colour, warp-woof, n-----

[Eric Rosenbloom]

James Joyce of course dealt with these issues, notably in the meeting of
Saint Patrick and Archdruid Berkeley, who communicate here in pidgin
(pages 610-612 of Finnegans Wake). Berkeley begins:

"... all too many much illusiones through photoprismic
velamina of hueful panepiphanal world spectacurum of Lord Joss, the of
which zoantholitic furniture, from mineral through vegetal to animal,
not appear to full up together fallen man than under but one
photoreflection of the several iridals gradationes of solar light, that
one which that part of it (furnit of heupanepi world) had shown itself
(part of fur of huepanwor) unable to absorbere, whereas for numpa one
puraduxed seer in seventh degree of wisdom of Entis-Onton he savvy
inside true inwardness of reality, the Ding hvad in idself id est, all
objects (of panepiwor) allside showed themselves in trues coloribus
resplendent with sextuple gloria of light actually retained, untisintus,
inside them (obs of epiwo)."

As Berkeley gets het up trying to explain his theories to Patrick's
oversimplification, he sees green in everything, and calls Patrick "you
anxioust melancholic", "niggerblonker", and "sowlofabishospastored".
Patrick brushes him off, saying:

"... tripeness to call thing and to call if say is good while, you pore
shiroskuro blackinwhitepaddynger, by thiswis aposterioprismically
apatstrophied and paralogically periparolysed, celestial from
principalest of Iro's Irismans ruinboon pot before, (for beingtime
monkblinkers timeblinged completamentarily murkblankered in their
neutrolysis between the possible viriditude of the sager and the
probable eruberuption of the saint), as My tappropinquish to Me
wipenmeselps gnosegates a handcaughtscheaf of synthetic shammyrag to
hims hers, seemingsuch four three two agreement cause heart to be might,
saving to Balenoarch (he kneeleths), to Great Balenoarch (he kneeleths
down) to Greatest Great Balenoarch (he kneeleths down quite somely), the
sound sense sympol in a weedwayedwold of the firethere the sun in his
halo cast. Onmen."

So there ya go! The resolution of black and white in Ireland's god-given
green, in L. Frank Baum's Emerald City, that shining Raketenstadt on the
hill! Put that in your rainbow and wipe!

__
Eric R

P.S. Karl Reisman on the Finnegans Wake lists, particularly when the
page-a-week group was in chapter 7 of that book, has been sharing his
well informed studies of Joyce's use of "black" culture, especially in
the West Indies, as part of the colonialism question that shapes
Finnegans Wake (its warp and woof, Shem and Shaun, native son and
invader gone native). Of course, the black residents of the West Indies
are not native, and many of the slaves were Irish . . .  Oh it will
drive ye mad it will.

The problem in life is that we take the symbolic values of black and
white, night and day, hidden and revealed, dirty and clean, and apply
them to people. This is not new: lighter skin is victorious in the Hindu
Mahabharata and the subsequent caste system; it's in the Song of Solomon
("she is black but comely"), the European celebration of Nordic
blondeness, the assignment of all that is base (and enticing) to the
sunburnt Mediterranean, the dark "oriental" Jew and his Saracen brother
corrupting the European Christian, the treatment of the "dark" continent
by the imperial hordes (Muslim as well as Christian). It is against this
history that the use of color labels is so loaded.

P.P.S. The page-of-Finnegans-Wake-a-week list did not start to be
archived until a few months after the above-mentioned chapter was
discussed. And it's still not searchable.



**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.mimesweeper.com
**********************************************************************