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554 [ A M E S [ 1923-1926 ]then a rarity, proved less fortunate: one shoe split the next day, and Norawent back to the store with Kathleen to exchange them. When the managerwas reluctant, Nora said, 'My husband is a writer and if you don'tchange them I'll have it published in the paper.' This was perhaps theonly recorded occasion on which Nora spoke of her husband's occupationwith approval, and the manager gave way at once. Her more habitualreaction was brought on by Joyce's purchase, at her insistence, of a pairof white trousers. They proved to be translucent and she had to tell him,'For goodness' sake, take those off.' Later she confided to her sister, 'He'sa weakling, Kathleen. I always have to be after his tail. I wish I wasmarried to a man like my father. Being married to a writer is a very hardlife.' Kathleen was astonished at the difference between them, 'Nora allgo and Jim all stand-still.' 2In Bognor Nora remarked resignedly to Kathleen, 'He's on anotherbook again.' Joyce worked at Finnegans Wake with passion. The structuralproblems were much more perplexing than those of Ulysses, where,as he wrote Miss Weaver, the ports of call at least were known beforehand.3To give form to his 'storiella as she is syung' (and not merelyrecorded), he restudied Giambattista Vico. He was particularly drawn tothe 'roundheaded Neapolitan's' use of etymology and mythology to uncoverthe significance of events, as if events were the most superficialmanifestations of underlying energies. He admired also Vico's positivedivision of human history into recurring cycles, each set off by a thunderclap,of theocratic, aristocratic, and democratic ages, followed by aricorso or return. Joyce did not share Vico's interest in these as literalchronological divisions of'eternal ideal history,' but as psychological ones,ingredients which kept combining and recombining in ways which seemedalways to be dejd vus. i use his cycles as a trellis,' 4he told PadraicColum later; he wrote Miss Weaver, i would not pay overmuch attentionto these theories, beyond using them for all they are worth, but they havegradually forced themselves on me through circumstances of my ownlife. I wonder where Vico got his fear of thunderstorms. It is almostunknown to the male Italians I have met.' 5To another friend he explained,i might easily have written this story in the traditional manner.Every novelist knows the recipe. It is not very difficult to follow a simple,chronological scheme which the critics will understand. But I, after all,am trying to tell the story of this Chapelizod family in a new way. Timeand the river and the mountain are the real heroes of my book. Yet theelements are exactly what every novelist might use: man and woman,birth, childhood, night, sleep, marriage, prayer, death. There is nothingparadoxical about all this. Only I am trying to build many planes ofnarrative with a single esthetic purpose. Did you ever read LaurenceSterne?' 6In Bognor he rewrote the passage dealing with King Mark, Tristramand Iseult, a sketch of which he had read to Larbaud the previous March;