Saturday 24 December 2022

James Joyce's Christmas Eve, 1904

Today is Christmas Eve, which is also the title of a little known story that James Joyce wrote in late October-November 1904, intending to include it in his collection Dubliners. This was his third short story, following 'The Sisters' and 'Eveline', both published in the Irish Homestead in 1904.

Though 'Christmas Eve' was discarded by Joyce, the manuscript was kept by his brother Stanislaus.  This facsimile was published by the textual scholar Alfred Walton Litz, in Dubliners: A Facsimile of Drafts & Manuscripts,  Garland Press, 1978. I made this photocopy of it more than forty years ago. 

This is how Alfred Walton Litz describes the story in his introduction:

'In late October 1904 he began 'Christmas Eve.' What he wrote of it has been preserved in fragmentary fair copy manuscript, but he left the story in an unfinished state and recast it as, or replaced it by, 'Hallow Eve'.'  

This dating makes the story the first thing that James Joyce wrote after leaving Dublin with Nora Barnacle. He must have begun this in Trieste, while unemployed and living out of a suitcase, before moving to Pola at the end of the month.  In his mind, he was still thinking of Dublin.






Joyce's biographers don't talk about this story. John McCourt doesn't mention 'Christmas Eve' in The Years of Bloom, but says this of Joyce's first days in Trieste:

'Despite the appalling uncertainty of these days, Joyce continued to write, with a stoic determination which would rarely leave him....He was starting his life on the continent with Nora as he intended to continue it.  His writing, no matter what the turmoil around him, would always come first.'

John McCourt, The Years of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920, Liliput Press, Dublin, 2000, p9-10.

A little of that turmoil gets into the manuscript where, at the very top, you can see the paper has been used to add up sums of money.

John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley give some background to the story:

'Clay...began life as 'Christmas Eve', in which the main characters were to include Mr Callanan, based on Joyce's uncle, William Murray, and his daughter – who bore the name Katsey both in real life and in the unfinished story. However Joyce recast the narrative, telling the tale from Maria's point of view, and using John Murray, William's brother, as the basis for the main character. This later version was originally called 'Hallow's Eve'.'

John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley, James Joyce's Dubliners: An Annotated Edition, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993.

In its style, 'Christmas Eve' fits Dubliners well, using what Hugh Kenner called the 'Uncle Charles Principle', in which the narrative idiom reflects the character's way of thinking and speaking. 

'...he had met many friends. These friends had been very friendly...'

But unlike in most other Dubliners stories, where the protagonists are usually thwarted or trapped, nothing disturbs Mr Callanan's complacency. He is only limited by his lack of imagination. 

'His mind was vacant. He had calculated all his expenses and discovered that all had been done well within the margin.'

Mr Callanan is a happily married man who drinks moderately (a daily pint in Swan's pub), whose seasonal shopping trip is a success (unlike Maria's in 'Clay') and who gets on well with his boss:

– He's not a bad sort after all if you know how to take him. But you mustn't rub him the wrong way.

That's the only part that Joyce reused when he wrote 'Clay':

'He told her all that went on in his office, repeating for her a smart answer which he had made to the manager. Maria did not understand why Joe laughed so much over the answer he had made but she said that the manager must have been a very overbearing person to deal with. Joe said he wasn't so bad when you knew how to take him, that he was a decent sort so long as you didn't rub him the wrong way.'

Joyce saw 'Christmas Eve' as an unsuccessful experiment, perhaps because of the lack of conflict in the story.  He went on to write 'Counterparts', in which we meet a very different solicitor's clerk, an unhappily married alcoholic, who hates his work and can't help rubbing his boss the wrong way. Perhaps 'Christmas Eve' was recast as 'Counterparts' as well as 'Clay'?

By a twist of fate, the manuscript of 'Christmas Eve' is divided between the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale (pages 1,2 and 4) and the Cornell Joyce Collection (page 3).  Thank you Alfred Walton Litz for reuniting the pages in print!

Wouldn't it make sense for Cornell to swap their lonely page for some other document in Yale's massive Joyce collection?

A JAMES JOYCE MISCELLANY

After posting this, I learned from joyceans ⱅ woke² on Twitter that 'Christmas Eve' was published in 1962, in A James Joyce Miscellany edited by Marvin Magalaner.   It was introduced by John J Slocum, who created the Joyce collection at Yale, and Herbert Cahoon, curator of the Morgan library. They say that Joyce tried to have the story published, and provide more information on its date:

'It is possible to date ''Christmas Eve" as having been written in Trieste and Pola during the eventful months of October and November, 1904. Joyce mentions it in letters to his brother, Stanislaus, dated 31 October and 19 November, 1904, which are now in the Cornell University Library. In the second letter Joyce states, "I have written about half of 'Xmas Eve'." Ellmann gives 19 January, 1905 as the date for the completion of the story; on this day Joyce mailed it to Stanislaus in Dublin. Upon the receipt of the story, Stanislaus tried but failed to place it in The Irish Homestead which had recently published three of the stories that were part of Dubliners. He may also have tried to place it with other periodicals. 
   At this writing, a complete manuscript of "Christmas Eve" is not known to have survived nor has any portion of a manuscript of "Clay." This incomplete fair copy of "Christmas Eve" (and there may have been more of this present narrative) was probably retained by Joyce and passed into the keeping of Stanislaus, as did many of Joyce's manuscripts and books, when the Joyce family moved from Trieste to Paris in 1920.'  


You can read  A James Joyce Miscellany online here, but I've transcribed the text of the story below:


CHRISTMAS EVE 

Mr Callanan felt homely. There was a good fire burning in the grate and he knew that it was cold outside. He had been about town all day shopping with Mrs Callanan and he had met many friends. These friends had been very friendly, exchanging the compliments of the season, joking with Mrs Callanan about her number of parcels, and pinching Katsey's cheek. Some said that Katsey was like her mother but others said she was like her father — only better- looking: she was a rather pretty child. The Callanans — that is, the father and mother and Katsey and an awkward brother named Charlie — had then gone into a cake-shop and taken four cups of coffee. After that the turkey had been bought and safely tucked under Mr Callanan's arm. As they were making for their crowded tram Mr Callanan's 'boss' passed and saluted. The salute was generously returned. 
     — That's the 'boss'. He saluted — did you see? — 
     — That man? — 
     — Ah, he's not a bad sort after all if you know how to take him. But you mustn't rub him the wrong way. — 
     There was wood in the fire. Every Christmas Mr Callanan got a present of a small load of wooden blocks from a friend of his in a timber-yard near Ringsend. Christmas would not have been Christmas without a wood-fire. Two of these blocks were laid crosswise on the top of the fire and were beginning to glow. The brave light of the fire lit up a small, well-kept room with bees-waxed borders arranged cleanly round a bright square carpet. The table in the middle of the room had a shaded lamp upon it. The shade set obliquely sprayed the light of the lamp upon one of the walls, revealing a gilt-framed picture of a curly-headed child in a nightdress playing with a collie. The picture was called ''Can't you talk?" 

A print of 'Can't you talk?' by George Augustus Holmes

      Mr Callanan felt homely but he had himself a more descriptive phrase for his condition: he felt mellow. He was a blunt figure as he sat in his arm-chair; short thick legs resting together like block pipes, short thick arms hardly crossing over his chest, and a heavy red face nestling upon all. His scanty hair was deciding for grey and he looked a man who had come near his comfortable winter as he blinked his blue eyes thoughtfully at the burning blocks. His mind was vacant. He had calculated all his expenses and discovered that all had been done well within the margin. This discovery had resulted in a mood of general charity and in particular desire for some fellow-spirit to share his happiness, some of his old cronies, one of the right sort. Someone might drop in: Hooper perhaps. Hooper and he were friends from long ago and both had been many years in the same profession. Hooper was a clerk in a solicitor's office in Eustace St and Mr Callanan was a clerk in a solicitor's office close by on Wellington Quay.* They used often meet at Swan's public-house where each went every day at lunch-time to get a fourpenny snack and a pint and when they met they compared notes astutely for they were legal rivals. But still they were friends and could forget the profession for one night. Mr Callanan felt he would like to hear Hooper's gruff voice call in at the door "Hello Tom! How's the body?" The kettle was put squatting on the fire to boil for punch and soon began to puff. Mr Callanan stood up to fill his pipe and while filling it he gave a few glances at Katsey who was diligently stoning some raisins on a plate. Many people thought she would turn out a nun but there could be no harm in having her taught the typewriter; time enough after the holidays. Mr Callanan began to toss the water from tumbler to tumbler in a manner that suggested technical difficulties and just at that moment Mrs Callanan came in from the hall. 
     — Tom! here's Mr Hooper! — 
     — Bring him in! Bring him in! I wouldn't doubt you, Paddy, when there's punch going 
     — I'm sure I'm in the way . . . busy night with you, Mrs Callanan . . . — 
     — Not at all, Mr Hooper. You're as welcome as the flowers in May. How is Mrs Hooper? 
     — Ah! we can't complain. Just a touch of the old trouble, you know . . . indigestion — 
     — Nasty thing it is! She is quite strong otherwise? — 
     — O, yes, tip-top — 
     — Well, sit down, my hearty and make yourself at home — 
     — I'll try to, Tom — 


Do you think this is 'unfinished'?  This ending feels like a satisfactory resolution to me.

What might have happened in the rest of the story?

*I looked up Wellington Quay in Thom's 1904 Dublin Directory, and found that lots of solicitors had their offices there, at number 13 and 21.


The picture 'Can't you talk?' was identified by Harald Beck in Joyce Online Notes (Thanks for this to Mary Lawton on Twitter, who also commented, 'The best part of this story is how Joyce describes Callanan in the armchair and nods to Harry Clifton’s "As Welcome as the Flowers in May” or one of its other titles “The Jolly Old Mill.”)

Monday 5 December 2022

L’Arcs en His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the Flur

How many meanings can you get out of these nine words from Finnegans Wake?

L’Arcs en His Ceiling Flee Chinx on the Flur 104.13

In July 1927, Joyce came up with this line which he added to the list of titles of 'Anna Livia's mamafesta', her letter defending her slandered husband HCE.

He was so pleased with this that, on 27 July 1927,  he sent an explanation of it to Harriet Shaw Weaver in a letter. Here he described seven different layers of meaning, perhaps for the seven colours of the rainbow (arc-en-ciel).

Selected Letters, 326

In his letter, Joyce gives the text as 'L'Arcs en' rather than the 'Arcs in' of the published version (below). The loss of the 'L' undermines three of Joyce's readings, losing the 'birds flying' in 3, the 'merriment above (larks)' in 4 and the 'birds (doves and ravens)'  in 7.  Yet it's not in Rose and O'Hanlon's restored text.


1) God's in his heaven and All's Right with the World

This is a line from Browning's verse drama, Pippa Passes, where the verse also includes a lark on the wing.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!


2) The Rainbow is in the sky (arc-en-ciel) the Chinese (Chinks) live tranquilly on the Chinese meadowplane (China alone almost of the old continent(s) has no record of a Deluge. Flur in this sense is German. It suggests also Flut (flood) and Fluss (river) and could even be used poetically for the expanse of a waterflood Flee = free)

This rainbow, 'the sky sign of soft advertisement' (4.12) is one of 122 in the book, usually linked to Noah and the flood (also in 'arc'). 


Joseph Koch, 'Noah's Offering', 1803


'And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.'

Genesis 9 12-16

I wonder where Joyce got the idea that the Chinese had no record of a deluge. The opposite is true. 

'The theme of flood control and myths of a great deluge constitute a fundamental and recurring topic in classical Chinese writing.' 

Anne Birrell, 'The Four Flood Myth Traditions of Classical China', T'uong Pau, 1997.

The earliest version of the line is a note 'Free Chinks on the Flure'. Then Joyce changed the 'free' to 'flee', creating the alliteration with 'flure' (which became ‘flur’) and also mimicking the supposed Chinese confusion pronouncing l and r. 

'Chinks' is a racist nickname for Chinese, going back to the 1880s.  

‘Flur’ also means hallway or passage in German! So that little word is packed with meanings.

3) The ceiling of his (HCE-siglum) house is in ruins for you can see the birds flying and the floor is full of cracks which you had better avoid.

This is a nice reading, which could also describe Noah's ark falling into ruins after it was stranded on Mount Ararat. So there’s an eighth interpretation! 

4) There is merriment above (larks) why should there not be high jinks below stairs?

'What larks!' (Great Expectations). From Francis Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

LARK. A boat.
LARK. A piece of merriment. People playing together jocosely.

I didn't know that a lark was a boat, though when I was young there were several excursion boats called the skylark. I wonder if Joyce knew that, since it fits with the ark theme. See the Word Detective for more about larks.

Skylark figurehead and name board in Brighton Fishing Museum


'below stairs' suggests the servants who in FW are called Kate and Joe.

5) The electric lamps of the gin palace are lit and the boss Roderick Rex is standing free drinks to all on the 'flure of the house'

Joyce expected Weaver to remember the very first Wake sketch he wrote, which features Roderick O'Conor, the last high king of Ireland as a Dublin publican, after closing time drinking the dregs and coming 'crash a crupper' - the first fall in Finnegans Wake. You can read it on pages 380-382 of FW.

Electric lamps are suggested by 'arcs', because of arc lamps, the first electric lighting system.


6) He is a bit gone in the upper storey, poor jink. Let him lie as he is (Shem, Ham and Japhet)

'gone in the upper storey' - one of many ways of describing crazy behaviour, like 'the rats in his garret, the bats in his belfry' (180.26).

'poor jink' - I can't find anything about this phrase online.

'let him lie as he is (Shem Ham and Japhet)' Here's another story about Noah, who made and drank the first wine, which led to him drunkenly passing out and exposing himself to his three sons. 


In the Wake, these three are another version of the three soldiers who witness HCE's sin in the park on page 34.  They are HCE's sons, Shem, Shaun and a composite third son, a fusion of the two.


Joyce identified Noah with Arthur Guinness and John Jameson on the opening page of the book, where we have another rainbow described as 'arclight':

'Rot a peek of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and Rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.' 3.13

'Noah planted the vine and was drunk
John James is the greatest Dublin distiller
Arthur Guinness " " " " brewer'

Joyce's gloss to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 15 November 1926

7) The birds (doves and ravens) (cf the jinnies is a cooin her hair and the jinnies is a ravin her hair) he saved escape from his waterhouse and leave the zooless patriark alone.

There are 43 uses of this dove/raven motif, which you can find listed in fweet. Would we find them in this line without Joyce's note?

This is another part of the Noah story in Genesis.


'the jinnies is a coin her hair...' is a quote from the Museyroom passage, on pages 8-10, where the jinnies are the two girls and also dove and raven. 

'Zooless patriark' is a great phrase. It's a shame he didn't use it in Finnegans Wake.  

We get a zookeeping Noah, with larks and the cooing of doves, in 'The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly', on page 47. But here HCE is one of the animals on show:

Begob he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
         (Chorus) Messrs. Billing and Coo.
          Noah's larks, good as noo. 47.3-6

Perhaps if Joyce hadn't been thinking of a seven layered rainbow he could have found even more meanings. How many more can you come up with?



This Wake line reminds me of Frank Budgen's story of the writing of 'Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.' in Ulysses:

I enquired about Ulysses. Was it progressing?
"I have been working hard on it all day," said Joyce.
"Does that mean that you have written a great deal?" I said.
"Two sentences," said Joyce....
"You have been seeking the mot juste?" I said.
"No," said Joyce. "I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence. There is an order in every way appropriate. I think I have it."


He could have spent even longer working on 'L'arcs en his ceiling...' where he was not just rearranging English words but inventing new ones.


MORE SUGGESTIONS


After I posted this on social media, several Wake readers sent in suggestions.

'Fleets of arcs/ships in his head flee whirlpools on the floor'


Diego Pacheco

'I am no Wake scholar but to me it has the rhythm of the nursery rhyme "Ride a Cock Horse" - Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes - (She shall have music wherever she goes).'

Frederick J Hayn

'Ling is a a word packed with many meanings with idem spelling variations. It is, of course, a Chinese surname name with several meanings. One possible connection with flee (or free) is that it seems to be used by Chinese people outside of China, the diaspora which entails sea journeys and vessels....
  If you follow the Chinese theme then the His becomes an other God(s).
Wiki has handy info on Chinese cosmogony and deities. “The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven (Tian
 天), which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order.”'

Paul Devine

'L'Arcs on the ceiling (with or without the "L") could indeed be electric arc lights (JJ's lamps) -- but due to their extreme brightness rather uncommon on ceilings, but used in cinema projectors, which JJ knew his way around. Flór is also an Irish word for flower (though only in imitation of the French -- Flór de lúis)'


Russell Potter

'Arcs remind me of the innards of a large ship or the ribbings of a large whale. Noah's Ark? Jonah and the Whale?'

Clint Carroll

'The phrase 'All aboard the skylark' has been around since the 19th century and 'Skylark' was, as you say, a popular name for small vessels that took holiday-makers for trips around the bay. We had one in Southend-on-Sea, and it was famously one of the small boast that took part in the Dunkirk operation.  But there's also the verb, meaning to muck about (as in 'No Skylarking on the Platform') - it's something schoolboys used to do. See attached (found in Armley Museum, Leeds)'


David Collard




‘Arc of the covenant = HCE siglum. *drops mic*’

Jonathan McCreedy

Jonathan's idea reminded me of the theory that the Ark of the Covenant was an electric capacitor, which could have powered the arc lights!

'our arc of the covenant' 507.33