ABSTRACT
It is perhaps partly for the very purpose of confounding our need for meaning that Joyce includes the frequent lists. In this chapter on gigantism, as Joyce records it in the Linati Schema, the process of accumulation is one of the main structural devices, something which in turn forwards the question of interpretation. The chapter breaks up the text, unglue some of Joyce's handiwork, sift through the pieces and separate out some of the different voices, both written and spoken, which make up the public-house chatter chapter. In terms of dialogue, the chapter is particularly interesting as it is structured around a deliberate confrontation of the written and the spoken. It firstly looks at the spirit of the collector in the text, and then at talk and the way the text flows and how this runs up against the fragmented, cracked mirror image of Ireland. The chapter concludes by coming back to Joyce's welding of structure and theme. e'.
