From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer
He strides, booted with anger, along the spurs of Monte Rossini, accompanied solely by Fidelion, his mastiff's voice. They quarrel consonantly about the vocality of the wind, calling each and its other clamant names.
Just out of kerryosity howlike is a Sullivan? It has the fortefaccia of a Markus Brutas, the wingthud of a spreadeagle, the body uniformed of a metropoliceman with the brass feet of a collared grand. It cresces up in Aquilone but diminuends austrowards. It was last seen and heard of by some macgilliccuddies above a lonely valley of their reeks, duskening the greylight as it flew, its cry echechohoing among the anfractuosities: pour la demière fois! The blackbulled ones, stampeding, drew in their horns, all appailed and much upset, which explaints the guttermilk on their overcoats.
A pugilant gang theirs, per Bantry! Don Philip, Jay Hell, Big O’Barry of the Bornstorms, Arthur, siruraganist who loosed that chor. Damnen. And tramp, tramp, tramp. And T. Deum sullivamus.
Faust of all, of curse, damnation. But given Parigot’s Trocadéro for his drawingroom with Ballaclavier in charge at the pianone the voice becomes suburban, sweethearted and subdued. The heat today was really too much of a hot thing and even Impressario is glad to walk his garden in the cool of the evening, fanning his furnaceface with his sweltertails. Merci, doux crépuscule!
Who is this that advances in maresblood caftan, like Hiesous in Finisterre, his eyeholes phyllistained, his jewbones of a crossbacked? A littie child shall lead him. Why, it’s Strongman Simpson, Timothy Nathan, now of Simpson’s on the Grill! Say, Tim Nat, bald winepresser, hast not one air left? But yeth he hath. Regard! Auscult! He upbraces for supremacy to the potence of Mosthigh and calls upon his baiters and their templum: You daggones, be flat!
What was in that long long note he just delivered? For the laib of me I cannot tell. More twopenny tosh and luxus languor about I singabob you? No such thing, O son of an envelope. Dr to J.S. Just a pennyplain loafletter from Braun and Brotmann and it will take no rebutter. You may bark Mrs Liebfraumich as long as you love but you must not burk the baker. Pay us disday our daily bread. And oblige.
On his native heath. Speech! Speech! cry the godlets. We are in land of Dan. But their words of Muskerry are harsh after that song of Othello. Orateur ne peut, charlatan ne daigne, Sullivan est.
11.59 p.m. Durch diese hohle Gasse muss er kommen .Guillaume's shot telled, sure enough. But will that labour member for Melckthal be able to bring off his coo for the odd and twentieth supererogatory time? Wartemal! That stagesquall has passed over like water off a Helvetian’s back. And there they are, yodelling yokels, none the worse for their ducking and gewittermassen as free as you fancy to quit their homeseek heimat and leave the ritzprinz of their chyberschwitzerhoofs all over both worlds, cisalpic and transatlantine. And how confederate of gay old Gioacchino to have composed this finale so that Kamerad Wagner might be saved the annoyance of finding flauts for his Feuerzauber! Pass auf! Only four bars more! He draws the breathbow: that arrownote’s coming. Aim well, Arnold, and mind puur blind Jemmy in the stalls! But, great Scott, whas is thas for a larm! Half a ton of brass in the band, ten thousand throats from Thalwyl: Libertay, libertay lauded over the land. (Tay!) And pap goes the Calville!
Saving is believing but can thus be? Is this our model vicar of Saint Wartburgh’s, the reverend Mr Townhouser, Mus. Bac., discovered flagrant in a montagne de passe? She is obvious and is on her threelegged sofa in a half yard of casheselks, Madame de la Pierreuse. How duetonically she hands him his harp that once, bitting him, whom caught is willing: do blease to, fickar! She’s as only roman as any puttana madonna but the trouble is that the reverend T is reformed. She, simplicissima, wants her little present from the reverend since she was wirk worklike never so nice with him. But he harps along about Salve Regina Terrace and Liza, mine Liza, and sweet Marie. Till she cries: bilk! And he calls: blak! O.u.t. spells out!
Since we are bound for a change of supper, was that really in faith the reverend Townhouser for he seemed so verdamnably like? Ecco trovato! Father Lucullus Ballytheacker, the parish priest of Tarbert. He was a songful soul at the keyboard and could achieve his Château Kirwan with cigar thuriferant, without ministrance from platform or pulpit, chase or church. Nor used he to deny his Mary neither. Nullo modo. Up to maughty London came a muftimummed P.P. Censored.
Have you got your knife handy? asks the bellman Saint Andy. Here he is and brandnew, answers Bartholomew. Get ready, get ready, scream the bells of Our Lady. And make sure they’re quite killed, adds the gentle Clotilde. Your attention, sirs, please, bawls big Brother Supplice. Pour la foi! Pour la foi! booms the great Auxerrois.
Grand spectacular exposition of gorge cutting, mortarfiring and general martyrification, bigleighted up with erst classed instrumental music. Pardie! There’s more sang in that Sceine than mayer’s beer at the Guildhall. Is he a beleaper in Irisk-luck? Can he swhipstake his valentine off to Dublin and weave her a frock of true blue poplin to be neat for the time Hugenut Cromwell comes over, gentlest lovejesus as ever slit weasand? Their cause is well sainted and they are centain to won. Still I’ll pointe half my crown on Raoul de Nangis, doublet mauve and cuffs of buff. Attagirl! Ah ah ah ah ah ah viens! Piffpaff, but he’s done it, the bully mastiff again. And woops with him through the window tallyhoed by those friers pecheurs who are self-barked. Dominie's canes Can you beat that, you papish yelpers? To howl with the pups!
Enrico, Giacomo and Giovanni, three dulcetest of our songsters, in liontamers overcoats, holy communion ties and cliqueclaquehats, are met them at a gaslamp. It is kaputt and throws no light at all on the trio’s tussletusculums. Rico is for carousel and Giaco for luring volupy but Nino, the sweetly dulcetest, tuningfork among tenors, for the best of all; after hunger and sex comes dear old somnium, brought on by prayer. Their lays, blent of feastings, June roses and ether, link languidly in the unlit air. Arrives a type in readymade, dicky and bowler hat, manufactured by Common Sense and Co. Ltd., carrying a bag of tools. Preludingly he conspews a portugaese into the gutter, recitativing: now then, gents, by your leave! And, to his job. Who is this hardworking guy? No one but Geoge, Geoge who shifts the garbage can, Geoge who stokes in the engine room, Geoge who has something to say to the gas (tes gueules!) and mills the wheel go right go round and makes the world grow lighter. Lux! The aforesung Henry. James and John stand mouthshut. Wot did I say? Hats off, primi assoluti! Send him canorious, long to lung over us, high topseasoarious! Guard safe our Goege!
[page images]
at least one earlier draft called "Sullivan" exists somewhere
FNAH: details on O'Sullivan are from "Asile Hereditaire: The Life and Career of John O'Sullivan" by Francois Nouvion (FN) [paywalled ebook]
many notes are via Kevin Barry in the Oxford OCPW
some via Ellmann's CW?
From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer
#bw00
earlier draft was titled "Sullivan"
the consensus is that "Banned Singer" is Joyce's exaggeration: JOS may have been under-praised by some critics in some countries
He strides, booted with anger, along the spurs of Monte Rossini, accompanied solely by Fidelion, his mastiff's voice.
#bw01
u420: "A burly rough pursues with booted strides."
angry because 'banned'?
Joyce is probably intending to depict JOS as heroic offstage as well as on, and so outstanding in heroic roles
spurs = smaller mountain offshoots from bigger [wkt]
Gioachino Rossini's William Tell was JOS's best role
Rossini = mountain (compared to most composers)
boots, spurs, soles
Beethoven wrote an opera "Fidelio" but FNAH doesn't cite it
Fido = faithful (popular dog name)
(was this a real dog? could it mean Joyce himself?)
mastiff = tame watchdog [wkt]
His Master's Voice = brand of gramophone [wiki] (lame-sounding pun)
is there an echo of Ulysses ep3? SD's fear of dogs?
accompanied only by his own voice?
They quarrel consonantly about the vocality of the wind, calling each and its other clamant names.
how quarrel?
constantly
consonants (vs vowels?)
velocity of the wind?
wind = singers' primary challenge
each other
clamant = yelling, proclaiming [wkt]
what names?
Just out of kerryosity howlike is a Sullivan?
#bw02
ie, physical description
curiosity
cowry shells???
JOS was born in Cork, but lived in Kerry until his father died when he was six, moved back to Cork and then to Rouen, France to live with relatives (returning briefly to Ireland in 1909 and 1930)
howl?
FNAH says Joyce encouraged JOS to change his stage name to Sullivan, with poor results (but he'd been listed as Sullivan often, from the earliest days of his career)
It has the fortefaccia of a Markus Brutas, the wingthud of a spreadeagle, the body uniformed of a metropoliceman with the brass feet of a collared grand.
why "It"?
cf fw015: "It is slaking nuncheon out of some thing's brain pan."
faccia = face [wkt]
forehead
fort = strong
Marcus Brutus
 |
| JOS and Marcus Brutus? |
thud of Icarus falling
u024: "A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of excess."
(wasn't this sort of insulting?)
tall
Ellmann: "Sullivan had, as Joyce noted, the body of a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and looked like someone who had 'escaped from a boarding school at the age of fortynine" (JOS was 49 in 1926)
"spreadeagle... body... metropoliceman... collared" suggests he's been arrested?
Collard grand piano
 |
| brass caster |
It cresces up in Aquilone but diminuends austrowards.
It = JOS = body? = nose? = wind?
increases
crescents
crescendos
Italian aquilone: North wind
aquiline nose? Italian naso aquilino: aquiline nose
It was last seen and heard of by some macgilliccuddies above a lonely valley of their reeks, duskening the greylight as it flew, its cry echechohoing among the anfractuosities: pour la dernière fois!
Macgillycuddy's Reeks [wiki] in Kerry
cf fw92 "Gentia Gemma of the Makegiddyculling Reeks"
why "icc"?
reek = hill or stink [wkt]
darkening
twilight
ech-echo-ho-ing
anfractuosities = winding crevices [wkt]
JOS leaving Ireland (unappreciated, like Joyce)?
Arnold in Act 4 of Wm Tell: 'I come to see you for the last time!' [etext]
The blackbulled ones, stampeding, drew in their horns, all appailed and much upset, which explaints the guttermilk on their overcoats.
papal bull = edict [wkt]
the Irish powers-that-be?
stamping
impeding
eagle stampedes cattle?
stampede → flinch → upset → spill
upset to lose gifted artist???
complaints
gutter
gutter press?
buttermilk
u306: "That explains the milk in the cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest."
fw045: "All your butter is in your horns. His butter is in his horns. Butter his horns!"
A pugilant gang theirs, per Bantry!
#bw03
ie, famous Sullivans
and/or bulls?
pugil = boxer (Latin) [wkt]
per = according to?
Bantry = town in Cork [wiki]
u286: "How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber?"
Bantry gang (incl Tim Healy and TD Sullivan) opposed Parnell
Don Philip, Jay Hell, Big O’Barry of the Bornstorms, Arthur, siruraganist who loosed that chor.
u285: "Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare" 17thC historian/soldier
u487: "Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers"
Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare, 16thC prince [wiki]
J.L. (boxer John L Sullivan wiki)
Barry Sullivan, 19thC actor? [wiki]
not big: '5ft 9in... wiry, slight figure'
barnstorming theater group?
sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert& [wiki] organist
agonist
Lost Chord; Te Deum
choir
chore
anchor
Damnen. And tramp, tramp, tramp. And T. Deum sullivamus.
damned
Damen = ladies (German) [wkt]
a character in HMS Pinafore can't say 'damn'?
fw093 "I am the Sullivan that trumpeting tramp"
T.D. Sullivan wrote song God Save Ireland [air: Tramp, Tramp, Tramp]
Faust of all, of curse, damnation.
#bw04 (ambiguously lacking asterisk-separator, probably just publisher avoiding asterisks at top of column)
JOS sang Faust in Berlioz's 'Damnation of Faust' [wiki]
But given Parigot’s Trocadéro for his drawingroom with Ballaclavier in charge at the pianone the voice becomes suburban, sweethearted and subdued.
parigot = Parisian [wkt]
JOS sang at Trocadero venues [wiki]
Balaclava = Crimean war site; ski mask [wiki]
klavier = piano (German)
Il Pianone = restaurant in Bergamo, Italy [website]
The heat today was really too much of a hot thing and even Impressario is glad to walk his garden in the cool of the evening, fanning his furnaceface with his sweltertails.
Impessario = Mephistopheles
cf fw33: "a wardrobe panelled tuxedo completely thrown back from a shirt well entitled a swallowall"
Merci, doux crépuscule!
Faust in part 3 sings 'Merci, doux crépuscule!' [youtube-7min]
Who is this that advances in maresblood caftan, like Hiesous in Finisterre, his eyeholes phyllistained, his jewbones of a crossbacked?
#bw05
oxblood
Finisterre: fweet-4
fw060: "It is ever too late to whissle when Phyllis floods her stable."
A littie child shall lead him. Why, it’s Strongman Simpson, Timothy Nathan, now of Simpson’s on the Grill!
fw043 "four broke gents out of Simpson's on the Rocks" fweet: Simpson's-in-the-Strand: London restaurant [wiki]
JOS sang Samson in Camille Saint-Saëns "Samson et Dalila"
Say, Tim Nat, bald winepresser, hast not one air left? But yeth he hath. Regard! Auscult!
bald = not one hair
cf u099: "By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?"
auscultation = listening with stethoscope [wkt]
He upbraces for supremacy to the potence of Mosthigh and calls upon his baiters and their templum: You daggones, be flat!
doggone
u406: "Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers"
B-flat = last note sung by Samson
What was in that long long note he just delivered? For the laib of me I cannot tell.
#bw06
Laib = loaf (German)
Leib = body (German)
life
More twopenny tosh and luxus languor about I singabob you?
fw094 "And do you remember, Singabob, the badfather" (fweet suggests Sinbad)
thingamabob [1866]
No such thing, O son of an envelope. Dr to J.S.
envelope = condom???
JOS's father John J O'Sullivan was a physician
Just a pennyplain loafletter from Braun and Brotmann and it will take no rebutter.
penny plain = cheap print [mw]
pennyloafer
penny bun [wkt]
loveletter
rebuttal
You may bark Mrs Liebfraumich as long as you love but you must not burk the baker.
Liebfraumilch = German wine [wiki]
bread and wine
bilk
Pay us disday our daily bread. And oblige.
this day
disdain
On his native heath. Speech! Speech! cry the godlets. We are in land of Dan.
#bw07
godless
gods (cheap seats in theater)
Daniel O'Connell?
Dan Dawson's speech in U ep7
But their words of Muskerry are harsh after that song of Othello.
words of mockery
Muskerry = region of Cork [wiki]
JOS sang Verdi's Otello
Orateur ne peut, charlatan ne daigne, Sullivan est.
daigner = condescend (French) [wkt]
11.59 p.m. Durch diese hohle Gasse muss er kommen Guillaume's shot telled, sure enough.
#bw08
from Schiller's play of Wm Tell, Act 4 scene 3 [ebook]
GgTranslate: He has to come through this hollow alley
durch = by means of (German) [wkt]
hohle = hollow (German) [wkt]
Gasse = alley (German) [wkt]
musse = must (German) [wkt]
kommen = arrive (German) [wkt]
JOS performed William Tell
But will that labour member for Melckthal be able to bring off his coo for the odd and twentieth supererogatory time?
Melchtal, Switzerland [hotels]
coup
Wartemal! That stagesquall has passed over like water off a Helvetian’s back.
Warte mal = hang on (German)
like water off a duck's back
Helvetian plover?
And there they are, yodelling yokels, none the worse for their ducking and gewittermassen as free as you fancy to quit their homeseek heimat and leave the ritzprinz of their chyberschwitzerhoofs all over both worlds, cisalpic and transatlantine.
gewitter = lightning (German) [wkt]
massen = measure? [wkt]
Heimat = homeland (German) [wkt]
ritz = scratch (German) [wkt]
Prinz = prince (German) [wkt]
footprints
Khyber Pass [wiki]
schwitzen = sweating (German) [wkt]
cisalpine/transalpine
And how confederate of gay old Gioacchino to have composed this finale so that Kamerad Wagner might be saved the annoyance of finding flauts for his Feuerzauber!
Gioachino Rossini [wiki]
Die Zauberflöte = Mozart's Magic Flute (German) [wiki]
Feuerzauber = magic fire
Pass auf! Only four bars more! He draws the breathbow: that arrownote’s coming.
Aim well, Arnold, and mind puur blind Jemmy in the stalls!
JOS played Arnold in William Tell
purblind = partly blind [wkt]
poor old fweet-29 incl puir
But, great Scott, whas is thas for a larm!
German Lärm = noise
French larme = tear
Half a ton of brass in the band, ten thousand throats from Thalwyl: Libertay, libertay lauded over the land. (Tay!) And pap goes the Calville!
Thalwyl = Swiss village
tea
Calville = lumpy apple variety? [wiki]
Saving is believing but can thus be?
#bw09
Is this our model vicar of Saint Wartburgh’s, the reverend Mr Townhouser, Mus. Bac., discovered flagrant in a montagne de passe?
Wartburg castle hosts opera? [wiki]
She is obvious and is on her threelegged sofa in a half yard of casheselks, Madame de la Pierreuse.
silks
la Pierreuse = Swiss nature reserve [wiki]
How duetonically she hands him his harp that once, bitting him, whom caught is willing: do blease to, fickar!
She’s as only roman as any puttana madonna but the trouble is that the reverend T is reformed.
u577: "Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini!"
She, simplicissima, wants her little present from the reverend since she was wirk worklike never so nice with him.
But he harps along about Salve Regina Terrace and Liza, mine Liza, and sweet Marie.
Liza My Liza [1929?]
Till she cries: bilk! And he calls: blak! O.u.t. spells out!
or "O u.t."
Since we are bound for a change of supper, was that really in faith the reverend Townhouser for he seemed so verdamnably like?
#bw10
Ecco trovato! Father Lucullus Ballytheacker, the parish priest of Tarbert.
Theaker Wilder = 18thC TCD Greek professor [wiki]
He was a songful soul at the keyboard and could achieve his Château Kirwan with cigar thuriferant, without ministrance from platform or pulpit, chase or church.
u157: "Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt, Kerwan's mushroom houses, built of breeze."
Nor used he to deny his Mary neither. Nullo modo. Up to maughty London came a muftimummed P.P. Censored.
parish priest
Have you got your knife handy? asks the bellman Saint Andy.
#bw11
Les Huguenots concerns preparations for massacre [wiki]
Joyce substitutes Paris churches for London
Here he is and brandnew, answers Bartholomew.
Get ready, get ready, scream the bells of Our Lady.
And make sure they’re quite killed, adds the gentle Clotilde.
quotation attributed to Charles IX: "Well then, so be it! Kill them! But kill them all! Don't leave a single one alive to reproach me!"
Your attention, sirs, please, bawls big Brother Supplice.
Pour la foi! Pour la foi! booms the great Auxerrois.
Pour la foi = for the (Catholic) faith (motive of massacre)
French province, and its wine [wiki]
Grand spectacular exposition of gorge cutting, mortarfiring and general martyrification, bigleighted up with erst classed instrumental music.
#bw12
Pardie! There’s more sang in that Sceine than mayer’s beer at the Guildhall Is he a beleaper in Irisk-luck?
Huguenots Act 4? [quote]
Can he swhipstake his valentine off to Dublin and weave her a frock of true blue poplin to be neat for the time Hugenut Cromwell comes over, gentlest lovejesus as ever slit weasand?
Irish sweepstake [wiki]
JOS frequently performed in Les Huguenots [wiki]
u160: "He passed, dallying the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that here. La causa è santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Tara. Must be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom."
Their cause is well sainted and they are centain to won.
Still I’ll pointe half my crown on Raoul de Nangis, doublet mauve and cuffs of buff.
Raoul de Nangis = tenor character in Les Huguenots [wiki]
Attagirl! Ah ah ah ah ah ah viens! Piffpaff, but he’s done it, the bully mastiff again.
And woops with him through the window tallyhoed by those friers pecheurs who are self-barked.
Dominie's canes Can you beat that, you papish yelpers? To howl with the pups!
Enrico, Giacomo and Giovanni, three dulcetest of our songsters, in liontamers overcoats, holy communion ties and cliqueclaquehats, are met them at a gaslamp.
#bw13
greatest Italian tenors of the time: (never photographed together?)
Enrico Caruso [wiki]
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi [wiki] falsely called JOS a drunk, ignored challenge to singing-duel
Giovanni Martinelli [wiki]
fw046 "while admiring the monkeys" Caruso was accused in 1906 of pinching a woman's bottom at the monkey house of the New York City Central Park Zoo and was fined ten dollars in a well-publicised trial
clique = conspiracy against JOS?
claque = top hat, opera hat
It is kaputt and throws no light at all on the trio’s tussletusculums.
tussles
tusks
osculum = kiss (Latin) [wkt]
Rico is for carousel and Giaco for luring volupy but Nino, the sweetly dulcetest, tuningfork among tenors, for the best of all; after hunger and sex comes dear old somnium, brought on by prayer.
Rico... carousel = Enrico Caruso
Giaco... luring volupy = Giacomo Lauri-Volpi [wiki]
Nino ?= Nino Martini [wiki] "possessed a warm lyric tenor voice"
somnium = sleep
Their lays, blent of feastings, June roses and ether, link languidly in the unlit air.
'If you were born in June, your birth flower is rose'
Arrives a type in readymade, dicky and bowler hat, manufactured by Common Sense and Co. Ltd., carrying a bag of tools.
Shaun
Preludingly he conspews a portugaese into the gutter, recitativing. now then, gents, by your leave! And, to his job. Who is this hardworking guy?
Portuguese oyster [def] = phlegm
u317: "The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner."
guttermilk... gutter
cf #bw02 "Just out of kerryosity howlike is a Sullivan?"
No one but Geoge, Geoge who shifts the garbage can, Geoge who stokes in the engine room, Geoge who has something to say to the gas (tes gueules!) and mills the wheel go right go round and makes the world grow lighter Lux!
pronounced 'joage'? lazy accent?
Giorgio Joyce was 27yo, took some voice lessons from JOS
George V was king in 1932 [wiki]
'tes gueules' = shut your gobs? yell? [wkt]
fw279: "Sago sound, rite go round,"
The aforesung Henry. James and John stand mouthshut. Wot did I say? Hats off, primi assoluti!
Send him canorious, long to lung over us, high topseasoarious! Guard safe our Goege!
u070: "halfseasover" = drunk
