It is indeed interesting that we should've talked about Frankenstein in class today in regards to Finnegans Wake.  The Wake was brought to life by electricity, the giant of Finnegan was shocked through the big bolts in his neck.  It reminds me of the way words must get jumbled through telephone wires and returned to a semblance of order on the other end - just a little different than the way they began.  Or like the game telephone, how the final message never ends up being what was said at the beginning.  And then there's the Internet (or Xanadu, if you prefer).  One can send "instant messages" through the internet.  These messages are often composed of internet slang and jargon but are conspicously without tone of voice or facial expression.  An example of a message would be "hey u wat up ill brt 2 get my schizz"  Thes message can then be interpreted in several different ways and translated into different words, phrases or languages.  (hey you.  What is up?  I'll be right there to get my stuff)  But besides this musing, it is interesting that we should have spoken of Finnegans Wake as a Frankenstein monster because my friend mistakenly called it Fraunichtenstein's Rake.  Anna Livia is waking the giant as she has done years before and will continue to do for eternity (or time's end, whichever comes first).  She takes Dr. Frankenstein's place which should be played by a womany anyway since it is a woman's job to give life (not that I'm being sexist again, just stating biological facts).

The undefinable sin of HCE in the park which leads to the fall and the Kafka story about the trial told in class remind me of the theatre of the absurd.  The theatre of the absurd developed as an offshoot of the existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre and especially!!! of Albert Camus (who is sometimes classified as an absurdist rather than an existentialist) (Lewis Carroll was associated with the theatre of the absurd with his nonsensical Jabberwocky and crazy Alice, Victorian prude if that helps any).  In this theatre, the world and universe was viewed as absurd and that a rational explanation of the universe was beyond the grasp of men.  The situations one falls into are desperate and one is alone in action and thought - a good expression of modernist alienation but these situations border on the comical.  Obviously, in the theatre of the absurd, everything was blown out of proportion to exemplify just how ridiculous everything appeared to be.  Examples like Camus' L'Etranger are more along the lines of H C Earwicker's sin.  L'Etranger (or The Stranger for you non french speaking types [oh man, that reminds me of Monty Python]) is about a man who attends his mother's wake (Oho! The Wake!) but because he feels this observance is absurd and he is deeply in grief, he leaves (something that is not culturally accepted at this point in time).  Later in the story, the man kills an Arab (something that was usually overlooked at this time period [yeah, yeah I know, who are these people! who thinking killing an Arab is okay but leaving your mother's wake a crime!?]) but because the man left his mother's wake he is seen as a stranger in this society and therefore executed for the death of the Arab.  Just goes to show that things are very strange and as Jim Morrison so eloquently sung "People are strange, when you're a stranger."

Home, where my thoughts are straying....

Go To Ten Already Man

Just a few things that I didn't get covered in our presentation: Jacko and Esaup's Grimm gests is a representation of the brother battle (Jacob and Esau) but also Jack comes from John and the French version of John is Jean and Jean de la Fontaine wrote the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper.  The grimm represents the Brothers Grimm who are very famous for their fairy tales.  The book of Jacko and Esaup's grimm gests had a picture of a fallen giant on the cover of it which was supposed to represent the giant of the landscape.  Joyce seems to prefer the Gracehoper with his wandering ways over the pillar of society the king Ondt.  The Gracehoper is supposed to represent the artist plying the Ondt with his words and phrases.  The poem we read at the end was the Gracehoper pleading with the Ondt to give him some food or money.

Link to the fable that the Ondt and the Gracehoper was based on