The echo is where Peter O'Brien 2019

Michael Groden
That striking swath of blue, purple, maroon, and orange near the top of the first page of “The echo is where”:
maybe it’s a river, the Liffey that bisects Dublin, widens as it empties out into the Irish Sea, and is as central
to Finnegans Wake as to its city. The book’s main female figure, Anna Livia Plurabelle, is also Anna Liffey, as
the river is often called. Another chapter than the one illustrated here idiosyncratically traces the Liffey’s
movement from its source in Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains to its mouth at Dublin Bay.
The Wake’s famous opening word – “riverrun” – is uncapitalized because it loops back to complete a sentence
including the words – “a long the” – the book’s last. Nearly half of the final page of “The echo is where” is a
river- or ocean-like mass of colors resembling those on the first page. In homage to the Wake, the last page’s
truncated phrase “et cet” finds its completion in the first page’s “era.”
“riverrun” is followed by “from . . . to . . .” which suggests movement in a straight line. The river, however,
flows “from swerve of shore to bend of bay” as it meanders, twists, turns, curves. In Joyce’s wonderful
coinage, the straight line becomes a “strayedline,” an apt neologism for the path taken not only by the river
but, crucially, also by us as readers. We can read the Wake, and appreciate this project, only if we let ourselves
meander, wander off, get lost, loop around, allow chance to intervene, and make mistakes, straying as we let
ourselves enjoy the “lots of fun at Finnegan’s wake” in the refrain of the song that lies behind the book’s title.
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Michael Groden is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Western University. His books include
“Ulysses” in Progress (1977), “Ulysses” in Focus: Genetic, Textual, and Personal Views (2010), and The Necessary
Fiction: Life with James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (forthcoming from Edward Everett Root). He is the general editor of
The James Joyce Archive (63 volumes, 1977-79), a seminal text of Joyce scholarship. On June 16, 2004, the
100th anniversary of Bloomsday, Michael was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by University College Dublin,
Joyce’s university.