Day 15.

Page 20. Feels like a milestone. Who would have thought I would make it this far into this labyrinthine book.

Page 20 introduce's another woman, charmain, possible Finnegan's sister. But it's all unclear. Even the spelliong. Maybe it will emerge later. My guess is that charmain is jewish. Mentions of a horn, ramskin, she says hello in German, by the way. She's cooking something and Joyce makes an unfriendly remark about the melting pot.

He then compares the Magna Carta to newspapers and cro-mags. Not sure what's going on there. A quiet rebellion against information and a return to simpler ways? Or information isn't trustworthy.

Papyrus and mead are mentioned. The cornerstones of Egypt. More Myth and the lie that jews were used as slaves to build the pyramid. Is Joyce among the Victorians who got this wrong and he believes it? Or is he revealing the lie?

And if he's just mixing (melting pot) all these Myths together, this is a little too hipster, in my opinion. He could have pulled any myth for this section and he pulled Egypt, after a jewish character is introduced.

Not so much a melting pot, as a fertile crescent.

One origin system (Jewish/Biblical) flows into another (Egyptian/civilizational) and all of these metaphysical sources flatten into one tower of babel type origin story. We all came from cromags, and no one's myth is any more true that anyone else's.

This might be my crowning observation.

That no one reading of this book can stablize the "story." All myths tell the same lie of where we came from.

I can probably stop now. I get  it. I won't. But I can.

He mentions the number 70. I've learned that if he doesn't mention it again, it might not be important.

This first paragraph was a fun and good read. Easy to understand. It's getting easier.

But the last paragraph on 20 goes back to the sing-song rhythm. Nothing is being said and it's being said a lot. My gut tells me he's making reductive comments about women in heels.

At the end of the page, he calls someone a whore. Charmain? It's unclear.

So he goes from the maternal image of a good woman making food at the wake, to reducing women to roles. All within one page. I don't think he's being sexist. I think he's revealing sexism across all societies.