"
Shaun the Post" was
James Joyce's
working title for Book III of his final four-part
masterpiece,
Finnegans Wake, known as
Work in Progress during the eighteen torturous years it took to compose.
Shaun is the second of the two
embodiments of the young male principle in this "
ideal book for the ideal insomniac." He represents
material success,
pragmatism, and the dogged and unimaginative
middle class, everything that his twin brother
Shem, a failed writer and
ne'er-do-well does not.
Shem is Joyce's
alter-ego, a Bohemian character who, among other things, creates
ink from his own
excrement).
Though easy distinctions can be drawn between the
brothers upon first meeting, after some consideration and a good night's
sleep it becomes apparent to the careful reader that
Shem and Shaun are two sides of the same coin--the Young Man, a fully-realized
archetype in a dreamtime universe created by a genius who wanted to be God and starring a character suggestively named
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials will forever remind us that "
Here Comes Everybody."
Shades of Joyce:
a nice cool glass of Joyce
Anna Livia Plurabelle
Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell
Finnegans Wake
Finn MacCool
Garry Owen
HCE
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker
Issy the Teenage Rainbow
June 16, 2001
Lucia Joyce
Mina Purefoy
Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress
riverrun
Shaun
Shem the Penman
Ulysses is not pornography
Volta Cinema