We set off for Sidlesham bright and early, fortified in may case by the quite respectable bacon sandwich turned out by our hotel, to drive through a lot of glass houses, the contents of which presumably accounting for all the Poles in and around Bognor Regis - to the extent of the Sainsbury's there running to a small Polish deli section from where I bought some adequate if not particularly good kabanosi. At least there was no trace of cheese in them. The glass houses also meant that at one point we were driving behind a large lorry from Spalding, so presumably there is some connection between the vegetable growers of Spalding and those of Sidlesham, despite the hundred and more miles between them. Or perhaps between the gang-masters.
Nearly missed the discrete brown sign advertising '13th century church' by the Anchor, but clocked it in time to turn into the lane, to find that the church itself was even more discrete and we had to pass the church gate three times before we clocked that. But there were lots of expensive thatched cottages down the lane, the sort of thing that might attract the comfortably off pensioner, or perhaps even the comfortably off commuter to nearby Chichester. Professionals and business people. A posh enclave among all the agriculture and agricultural cottages - and, I dare say, caravans, although we did not actually notice any of those.
So into the church yard where we inquired of a helpful lady who did not know of the Earwickers but did know someone who might and she went off to consult her.
Thinking that Joyce was not likely to have searched the large grave yard that carefully, we went on to think that the grave in question was probably quite near the church. BH went off to look there, while I was discouraged by the faded lettering on many of the grave stones. Being able to find the Earwicker was going to take a good stroke of luck. At which point a shout from BH announced her hitting the bulls eye, illustrated above. Late eighteenth century and just about legible.
Very pleased with ourselves. And even more pleased when the helpful lady came back and told us of more Earwickers on the other side of the grave yard. Modern Earwickers, quite possibly in direct male line of descent from our Earwicker.
We then got to thinking about how Joyce might have got there, settling for walking, with most people of his time thinking nothing of the ten mile round walk from his boarding house in Bognor Regis.
Back home, I checked in my Ellmann, which does indeed report the holiday in Bognor, but is silent on the question of the all important name, the name of the hero of this famous book.
I then checked my copy of 'Finnegans Wake' and failed to find either Earwicker, HCE or H.C.E (for Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker). Thinking this a little odd I then turned up a searchable copy of the book at reference 2, to find that there are very few occurrences of 'Earwicker', less than ten, and even fewer of H.C.E. Odder and odder.
I then took a look at the wikipedia entry, which confirms that Earwicker is indeed the hero of the book, a married man with three children. It also explains that he goes under a considerable variety of pseudonyms, which goes some way to explaining why I could find so few Earwickers. But I worry about the quality of the text. Where does it come from? Where was the quality control? The website at reference 3 was most unhelpful. Searching for 'Maud Chartrain et Denise Leneveut' produces nothing useful. So I let the matter drop. A slightly unsatisfactory ending to an otherwise satisfactory mission. We have tracked down the birth of H.C.E. to a grave stone; redux indeed.
PS: the search key 'hce' has already been used in connection with a visit to Hampton Court Palace, so is not available for use here. From where I wonder whether Joyce ever went in for visiting stately homes and such like. It seems a little unlikely.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/joyce-at-clarence.html.
Reference 2: http://www.chartrain.org/PDF/Finnegans.pdf.
Reference 3: http://www.chartrain.org/.
Group search key: ewb.
No comments:
Post a Comment