The Books: “Dubliners” – ‘Two Gallants’ (James Joyce)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

DublinersJoyce.jpg Dubliners – by James Joyce – excerpt from the sixth story in the collection: “Two Gallants”. Another story where nothing much really happens … yet worlds are suggested within worlds. It’s a bit dizzying, too – in true Joyce fashion – a style he will use again and again, most notably in Ulysses – where characters wander the streets of Dublin, and the place names and streets come at you fast and furious – you could seriously track every character’s progress, you could walk through Dublin, with the book open – and follow it like a road map. Dubliners is full of place names and streets – never more so than in “Two Gallants”. He walked down the block, took a left, crossed Grafton Street, etc. etc. It’s obsessive. It calls attention to itself. What is Joyce doing here? Why is he so insistent on that level of specificity? Of something so mundane? It seems to me that it was one of the ways he tried to make his stories seem real. It also was, in a twisted way, an homage to Dublin – there was that one comment he made, I think about Ulysses, that if Dublin burned to the ground, he would hope it could be resurrected exactly as it was – merely from the information in his books. Something like that. Well, you sure could do that with “Two Gallants” – a 6 page story with a circuitous route in it. You notice that Lenehan – the moocher, the guy with nowhere to go – pretty much ends up where he started. If you know Dublin (even a bit, like i do – I can picture a lot of these places in my head – the corner of St. Stephen’s Green, etc.) – then you can get a sense of where he’s going – and it’s a big circle. Lenehan ain’t going nowhere. But that’s the structure of a lot of these stories – “After the Race”, “Eveline” … it appears that a journey is being taken, and ground is being covered, but the characters always end up where they started. Dublin as maze? Dublin as dead end.

I wonder if “gallants” is ironic. To me, “gallant” connotes a kind of grace, and social ease. But these two guys do not have that. So I wonder if “gallant” had a different connotation back then, or if Joyce is joking about it … like: this is the best that Ireland can produce, in the way of “gallants”. It seems rather Joycean to have a bit of wordplay, even in the title, but I’m not sure. Corley and Lenehan – two “gallants” – stroll around Dublin on a Sunday twilight. Corley is in the midst of telling a story to Lenehan – about how he picked up this girl, and he’s been “seeing” her. It’s clear, though, from the details given – that she is a prostitute – who also works as a housekeeper (a “slavey”). There are even discussions of birth control – Corley was afraid “she’d get in the family way” – but apparently there are no worries on that score – “she’s up to the dodge.” Pretty bold stuff for early 1900s Catholic Ireland. Corley bitches about other girls he’s seen – and how he has to take them out, and buy them chocolates, and what does he get for it? Nothing! Might as well just pay for sex, because you’d be paying women ANYway, might as well get something out of it. Corley talks about some of those other girls – how only got “something” out of one of them! Lenehan refuses to believe this – Corley says casually that there had been other men before him, he wasn’t her first. Lenehan now knows Corley is lying! Etc. Etc. The two gallants wander a circular path, talking in this manner – I can’t believe it’s a coincidence either that all of this is taking place on a Sunday. Knowing Joyce’s feelings about the Catholic Church, it would be like him to make this lecherous sexual conversation occur on a holy day.

Corley is going to meet his girl. It becomes clear that he is up to something – and Lenehan is in on it. Some kind of scam – Lenehan wonders if the girl is up for it? I remember thinking, when I first read the story, that it seemed like Corley was going to “share” his girl with Lenehan – and all it would take would be for Corley to arrange it. That’s what I thought was going on. Lenehan – kind of a bum, a wanderer, a mooch – has lonely visions in his head of one day having a home, and a fire to sit by, and maybe a woman there, too. He’s 31 years old. Will that ever happen? From what we see of his personality, the odds of that are pretty slim.

Corley meets up with his girl, outside the house where she is a servant. Lenehan watches from across the street, and then follows them, shadily, as they walk away. Corley and Lenehan have a plan to meet up at 10 on a certain street corner. Lenehan, once he loses track of the two, is on his own. You can feel how adrift he is. He stops by a shop and has some peas and a ginger beer. He wanders, this way, that – until the appointed meeting time. (The street where they have chosen to meet up, by the way, is a dead end. Ha ha. Joyce knew what he was doing.)

Corley appears again, with the girl – he drops her off at the house where she works. She goes inside via the basement door – and reappears at the front door a bit later, and hands something to Corley – before going back inside. Corley goes to meet Lenehan with a weird little smile on his face, Lenehan eagerly asks if it all came off, their little plot – and Corley opens his hand, to show a gleaming gold coin. She obviously had stolen it from the house where she works.

Kind of a depressing little story, and all the people are rather nasty. There’s a beautiful moment, during their wanderings, where they pass by a harp player – on the street, playing an Irish tune. The harp – a symbol of Ireland – it’s on their 5 cent coins – it’s everywhere. And most of the places Corley and Lenehan pass by (except for the harpist) are symbols of Protestant Dublin – like Trinity College, and other places. Bastions of the ruling power. This is all done really subtly – and you’d have to know the symbolism to get that level of the story, you’d have to know what Trinity College means and has meant to Ireland – its huge walls, sitting smack in the middle of the city – filled with Protestants. Anyway, it seems to me that Joyce here is being bitchy and QUITE clear about what he thinks has gone wrong, and what IS wrong. The harp player, lonely, begging for money on the street, etc.

Corley is the son of a police chief. Yet here he is canoodling with prostitutes, and engaging in petty crime. And why? It seems just for the hell of it. Corley isn’t really wanting for money.

Dublin: nowhere to go, nowhere to be … young men, “gallants”, just wandering around, on a Sunday evening … with nothing to do but get in trouble. The women are up to no good either.

“Two Gallants”, seen in the day and age in which it was written, is a shocking story. And the obsessive naming of streets and corners and landmarks adds to what was probably shocking about it. It feels like it could be from a newspaper story. It’s giving details, evidence … saying: “This really happened”. Joyce doesn’t let anyone off the hook.

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation between the “two gallants”.


Excerpt from Dubliners – by James Joyce – “Two Gallants”

Lenehan offered his friend a cigarette. As the two young men walked on through the crowd Corley occasionally turned to smile at some of the passing girls but Lenehan’s gaze was fixed on the large faint moon circled with a double halo. He watched earnestly the passing of the grey web of twilight across its face. At length he said:

— Well … tell me, Corley, I suppose you’ll be able to pull it off all right, eh?

Corley closed one eye expressively as an answer.

— Is she game for that? asked Lenehan dubiously. You can never know women.

— She’s all right, said Corley. I know the way to get around her, man. She’s a bit gone on me.

— You’re what I call a gay Lothario, said Lenehan. And the proper kind of a Lothario, too!

A shade of mockery relieved the servility of his manner. To save himself he had the habit of leaving his flattery open to the interpretation of raillery. But Corley had not a subtle mind.

— There’s nothing to touch a good slavey, he affirmed. Take my tip for it.

— By one who has tried them all, said Lenehan.

— First I tried to go with girls, you know, said Corley, unbosoming; girls off the South Circular. I used to take them out, man, on the tram somewhere and pay the tram or take them to a band or a play at the theatre or buy them chocolates and sweets or something that way. I used to spend money on them right enough, he added, in a convincing tone, as if he were conscious of being disbelieved.

But Lenehan could well believe it; he nodded gravely.

— I know that game, he said, and it’s a mug’s game.

— And damn the thing I ever got out of it, said Corley.

— Ditto here, said Lenehan.

— Only off of one of them, said Corley.

He moistened his upper lip by running his tongue along it. The recollection brightened his eyes. He too gazed at the pale disc of the moon, now nearly veiled, and seemed to meditate.

— She was … a bit of all right, he said regretfully.

He was silent again. Then he added:

— She’s on the turf now. I saw her driving down Earl Street one night with two fellows with her on a car.

— I suppose that’s your doing, said Lenehan.

— There was others at her before me, said Corley philosophically.

This time Lenehan was inclined to disbelieve. He shook his head to and fro and smiled.

— You know you can’t kid me, Corley, he said.

— Honest to God! said Corley. Didn’t she tell me herself?

Lenehan made a tragic gesture.

— Base betrayer! he said.

As they passed along the railings of Trinity College, Lenehan skipped out into the road and peered up at the clock.

— Twenty after, he said.

— Time enough, said Corley. She’ll be there all right. I always let her wait a bit.

Lenehan laughed quietly.

— Ecod! Corley, you know how to take them, he said.

— I’m up to all their little tricks, Corley confessed.

— But tell me, said Lenehan again, are you sure you can bring it off all right? You know it’s a ticklish job. They’re damn close on that point. Eh? … What?

His bright, small eyes searched his companion’s face for reassurance. Corley swung his head to and fro as if to toss aside an insistent insect, and his brows gathered.

— I’ll put it off, he said. Leave it to me, can’t you?

Lenehan said no more. He did not wish to ruffle his friend’s temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley’s brow was soon smooth again. His thoughts were running another way.

— She’s a fine decent tart, he said, with appreciation; that’s what she is.

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