Finnegans Wake Walk
Dec. 15th, 2024 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squirmeliaMethod
I decided to use Finnegans Wake by James Joyce to lead me on a walk. I extracted all the lines in Finnegans Wake that had “left” or “right” in them to use as a basis for the walk. If in the text the next line had “left” I would take the next left and if “right”, I'd take the next right.
There were a few places I considered starting the walk:
1. When you search for London in Finnegans Wake you get:
“Nor that the turtling of a London's alderman is ladled out by the waggerful to the regionals of pigmyland.”
So I looked for places in London containing “alderman” and found “Alderman Stairs” near St Katharine Docks.
2. The location of the former Finnegan's Wake pub in Ealing, which is now called The Grove.
3. In the end I found there was a street called “James Joyce Walk” in Herne Hill and that seemed perfect, except there were a lot of cul-de-sacs. I concluded if there was a cul-de-sac, I'd just walk to the end and turn around and continue from there.
The Walk
I start the walk at James Joyce Walk. It's a small close with a Rotimaster no 53 red van in the car park, which looks like it is a food van but not currently operating.
Mostly Shakespeare
RIGHT - “For their heart’s right there.”
I turn right onto Shakespeare Road. The area seems to have a poetry theme - there’s also Dylan Road, Milkwood Road and Chaucer Road.
The Evelyn Grace Academy is opposite.
I pass a second section also named James Joyce Walk. A train goes past in one direction and a black cat walks in the other direction.
LEFT - “This is the bissmark of the marathon merry of the jinnies they left behind them.”
I take a left into Cordelia Close. The sign is rusty and it is a dead end so I walk to the end and back again.
LEFT - “They lived und laughed ant loved end left.”
Left and I'm back walking down Shakespeare Road. People cycle and jog past.
RIGHT - “Right rank ragnar rocks and with these rox orangotangos rangled rough and rightgorong.”
I take a right up Langston Hughes Close, another dead end. I’m not familiar with Langston Hughes’ poetry so I look some up and I quite like some of the poems. Here’s Dream Dust: Dream Dust by Langston Hughes
LEFT - “Ladies circle: cloaks may be left.”
I turn left, back in the direction I've come, up Shakespeare Road again, and I see someone carrying a strange lamp and two more people jog past..
RIGHT - “and unwishful as he felt of being hurled into eternity right then”
Right was back down Cordelia, this eternity seeming repetitive.
LEFT - “a loaded Hobson's which left only twin alternatives”
Left again down Shakespeare.
RIGHT - “they twit twinkle all the night, combing the comet’s tail up right”
And yes, it's right back up Langston Road, twit twinkling away.
RIGHT - “your upright grooms that always come right up with you”
Right back along Shakespeare, past the traffic cone, a Christmas tree with baubles on, and a slice of bread.
Another person jogs past.
RIGHT - “he was up against a right querrshnorrt of a mand in the butcher of the blues”
Right up Pablo Neruda Close, another dead end. Pablo Neruda is another poet I’m not familiar with, but found he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1971.
RIGHT -”missbrand her behaveyous with iridescent huecry of down right mean false sop lap sick dope?”
Back onto Shakespeare.
LEFT- “just thenabouts the iron gape, by old custom left open to prevent the cats from getting at the gout”
Left down a street that is unnamed and full of roadworks. It's another close though so I go down and then back again.
LEFT - “He’s Loney, Thunder and Turf Married into Clandorf Left Boot Sent on Approval”
Back onto Shakespeare. I find myself at the end of Shakespeare Road and at Coldharbour Works, a former grain store and now home of places such as Friendship Adventure Brewery, Four Boroughs Coffee, Artichoke Print Workshop.
There’s also a sign above a shop for “BOY - bird seed specialists”.
There are signs for a petition for a lift at Loughborough Junction Station attached to flower pots. I sit on a wooden seat and eat the vegan sausage croll I bought at the market outside Herne Hill station. A croll is a cross-between a roll and a croissant. I stare at “Control Tower”, which says it sells Caribbean cuisine but is closed. There’s also a blue shopfront named “The Harbour”, also closed.
According to Wikipedia, in 2003, Coldharbour Lane was described as the most dangerous street in the most dangerous borough in London. Obviously the place anyone would go to eat their croll.
Loughborough Park
LEFT - “telling how by his selfdenying ordnance he had left Hyland on the dissenting table”
I turn left down Loughborough Park, a bit sad to leave an area where things are actually happening and it's not a close.
I pass a garden with many garden statues, of cockerels, peacocks, elephants, rabbits, butterflies, and even some people. Another house has models of lion heads outside.
The buildings are a bit grander here and some have palms outside.
There is a small park on the right - Loughborough Park, itself. I read the history on a board in the park- “The name ‘Loughborough Park’ comes from a large house, once occupied in the 17th Century by Henry Hastings, Baron Loughborough, who fought for the Royalists during the English Civil War (1642-1648).”
I sit on a bench and eat a cube croissant and look at the trees.
I realise I'm now at the other side of the Evelyn Grace Academy so near to where I started.
LEFT - “this poor delaney, who they left along with the confederate fender behind”
I go left down a footpath next to a wall at the Serco site. I end up in a modern estate.
RIGHT - “the fearstung boaconstrictor and all the more right jollywell pleased”
Right, past the basketball courts.
LEFT- “the four of Masterers who had been all these yarns yearning for that good one about why he left Dublin”
Left and I've left Loughborough Park Estate and back on Loughborough Park Road. A train goes by. There's a sign for the Electric Quarter.
I continue into Somerleyton Road, past lots of minibuses.
Brixton
LEFT - “picked out his pockets and left the tribunal scotfree”
Left and things are getting colourful as I walk down Somerleyton Passage.
There is a little free library, but there are no books by James Joyce in it.
I take a book on the Argentine Lake District, wondering if I can use it somehow for another walk.
There is a video tape that says “old Top of the Pops video” on it.
RIGHT - “Well, all right, Lelly.”
Right down Bob Marley Way, which is a dead end so back I go.
RIGHT - “then bearing right upon Tankardstown”
Right and we can be heroes just for one day, down Leeson Road and not Tankardstown.
LEFT - “On the fidd of Verdor the rampart combatants had left”
Left and I stop for ice cream at Koala - Christmas cannoli and panettone & zabaglione flavours of ice-cream. It is admittedly a bit cold for ice-cream.
RIGHT - “her volucrine automutativeness right on normalcy”
Right down Barnwell Road and there are colourful pots and seats.
RIGHT - "her fist right against our nosibos"
Right down Rattray Road and there is a blue metal bird wearing a crown and then I'm at Rattray Parklet, and there are seats and pots with plants in and a stray glove or two and a teddybear.
LEFT - “some sacking left on a coarse cart.”
Left down Jelf Road and it says Mind the Gap. No sign of elves.
RIGHT - “the curt witty wotty dashes never quite just right at the trim trite truth letter”
Right down Dalberg Road.
LEFT -”(coming over to the left aisle corner down)”
Left down Mervan Road, and I listen to the clattering of suitcases as people pull them along behind them, one black and one blue with pink spots.
LEFT - “left his free natural ripostes to four of them in their own fine artful disorder”
Left and it's a busy road, Effra.
RIGHT - “figure right, he is hoisted by the scurve of his shaggy neck”
I take an immediate right up St Matthews.
LEFT - “figure left, he is rationed in isobaric patties among the crew”
And then it is left down another section of St Matthews.
LEFT - “he has trinity left behind him like Bowlbeggar Bill-the-Bustonly”
Left down a path past a squirrel in front of me.
LEFT - “Papapa’s old cutlass Papapapa left us”
Left, back into Effra. There’s a very pink building called The Link, a former synagogue.
LEFT - “I left on his shoulder one fair hair to guide hand and mind to its softness”
Left back up St Matthews.
RIGHT - “The Mookse had a sound eyes right but he could not all hear”
Right and I'm on Brixton Hill, opposite Electric Brixton.
LEFT - “The Gripes had light ears left yet he could but ill see.”
The clocktower chimes as I walk past. It's 2pm. I turn left down Acre Lane. Jesus cares.
LEFT - “Still in the bowl is left a lump of gold!”
Left down Buckner Road. Will there be gold down here? Maybe just Colombian cuisine. It's a quieter road, no-one is walking down here.
RIGHT - “her own right she at once complicates the position”
Right down Porden Road. Some of the houses have wreaths on the doors.
RIGHT - “the wrong shoulder higher than the right”
Right, past a bright yellow Barrio building.
RIGHT - “tress clippings from right, lift and cintrum, worms of snot”
But now I'm going back up Buckner Road again past people on treadmills.
LEFT - “the legs he left behind with Litty fun Letty fan Leven”
Left this time down Porden Road.
RIGHT and then LEFT - “reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left”
Then right and I see St Matthew’s church again and I pass Brixton Orchard. There used to be a nuclear bunker here, constructed in 1952, and it was also used to hold raves. There are now cherry, apple, plum, and damson trees here, and patches of nettles.
I go left down a path on Rush Common.
Rush Common
RIGHT - “all’s right with every feature”
Right past a glove.
LEFT - “plunders to night of you, blunders what’s left of you”
Left along the park again, around in circles. There's a group of children climbing on walls at the bus stop. I pass the Lambeth Archives.
LEFT - “if they have only their honour left”
Back past the glove.
RIGHT - “right here in our place of burden”
Right and I pass the children again.
RIGHT - “Am I not right? Yes? Yes? Yes? Holy wax and holifer!”
Right and I’m back in the park. I hope I don't pass the glove a third time.
LEFT - “because ye left from me”
Left and out of the park by Canary House which is green on the lower section.
RIGHT - “Reeve Gootch was right and Reeve Drughad was sinistrous!”
Right past a little playground.
.
RIGHT - “That marchantman he suivied their scutties right over the wash”
Right back in the park. Oh.
RIGHT - “I know right well what you mean. Bother!”
Bother! Right.
RIGHT - ”Ay, you’re right. I’m epte to forgetting.”
Right and I'm here again by the green building. Time to stop. Thanks for the walk James Joyce!
-
I walked back to Brixton Station after that, past the Bovril sign.
I decided to use Finnegans Wake by James Joyce to lead me on a walk. I extracted all the lines in Finnegans Wake that had “left” or “right” in them to use as a basis for the walk. If in the text the next line had “left” I would take the next left and if “right”, I'd take the next right.
There were a few places I considered starting the walk:
1. When you search for London in Finnegans Wake you get:
“Nor that the turtling of a London's alderman is ladled out by the waggerful to the regionals of pigmyland.”
So I looked for places in London containing “alderman” and found “Alderman Stairs” near St Katharine Docks.
2. The location of the former Finnegan's Wake pub in Ealing, which is now called The Grove.
3. In the end I found there was a street called “James Joyce Walk” in Herne Hill and that seemed perfect, except there were a lot of cul-de-sacs. I concluded if there was a cul-de-sac, I'd just walk to the end and turn around and continue from there.
The Walk
I start the walk at James Joyce Walk. It's a small close with a Rotimaster no 53 red van in the car park, which looks like it is a food van but not currently operating.
Mostly Shakespeare
RIGHT - “For their heart’s right there.”
I turn right onto Shakespeare Road. The area seems to have a poetry theme - there’s also Dylan Road, Milkwood Road and Chaucer Road.
The Evelyn Grace Academy is opposite.
I pass a second section also named James Joyce Walk. A train goes past in one direction and a black cat walks in the other direction.
LEFT - “This is the bissmark of the marathon merry of the jinnies they left behind them.”
I take a left into Cordelia Close. The sign is rusty and it is a dead end so I walk to the end and back again.
LEFT - “They lived und laughed ant loved end left.”
Left and I'm back walking down Shakespeare Road. People cycle and jog past.
RIGHT - “Right rank ragnar rocks and with these rox orangotangos rangled rough and rightgorong.”
I take a right up Langston Hughes Close, another dead end. I’m not familiar with Langston Hughes’ poetry so I look some up and I quite like some of the poems. Here’s Dream Dust: Dream Dust by Langston Hughes
LEFT - “Ladies circle: cloaks may be left.”
I turn left, back in the direction I've come, up Shakespeare Road again, and I see someone carrying a strange lamp and two more people jog past..
RIGHT - “and unwishful as he felt of being hurled into eternity right then”
Right was back down Cordelia, this eternity seeming repetitive.
LEFT - “a loaded Hobson's which left only twin alternatives”
Left again down Shakespeare.
RIGHT - “they twit twinkle all the night, combing the comet’s tail up right”
And yes, it's right back up Langston Road, twit twinkling away.
RIGHT - “your upright grooms that always come right up with you”
Right back along Shakespeare, past the traffic cone, a Christmas tree with baubles on, and a slice of bread.
Another person jogs past.
RIGHT - “he was up against a right querrshnorrt of a mand in the butcher of the blues”
Right up Pablo Neruda Close, another dead end. Pablo Neruda is another poet I’m not familiar with, but found he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1971.
RIGHT -”missbrand her behaveyous with iridescent huecry of down right mean false sop lap sick dope?”
Back onto Shakespeare.
LEFT- “just thenabouts the iron gape, by old custom left open to prevent the cats from getting at the gout”
Left down a street that is unnamed and full of roadworks. It's another close though so I go down and then back again.
LEFT - “He’s Loney, Thunder and Turf Married into Clandorf Left Boot Sent on Approval”
Back onto Shakespeare. I find myself at the end of Shakespeare Road and at Coldharbour Works, a former grain store and now home of places such as Friendship Adventure Brewery, Four Boroughs Coffee, Artichoke Print Workshop.
There’s also a sign above a shop for “BOY - bird seed specialists”.
There are signs for a petition for a lift at Loughborough Junction Station attached to flower pots. I sit on a wooden seat and eat the vegan sausage croll I bought at the market outside Herne Hill station. A croll is a cross-between a roll and a croissant. I stare at “Control Tower”, which says it sells Caribbean cuisine but is closed. There’s also a blue shopfront named “The Harbour”, also closed.
According to Wikipedia, in 2003, Coldharbour Lane was described as the most dangerous street in the most dangerous borough in London. Obviously the place anyone would go to eat their croll.
Loughborough Park
LEFT - “telling how by his selfdenying ordnance he had left Hyland on the dissenting table”
I turn left down Loughborough Park, a bit sad to leave an area where things are actually happening and it's not a close.
I pass a garden with many garden statues, of cockerels, peacocks, elephants, rabbits, butterflies, and even some people. Another house has models of lion heads outside.
The buildings are a bit grander here and some have palms outside.
There is a small park on the right - Loughborough Park, itself. I read the history on a board in the park- “The name ‘Loughborough Park’ comes from a large house, once occupied in the 17th Century by Henry Hastings, Baron Loughborough, who fought for the Royalists during the English Civil War (1642-1648).”
I sit on a bench and eat a cube croissant and look at the trees.
I realise I'm now at the other side of the Evelyn Grace Academy so near to where I started.
LEFT - “this poor delaney, who they left along with the confederate fender behind”
I go left down a footpath next to a wall at the Serco site. I end up in a modern estate.
RIGHT - “the fearstung boaconstrictor and all the more right jollywell pleased”
Right, past the basketball courts.
LEFT- “the four of Masterers who had been all these yarns yearning for that good one about why he left Dublin”
Left and I've left Loughborough Park Estate and back on Loughborough Park Road. A train goes by. There's a sign for the Electric Quarter.
I continue into Somerleyton Road, past lots of minibuses.
Brixton
LEFT - “picked out his pockets and left the tribunal scotfree”
Left and things are getting colourful as I walk down Somerleyton Passage.
There is a little free library, but there are no books by James Joyce in it.
I take a book on the Argentine Lake District, wondering if I can use it somehow for another walk.
There is a video tape that says “old Top of the Pops video” on it.
RIGHT - “Well, all right, Lelly.”
Right down Bob Marley Way, which is a dead end so back I go.
RIGHT - “then bearing right upon Tankardstown”
Right and we can be heroes just for one day, down Leeson Road and not Tankardstown.
LEFT - “On the fidd of Verdor the rampart combatants had left”
Left and I stop for ice cream at Koala - Christmas cannoli and panettone & zabaglione flavours of ice-cream. It is admittedly a bit cold for ice-cream.
RIGHT - “her volucrine automutativeness right on normalcy”
Right down Barnwell Road and there are colourful pots and seats.
RIGHT - "her fist right against our nosibos"
Right down Rattray Road and there is a blue metal bird wearing a crown and then I'm at Rattray Parklet, and there are seats and pots with plants in and a stray glove or two and a teddybear.
LEFT - “some sacking left on a coarse cart.”
Left down Jelf Road and it says Mind the Gap. No sign of elves.
RIGHT - “the curt witty wotty dashes never quite just right at the trim trite truth letter”
Right down Dalberg Road.
LEFT -”(coming over to the left aisle corner down)”
Left down Mervan Road, and I listen to the clattering of suitcases as people pull them along behind them, one black and one blue with pink spots.
LEFT - “left his free natural ripostes to four of them in their own fine artful disorder”
Left and it's a busy road, Effra.
RIGHT - “figure right, he is hoisted by the scurve of his shaggy neck”
I take an immediate right up St Matthews.
LEFT - “figure left, he is rationed in isobaric patties among the crew”
And then it is left down another section of St Matthews.
LEFT - “he has trinity left behind him like Bowlbeggar Bill-the-Bustonly”
Left down a path past a squirrel in front of me.
LEFT - “Papapa’s old cutlass Papapapa left us”
Left, back into Effra. There’s a very pink building called The Link, a former synagogue.
LEFT - “I left on his shoulder one fair hair to guide hand and mind to its softness”
Left back up St Matthews.
RIGHT - “The Mookse had a sound eyes right but he could not all hear”
Right and I'm on Brixton Hill, opposite Electric Brixton.
LEFT - “The Gripes had light ears left yet he could but ill see.”
The clocktower chimes as I walk past. It's 2pm. I turn left down Acre Lane. Jesus cares.
LEFT - “Still in the bowl is left a lump of gold!”
Left down Buckner Road. Will there be gold down here? Maybe just Colombian cuisine. It's a quieter road, no-one is walking down here.
RIGHT - “her own right she at once complicates the position”
Right down Porden Road. Some of the houses have wreaths on the doors.
RIGHT - “the wrong shoulder higher than the right”
Right, past a bright yellow Barrio building.
RIGHT - “tress clippings from right, lift and cintrum, worms of snot”
But now I'm going back up Buckner Road again past people on treadmills.
LEFT - “the legs he left behind with Litty fun Letty fan Leven”
Left this time down Porden Road.
RIGHT and then LEFT - “reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left”
Then right and I see St Matthew’s church again and I pass Brixton Orchard. There used to be a nuclear bunker here, constructed in 1952, and it was also used to hold raves. There are now cherry, apple, plum, and damson trees here, and patches of nettles.
I go left down a path on Rush Common.
Rush Common
RIGHT - “all’s right with every feature”
Right past a glove.
LEFT - “plunders to night of you, blunders what’s left of you”
Left along the park again, around in circles. There's a group of children climbing on walls at the bus stop. I pass the Lambeth Archives.
LEFT - “if they have only their honour left”
Back past the glove.
RIGHT - “right here in our place of burden”
Right and I pass the children again.
RIGHT - “Am I not right? Yes? Yes? Yes? Holy wax and holifer!”
Right and I’m back in the park. I hope I don't pass the glove a third time.
LEFT - “because ye left from me”
Left and out of the park by Canary House which is green on the lower section.
RIGHT - “Reeve Gootch was right and Reeve Drughad was sinistrous!”
Right past a little playground.
.
RIGHT - “That marchantman he suivied their scutties right over the wash”
Right back in the park. Oh.
RIGHT - “I know right well what you mean. Bother!”
Bother! Right.
RIGHT - ”Ay, you’re right. I’m epte to forgetting.”
Right and I'm here again by the green building. Time to stop. Thanks for the walk James Joyce!
-
I walked back to Brixton Station after that, past the Bovril sign.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-15 11:10 pm (UTC)I used to go along Coldharbour Lane regularly.
I'm sure you know that the Effra is one of the lost rivers of London:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Effra
"I hope I don't pass the glove a third time."
Is this like Three Men in a Boat in the maze at Hampton Court?
Excellent walk. I hope visiting the Argentine works as well.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 07:59 am (UTC)Thanks for the link - I've heard of the Effra but not paid too much attention to it and hadn't realised Effra might just be a corruption of Heathrow.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 05:02 pm (UTC)I used to be minorly obsessed with the rivers of London due to my childhood visits to the sources of the Darent and the Ravensbourne.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 08:03 am (UTC)I did get a bit bored by the closes and then when I kept going in circles around the park, but there were some good bits about the walk.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 05:09 pm (UTC)I hope you don't mind but I couldn't resist attempting a recursion of your walk (not the book), especially when I found an appropriate Finnegan locally. And, yes, I also got stuck in circles and recursions but it was interesting and worth doing so thank you for inspiring me.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-16 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-20 02:44 pm (UTC)