on Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
tauftauf
Discovered in p3:
nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac...
Humpty Dumpty says:
“Tauftauf? Tough, tough? --- what’s tough? James Voyce’s story is tough to hear that is always telling me in mysterious ways. German tauf is baptismal, &, as the verb stem, baptize; hence, tauftauf probably expresses christening, christening. Reduplications represent recirculation in history, & maybe, to baptize is to make tough in the thought of Christians. I think that if I told Joyce my imagination, that the sound of German tauf is similar to that of Chinese dào (Tao), he would probably feel very happy to hear about it. Tao is ubiquitous forever.”
