Ken Carroll

I thought I’d follow up on my last post with a little more about HCE, or Here Comes Everybody. To my mind he is not a generic ‘everyman’, but represents in fact, a complex alternative to it. As the newcomer on the scene he is suspect. In fact, the entire narrative of Finnegan’s Wake evolves around rumors of HCE’s scandalous behavior in Dublin’s Phoenix Park with two girls. We never find out what actually happened there but, apparently, some ‘Welsh fusiliers’ saw the event.

Below is a passage from the book and what I interpret as HCE’s spirited self-defense. (You never know who’s saying what in this book.) He is righteously indignant at the very thought of the Phoenix Park accusations. I located this passage in his pub, the Brazen Head, which is probably as good a place as anywhere else. (The pub traces its origins back to the year 1198, btw.) I include an audio version of it that I recorded myself. (FW has to be read aloud, and since I have an ‘authentic’ Dublin accent, maybe it will make it more comprehensible. I’ve also tried to do it in the style 1930s over-the-top Irish drama.) Audio.

A baser meaning has been read into these characters the literal sense of which decency can safely scarcely hint. It has been blurtingly bruited by certain wisecrackers (the stinks of Mohorat are in the nightplots of the morning), that he suffered from a vile disease. Athma, unmanner them! To such a suggestion the one selfrespecting answer is to affirm that there are certain statements which ought not to be, and one should like to hope to be able to add, ought not to be allowed to be made.

Nor have his detractors,who, an imperfectly warmblooded race, apparently conceive him as a great white caterpillar capable of any and every enormity in the calendar recorded to the discredit of the Juke and Kellikek families, mended their case by insinuating that, alternately, he lay at one time under the ludicrous imputation of annoying Welsh fusiliers in the people’s park.

Hay, hay, hay! Hoq, hoq, hoq! Faun and Flora on the lea love that little old joq. To anyone who knew and loved the christlikeness of the big cleanminded giant H. C. Earwicker throughout his excellency long vicefreegal existence the mere suggestion of him as a lustsleuth nosing for trouble in a boobytrap rings particularly preposterous.

So that is HCE in all his perspectivist glory.

Now since there are 634 pages of this, you may find it comforting to know that there is a Finnegan’s Wiki to help. And yes, amazingly, there’s even a movie based on the book.

Ken Carroll

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.