“A Wake”
Book 1, chapter 26; Book 2, chapter 26
Characters
1.26 Former love or wife of a man who has recently died (unnamed).
2.26 Dead man (unnamed) with ex-wife Anna/ Irene and girlfriend Anna/ Irene, and ex-wife’s young boyfriend with a pony tail (unnamed)
General Subject/ Plot
1.26: Jealousy,/ envy. While trying to decide whether to go to a former lover’s funeral, a woman’s thoughts revolve around her lover’s first wife.
2.26: Twins, death, sex. Told in the form of dream or out-of-body experience, a man attends his own wake.
Motifs
1.26 “as they liked to put it,” movies, Christ, suit, purple velvet dress, black silk jacket, black gaberdine suit, DeRosa
2.26 DeRosa, pony tail, clothing (purple velvet dress), bluchers, ” as they newspapers put it”,
Notes
Moon Mullins…The “Wakes” especially heavy on the authorial asides (“as they put it”, “as the newspapers called them,” etc.). 2nd: Recalls “Dreams” (in its oddity); The “Familiar Women,” the first “Apartment,” and the second “Homburg” (in its twin-women); the first “Familiar Woman” in particular (for its clothes); the first “Brothers” (for the floral spray). The addition of the idea of patriotism, the President, is surprising. Whitehall is at the most southern tip of Manhattan. 1st: one of the “twin women” seems to contemplate attending the event described in the second “Wake”, in the process revealing her jealousy toward a rival (a jealous which is the man’s in the second “Alpine” and second “Wake”). Her “let the dead bury the dead” rings out against the dead man’s “dead with himself alone.” Just because of the mention of lower Manhattan I’m tempted to explore the influence of 9/11 on this (twin towers — what if this were a sort of parable of an historical moment.) Unlike the preceding, no kids at all in these concluding chapters.
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