Nathan Halper
JAMES JOYCE AND THE RUSS IAN GE NERAL
All through
Finnegans Wake,
there are allusions to Buckley
shooting a Russian general. Then, in the eleventh chapter, the shoot–
ing is discussed for almost twenty pages. This has puzzled the
exegetists.
Why
is
it that important? Why is it relevant? We are told that
it happened back in the Crimean War. How does it get into the
dream of a pub-owner in Dublin? What
is
more, there's no record
of a Buckley ever shooting a Russian general. Why does Joyce say
it happened? Why in the Crimean War?
Even such friendly critics as Wilson and Levin have been moved
to exasperation. It may be the most capricious section of
Finnegans
Wake.
But it has become the model, the
locus classicus,
of all in
Joyce's work that seems private and perverse.
If
we can find a meaning, a plan, under the apparent chaos,
there will then be a presumption of a plan, of a meaning, in the book
as a whole.
In the light of the above, let us look at this tale and at the prob–
lems that it raises.
First-Who is Buckley?
On p. 5, we learn that the Archetypical Man bore the name of
Wassaily Booselaeugh. Underneath the distortion, we may see Vasily
Buckley.
Vasily is a Russian name.
If
we think of Buckley, too, as being
a Russian word, a curious thing
occurs:-B
is prounced like
V. c
is
pronounced lil{e
s.
Instead of the
y,
let us take the Russian
chay.
In–
stead of the
k,
let us take the Russian
ee.
Buckley turns into Vusilich.
Vusilich (Vasilich) means "Son of Vasily." Buckley,
in
other
words, is the son of Vasily. Thus, if Vasily Buckley is the Arche-
