Tangled Rope

Received this beauty in the mail yesterday…

It’s a postcard hinting at “A Painful Case”–perhaps my favorite story from Dubliners. Who is it from? “The Imitator”, apparently!

…the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.
Genesis 2:17

By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.
Genesis 3:19

James Joyce’s short story “Clay” uses clay as an ironic representation of Maria’s faith in God, one that is specifically reflective on a belief immortality. The clay which Maria blindly must identify in the family saucer game recalls the Biblical origin–and end–of Man; his mortality. For Maria, this fearful eventuality should be solved by her Catholicism, which states Man may move beyond this dumb substance, into an infinite glory with God. Joyce, however, makes some subtle suggestions that Maria may be fooling herself, the most elegant of which comes in Maria’s reaction–and the others’ lack of response–to her touching of the clay:

She felt a soft wet substance with her fingers and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off her bandage.

When I read this–already primed for the mortality symbolism of clay in “Little Cloud”–I imagined that Maria might face a similar surprise when, penultimately “blindfolded” in death, there is no one who can call out to her, and nothing for her to see!

If Joyce’s symbolism here isn’t an indictment of religious faith itself, at least it suggests cracks and quivering in Maria’s own faith. Such imperfections in one’s faith are not so remarkable, though in Maria’s case they are more troubling in light of her apparent dissatisfaction and disappointments in her own life, which she seems to willfully ignore, discount, or gloss over. This is poignantly illustrated when Maria sings the first verse of the song “I Dreamt that I Dwelt” twice. Whether consciously or unconsciously she obfuscates the second verse’s reference to eros–which Maria has not found–in favor of the first verse’s focus on agape–which Maria hopes to obtain.

I say this is troubling because it is one thing to hope for life after death as a remedy for dying, but quite another to hope for life after death as a remedy for living.

Earlier this month I received three postcards from fellow motley readers re. our Feb/March reading of James Joyce’s “Dubliners”. I can’t explain how it pleased me to find these in my mailbox, visuals and words from 3 folks who range from friend to stranger–but all of whom I wish I knew more!

I apologize to the other motley readers–and especially the postcard-writers–for not posting these up sooner; February has been a looong month!

The first short story in James Joyce’s “Dubliners” (this month’s motleyread) is “The Sisters”, a slightly enigmatic story of an adolescent boy facing the death of his informal mentor, Father Flynn. Only half-way through the first page this sentence seized me:

Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis.

Of a number of themes and motifs in “The Sisters” the theme of paralysis intrigued me the most. Father Flynn’s strokes produce a literal paralysis, and his subsequent death itself represents a final paralysis (indeed, I sensed just a hint of fear of live burial–a terrible counterpart to a misdiagnosed paralysis–in the narrator’s viewing of Flynn’s body, implicit, perhaps, in the confusion that the narrator and the sisters seem to experience as they talk of Flynn as if he were still alive).

At a most basic level, paralysis is an inability to act for one’s self. I saw this as a psychological paralysis in the narrator, as he first wills himself to not speak of Flynn’s death before his uncle and Old Cotter, and then seems unable to speak at all in Flynn’s house. This paralysis in life appears in the actions of the women, too, who can’t quite seem to verbalize the reality of Flynn’s death. “Did he … peacefully?’” the aunt asks; the sisters, too, seem almost unable to complete their thoughts about Flynn, and speak of him in hypotheticals, in speculations, with halting self-consciousness:

She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened; but there was no sound in the house; and I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle chalice to his breast.

I’m not quite able to connect this as I should, but it seems this persistent theme of paralysis in life connects to another dominant theme: the ineffectualness of religion for Flynn and his neighbors. Religion here seems unable to sustain the living or confront and explain death. By not providing these desired comforts, religion does nothing to alleviate the feeling of paralysis the living may feel when confronted with death; indeed, it may, by controlling actions and speech invoke it’s own partial paralysis on its followers (I marked a couple almost involuntary superstitious actions in the story). For the dead, we wonder if it provides escape from the paralysis of death. As if hoping for some sort of happy peace for the dead Flynn, the narrator fancied “that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin.”

“But no”, the narrator realizes, perhaps beginning to settle into an understanding of Flynn’s ineptitude. This is reinforced by Flynn’s own inability to literally grasp the chalice (alive or dead), the strangeness that both Old Cotter and the narrator seem differently aware of, and his improper laughing (possibly weeping?) alone in the confessional.

Wide awake and laughing-like to himself…. So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him…

So the story ends, halting in its explanation in the same way that the women stop themselves from speaking the reality of Flynn’s dying. In this case there is some ambiguity in the ending ellipses, as either Eliza is unable to complete the story, or the narrator himself is unwilling to face the conclusion symbolized by “an idle chalice on his [Flynn's] breast.”

I’ll attempt to take advantage of Chris Lott’s invitation to join the Motley Readers this month as they work through James Joyce’s “Dubliners”. I say “attempt” not because I may be too motley for this crew (though that thought may surely cross some minds–especially after that pun), but to be realistic: I have once again taken on too large a pile for my limited abilities this semester, and so the pleasures of literature will be postponed as required.

In addition to a number of digital media for sharing reflections on our reading, one group member suggested physical post cards, mailed to any members of the group. Though I also intend to make a few meatier blog posts here, post cards grant a fine chance for me to send a little mail to friends, near strangers, and complete unknowns. When I do send post cards I think I will focus on darkest or brightest observation(s) in a given story, and may indulge my latent interest in art to sketch part of a story. I’m less excited to have my postcards be received than I am to see my postcards as part of a larger collection that Chris intends to compile.

Regardless of how much I share during the month, I do plan to read all 15 stories, which means I need to tackle 4 a week, like this:

1. “The Sisters”, “An Encounter”, “Araby”, “Eveline”
2. “After the Race”, “Two Gallants”, “The Boarding House”, “A Little Cloud”
3. “Counterparts”, “Clay”, “A Painful Case”
4. “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, “A Mother”, “Grace, “The Dead”

P.S. I was inclined to own the Norton Critical Edition of “Dubliners”, but opted for an edition that is hardbound, a little more compact and, for now, less intellectually overpowering. I just received my generally clean (though imprecisely described) Modern Library edition (1954 reprint) for the same price off of ABE Books:

Not to get too far afield, but I like the economy of older Modern Library editions in general. In the case of “Dubliners” there are several printings. The first is a bit hard to find–indeed, I couldn’t find a copy that was intact, in good condition, not price-clipped, that was worth buying. The dust jacket on these early printings is more elegant than the 1954 printing which I settled for. There’s apparently an intermediate Modern Library edition printing bound in green (brown?) leatherette, but I couldn’t find an acceptable copy of that, either.