Art Articles & Reviews

} James Joyce By Robert Amos It would have diverted, if ever seen, the shuddersome spectacle of this semidemented zany amid the insp issated grime of his glaucous den makin g believe to read his usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles, édition de tenebres, (even yet sighs the Most Different, Dr. Poindejenk, authorised bowdler and censor, it can’t be repeated!) turning over three sheets at a wind, telling himself delightedly, no espellor mor so, that every splurge on the vellum he blundered over was an aisling vision more gorgeous than the one before... James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, page 179, lines 24-32 watercolour of James Joyce by Robert Amos I’ve given up watching television. Instead, I’m reading Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Joyce’s Ulysses is considered the most important novel of the 20th century. For years it was incomprehensible to me, until I read it aloud, in Japan, to the woman who became my wife. Out loud, it made sense to me. After he wrote Ulysses, Joyce spent the next 17 years writing Finnegans Wake. Though I have owned a copy since 1970, I found it utterly baffling. It’s a thicket of neologisms and portmanteau words, Irish history and multilayered puns. Though it is his masterpiece, I have never met anyone who has read it. A university professor mentioned a group reading of the book which is taking place on-line, at the rate of one page a week. A new page (provided on-line by Trent University of Peterborough) is posted to tyhe group every Sunday and, beginning with page 140, I read these weekly postings. Also included were annotations, lexicons of Gaelic and classical references, explications of place names and people. A torrent of email messages evolved from there. calligraphy from page 114 of Finnegans Wake Understanding this book was a bit like solving a crossword puzzle by committee. The text is 627 pages of densely compacted verbiage, with sentences that run to amazing length, clauses within clauses within clauses. By downloading the text, I found I could reformat it in short lines for easier comprehension. I decided to consider each sentence as a poem, arranging the sentence into short lines wherever a comma or conjunction suggested. It later occurred to me that, as a whole, the book is composed of lists and short phrases, many of which begin with prepositions. This immense novel could immediately be considered as a teeming herd of short - and often very funny - poems. To understand this unusual book, I began making tape recordings so I could listen to myself read while I went for walks or drove around town. My new “short lines” text was an ideal reading script, for it provides a visual equivalent to Joyce’s eccentric - but perfectly intentional - grammatical forms. This essentially Irish novel had emerged from the “oral tradition”, and I put it back there. calligraphy from page 18 of Finnegans Wake The short “poems” were entrancing. There were theatrical playbills and Homeric lists and riddles dozens of pages long. I began to inscribe them with a brush and ink on Chinese paper. By now my calligraphic scrolls number in the hundreds. Some have been sent to China to be mounted with silk borders and others are infesting the Internet. Poetic texts are considered the highest art form in China and Japan. I believe I have invented this type of brushed calligraphy for the English language. Since scroll mounting for my work is unavailable in Canada, a meeting with a Japanese potter here in Victoria gave me an idea. Last year Harumi Ota created ceramics for me to glaze in his studio. Now I have decorated more than a hundred plates and bowls with Finnegan inscriptions - no framing necessary! At Hallowe’en this year I began writing longer texts - on my clothing. I have completed the jacket and pocket handkerchief and a necktie is next. I believe I am truly beginning to understand this book. porcelain by Harumi Ota and Robert Amos Last year, at page 312, I left the on-line group. To properly assess how far I had come, I decided to read the book again - and then began writing it out with a fountain pen in hardbound blank books. It’s a very slow process, but this allows the greatest concentration I have yet achieved. Each word must be examined, for many of the words are not quite what one expects. I inch forward, bolstered by Joseph Campbell’s “A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake”, the standard annotations by Roland McHugh, and the two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Writing out Finnegans Wake brings to mind those Irish monks who, in remote scriptoria, copied out sacred and secular books, nurturing the flickering flame of classical learning during Europe’s Dark Ages. porcelain by Harumi Ota and Robert Amos I said that reading Finnegans Wake is like doing crossword puzzles. Puzzles are of no interest once solved, but this literary exercise leaves me with poetry whose wonderfulness increases with familiarity. I believe that Joyceana takes more shelf space at the UVic library than any author other than Shakespeare. Today I am still reading - at page 415. Five years of concerted effort and I am not much more than half way through, for the first time! I haven’t yet met anyone who’s read his masterpiece. But I’m working on it. (To have a look at some of the calligraphy and ceramics, visit www.robertamos.com). ___________________________________________ Copyright © 2005 Robert Amos Robert Amos is an artist and art writer who lives in Victoria, B. C.. He can be contacted by e-mail and you can view his paintings at www.robertamos.com