3.8 The Wall as City

The city arises as a result of sin and the consequent fall of the sinner, for the sin is the act of creation, and the sinner himself the building material: 'An that was how framm Sin fromm Son, a city arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows' (FW 94.18-19). The Dublin HCE creates, once a 'hole of Serbonianbog' (recalling both ALP's roles as 'hole in wall' and as 'mud') is transformed by his hand into a 'city of magnificent distances, goodwalldabout' (FW 539.24-26), with the latter containing an echo of the Magazine Wall. The pub is a version of the city, and HCE announces that he had created the city for ALP: 'I did reform and restore for my smuggy piggiesknees, [...] her paddypalace on the crossknoll with massgo bell' (FW 552.21-23). Within the city he constructs for ALP a toilet that, as both earthen container and ejector of the silent picture ('showne'), is also her womb: 'And I built in Urbs in Rure, for minne elskede, [...] an erdcloset with showne ejector wherewithin to be squatquit in most covenience from her sabbath needs, when open noise should stilled be' (FW 551.24-28). HCE's attempts to 'maze her' (552.17), to possess ALP, 'Annah the Allmaziful (FW 104.1), and access the female door to life at the expense of other males, also explains 'why Blabus was razing his wall and eltering the suzannes of his nighboors' (FW 552.19-20). As part of the city, HCE also builds Phoenix Park for ALP, with its pictorial 'magicscene wall (rimrim! rimrim!)' (FW 553.24). The site of HCE's pub is similarly collocated with the wall upon HCE's 566th birthday, which is to be celebrated as a feast day:

ALP is variously identified as Dublin, and the Dublin that HCE creates for ALP can simultaneously be understood as ALP herself in an ex nihilo explanation of her origin paralleling that of Genesis.