of
this interconnection. Within the pun “erigenating” [Joyce, 2000:4] we can notice the Latin root of
the word erigo meaning to erect inserted in the English verb originate12. There are two meanings
packed up into one word. But Joyce was rarely content with two meanings. Therefore, the whole
phrase also brings an echo of a famous Irish theologian’s name Eurigena. The same case is with
the pun “epickthalamorous” [Joyce, 2000:40] consisting of two Greek words epikos and thalamos
which are correspondents of the English adjective poetic and the noun phrase bride chamber13. If
we look at the whole phrase as a compound, we can extract the meaning of epithalamium (gr.)
which is a nuptial poem honoring the wedded couple.
Each word stands in a series of possible relations with all the others in the text. The pun is
the tool for all-pervading ambiguity, by which two, three or even more different etymological
roots are combined in such a way that a single phrase can set up a node of different meanings.
11 Eco, Umberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1900 and A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1979.12 The semantic analysis of the pun found on the web site Glosses of Finnegans Wake. Retrieved on 2011-12-07 from http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1/1024finn1.htm13 The semantic analysis of the pun found on web site Glosses of Finnegans Wake. Retrieved on 2011-12-07 from http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter2/1024finn2.htm
Each meaning in turn interrelates with other local allusions, which are open to new probabilities
of interpretation.
In his effort to reorganize the English language, Joyce invented thousands of new words,
almost all of which are based on the same etymological principles as the standard English. It is
well known that he read etymological dictionaries for pleasure. His addiction to word derivation
resulted in word synthesis. These synthetic words are mostly the problem words and require
much more deciphering. Harry Burrell pointed out that “the process of Wakean logic consists of a
string of associations mirroring actual brain activity” [Burrel, 1996:2]. Often the associations are
words which when pronounced sound similar, but whose meanings are logically unrelated.
Burrell illustrated this by giving an example from Finnegans Wake: “The only man was ever
known could eat the crushts of lobsters” [Joyce, 2000:624]. This would sound like an ordinary
English sentence, with the exception of “crushts”. If we understand that crusts are lobster shells,
it is difficult to connect it with the behavior of the man. Burrell’s discussion further implies that
whenever eating or food is mentioned in the Wake, it is a reference to the forbidden fruit.
Following his explanation, a lobster is equated to an earwig, which in turn represents the biblical
Serpent. Furthermore, eating crushed fruit seems sinful and therefore results in the Fall.
C o n c l u s i o n. The difficulty of Joyce's language in Finnegans Wake, its
unnaturalness confronts readers and forces them into a certain relationship to the words. It is not
just a case of trying harder, of making that Sisyphus' endless effort to match Joyce's own effort in
the writing. It is, rather, a case of recognizing altered relationships between language and
meaning, between the word as that which it refers to and the word as an element within a
particular set of oppositions, within the particular structure that is language.
It is a commonplace in Joyce criticism that the primary structural model for Finnegans
Wake is the web, or network. Furthermore, the Wake is a network of “a jigsaw puzzle” [Ibid.,
210], “a cryptogam” [Ibid., 261] or “holocryptogam” [Joyce, 2000:546], a game of hide- and-
seek or “cash-cash” [Ibid., 24]14, "punns and reedles" [Joyce, 2000:239] or “a rebus” [Ibid., 12],
the solutions to which are forever escaping man's understanding. Taking such complexity into
consideration, the Wake demands a special reading strategy. As John Bishop points out, such
14 Fr. Cache-cache: hide and seek
strategy abandons a “sequential progression along the printed line” in favor of reading “a
sortilege”:
I have only been practicing on Finnegans Wake a kind of textually self-endorsed “Sortes
Virgilianae” (281.R2), where the phrase refers to a traditionally long-standing, if odd
kind of reading procedure called “Sortes Virgilianae” (L. “Virgilian fortune-telling”). A
Western version of the I Ching, Virgilian sortilege licenses the eager reader who seeks
light in personal affairs to open his Virgil “at random” and “volve the virgil page” (270)
– begin interpreting whatever line he hits upon “ad lib” (583, 302). [Bishop, 1986:305]
Someone may object that the application of this method takes the terms out of context,
but Bishop’s reply is that they are the context. What needs to be noted in all of this is the unique
importance of Joyce's conception of the reader-writer, producer-consumer relationship, which is
referred to in following sentence of the Wake: "His producers are they not his consumers?"
[Joyce, 2000:497]. The Joycean writer comes to be replaced by the reader who rewrites the text
– the reader as a poet related to processes of coding, to pursuing transverse references and to the
ability of multi-media perception:
The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who
discovered the raiding there originally. That's the point of eschatology our book of kills
reaches for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be coded can be
decorded if an ear aye seize what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we
have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects.
[Ibid., 482-483]
The desire to capture the wide world on paper created the summaries from all major
cultural categories which were coded into Finnegans Wake. These categories include the lists of
the Irish literary great [Ibid., 256], the lists of the great composers [Joyce, 2000:360], the great
figures of ancient history [Ibid., 306-308], and the stories from Joyce's own collection Dubliners
[Ibid., 186-187]. The Wake is full of lists, and following the principle of redundancy, it is rare
that any item of any list appears only once in the Wake.
As all men go through life trying to find answers ("they are all there scraping along to
sneeze out a likelihood that will solve and salve life's robulous rebus" [Ibid., 12]), some men
struggle through Joyce's final book, again often with no certain answer. Like most of his
characters, Joyce's readers have a hard time with the riddles put to them. Yet the Wake's final
page promises that, through Anna Livia, the keys are somewhere given: “The keys to. Given!”
[Joyce, 2000:628] which will remove all difficulties, unlock all answers. For most readers of the
Wake, this, like the book as a whole, has to be taken on faith.
Literature:
Atherton 2009: The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans
Wake / James S. Atherton. SIU Press, 2009.
Bishop 1986: Joyce’s Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake / John Bishop. The University of
Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin, 1986
Burrell 1996: Narrative Design in Finnegans Wake / Harry Burrell. The University Press of
Florida, 1996.
Eco 1979: A Theory of Semiotics / Umberto Eco. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979.
Eco 1994: The Limits of Interpretation / Umberto Eco. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
Hoeffner 1991: The Dictionary of Alchemy: From Maria Prophetissa to Isaac Newton / Mark
Hoeffner . Harper Collins. The Aquarian Press. London, 1991.
Joyce 2000: Finnegans Wake / James Joyce. Penguin Books. London, 2000.
Jung 1970: Psychology and Alchemy / C. G. Jung. 2nd. ed. (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull). "The
Collected Works of Jung" Vol. 12. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University
Press, 1970.
Jung 1999: Mysterium Coniunctionis / Karl Gustav Jung. Beograd: KD Atos, 1999.
Microsoft: Računarski rečnik. Prevod petog izdanja. CET.Beograd, 2003.
Mikami 2007: Ireland on Stage: Beckett and After / Hiroko Mikami, Minako Okamuro, and
Naoko Yagi. Carysfort Press. Ireland, 2007.
Norris 1978: The Decentered Universe of Finnegans Wake: a Structuralist Analysis / Margot
Norris. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978
Stewart 1990: Reading Voices: Literature and the Phonotext / Garrett Stewart. University of
California Press, 1990.
Web Sources:
Coagulation. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.alchemylab.com/coagulation.htm
Debra A. Lelewer and Daniel S. Hirschberg. Data Compression. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dan/pubs/DataCompression.html
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Неда М. Мандић
ИДЕАЛНА ИНСОМНИЈА:АСПЕКТИ СТРУКТУРЕ И ТЕКСТУРЕ РОМАНА ФИНЕГАНОВО БДЕЊЕ
Овај рад се бави основним елементима структуре и тестуре Џојсовог херметичног
романа Финеганово бgење. Анализа обухвата сегменте алхемијске текстуре романа, која се
објашњава са аспекта основних полазишта Јунгове теорије изложене у његовим студијама
о алхемији и псилогији. Сам поступак анихилације лексичких јединица и њихове поновне
семантичке синтезе кореспондира са поступцима алхемичара који налазе своје еквиваленте
у савременим психолошким теоријама. Стога и Џојсове белешке (Work in Progress)
успостављају аналогије са процесом рада древног адепта.
Семантичке варијације и комбинације лексичких елемената сложене структуре
романа пореде се са процесима кодирања које користе савремене мреже информационих
технологија и компјутерских система, што пружа неограничен број могућности
интерпретације.
Анализом семиотичке структуре дела објашњава се текстуална мрежа асоцијација
које чине културни и психолошки контекст. Ова врста анализе ослања се на методе које је
користио Умберто Еко у свом делу Ограничења интерпретације (The Limits of
Interpretation). Метод интерпретације семиотичке структуре полази од премисе да свака
реч стоји у низу могућих релација са осталим лексемама у тексту. Стога су игре речима
средство свепрожимајућих двосмислености којим два, три или више етимолошких корена
комбинованих у једној лексичкој јединици стварају мрежу различитих значења.
Кључне речи: Џејмс Џојс, Финеганово бдење, алхемија, мрежа, игре речима,
семиотика.