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Subject: Wirrasthrue Author: Richard L. Gage [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: Sat, Jun 12 2004, 3:49:11 GMT Dear Mr. O'Neill, No book--and by this my seventieth summer, I've read heaps--has ever moved me as deeply as At Swim, Two Boys. If I had had it when I was a teenager, I should have realized early that I too was an angel among the Sodomites and not, as the accepted ignorance brayed, the reverse. I found Lot's house only after moving here to Japan, so many years ago that by now I have, like a Victorian tin box, been japanned. You mentioned feeling lonely after completing the novel. In David Copperfield, Dickens says something similar, indicating that he was sorry to part even with the ambiguous Steerforth, whom Gordie knew about (though probably not about his amgiguity). Unlike authors, we readers never have to say good-bye to characters we have come to love. We need only to crack the cover of the book, and we're back among them. Now to the topic. One way or another, I have ferreted out the meanings of most of the Erin-isms that were unknown to me. But wirrasthrue eludes me yet. From the Internet, I learn that Stephan Daedalus called a picture of Nicholas II a "wirrasthrue jaysus." From this and from what Doyler says to the boots, I suppose it means a mess. Please advise. Oh, que je can be garrulous! I hope all goes well in Galway. Gratefully and admiringly, Dick Gage [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

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[> Subject: Re: Wirrasthrue Author: Jamie O'Neill [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: Sat, Jun 12 2004, 6:34:05 GMT Thank you, Dick Gage, I was very pleased myself that my writing mind hit upon that turn-around of angels and Sodomites. I tried it very many different ways. For a time, in the book, there were going to be many of such "turned-around" parables, drawn from the Christian scriptures -- rather like the very late parables of Oscar Wilde. After a long time, I realized they belonged (the most of them) to another book entirely. (There were also going to be turns-around of Socratic (Platonic) parables. The ten years was spent, mostly, cutting things out -- horrible fate.) But it has long seemed to me that the Sodomites in the bible story behaved almost exactly like a gay-hunting gang. I suppose I should say "homophobic" -- but I dislike that word, and the way it has come to be used. I distrust words which seek to explain, rather than to describe. And etymologically, the word is a nonsense, meaning merely fear of the same. Waffle, waffle. And now to Wirrasthrue. Well, it comes from the (Gaelic) Irish "a Mhuire is trua" (mh in Gaeilge being pronounced w). It translates as : O Mary it is a pity / O Mary it is a sorrow. As an adjective in Irish English (what they now rather grandly call Hiberno-English) it carries the connotation of "Sorrowful" or "to-be-pitied". Hence the "wirrasthrue Jaysus" of Joyce, to which you refer. Amn't I just a font of knowledge? Not really, but I like words. Or rather, I like the notion that words have meanings and histories of usage, a kind of archaeology. Your seventieth summer? -- that's very special for someone younger than you, but still in his last year's winter. My love, Jamie.

[> [> Subject: Re: Wirrasthrue Author: Richard Gage [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: Mon, Jun 14 2004, 8:56:17 GMT Thank you, Jamie O'Neill, for replying with such alacrity. Whatever sent Yahweh into tantrums over the Sodomites, it assuredly had nothing to do with sex. I believe the prevailing opinion is that it was xenophobia, which is what queer-bashing really is. (Ironic that xenos means both stranger and guest.) No doubt it was a horrible task to cull out things you originally intended including and later found innapropriate. But your having faced that fate contributes to the splendor of the book. What Oscar Wilde fables have you in mind? I remember some fairy stories: the one about the nightingale and the statue of the prince with sapphire eyes. But they probably are not what you are thinking about. On this site--before its face-lifting--I discovered that you contemplated including a passage from Fanny Hill. Perhaps you will be amused to learn--if you have not already--that in an old French-language edition of the novel,in the classical-scholarly tradition, the passage in question was printed as a footnote and left in the heathen original. What you wrote is not waffles. And even if it were, I'm fond of waffles. Thank you for defining wirrasthrue. But how can mh be pronounced w? In my total ignorance of Hiberno-English I can only wonder what the poor uninitiated is to make even of Dun Laoghaire. Fortunately hearing you speak the word on a taped interview cleared that one up, but only that one. In a circuitous fashion, I am asking whether all those gutterals and h's reflect sounds actually produced by speakers of Irish Gaelic. Or are they just more Wriothesley? I observe that Dublin has a newpaper in Gaelic and that The Scotsman puts out its Gaelic version. Do large numbers of people use these languages? If so, is it for patriotic reasons? I wonder what GBS's thoughts on the subject were. >Like you, O font of welcome knowledge, I like words too. As a translator, I have spent many years rooting around in dictonaries of one sort or another. The simple euphonics of a nadder to an adder or why we have eggs and not eyen or that the Dutch of New Amsterdan gave Americans cookies while the Brits eat biscuits. All these things are amusing. I know too that words can be as obstreperous and treacherous as camels. But, when they are right ("Jim's smile had been practicing all day." and "The shiny asphalt, the mop of trees, the chimney teeth with the chip in the middle...."), they make magic far better than Harry Potter. I know it won't flood you with spring sunshine, but it might have a vernalizing effect to know that the many people whose lives your work influences and changes all love you for that. One among them, Dick> >