A JOYCEAN event tipped into the Beckettian yesterday afternoon as those assembled at the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin were left waiting for the arrival of the six members of the Order of the Finnegans.
The order, the purpose of which is to venerate James Joyce's Ulysses, comprises six Spanish authors – Eduardo Lago, Enrique Vila-Matas, Antonio Soler, Jordi Soler, Malcolm Otero and Jose Antonio Garriga Vela – who meet every year in Dublin on Bloomsday.
This year, the group added the launch of their new book, La Orden del Finnegans, to their annual excursion, which took place at the institute. The book contains a contribution from each member. Yet when they finally arrived for yesterday’s event they were down a man, novelist and critic Eduardo Lago having been delayed in transit from New York.
They were joined instead by Irish writer Dermot Healy, who pointed to the "deep Spanish connection" in Ulysses, citing the mentions of Gibraltar and the "Spanish girls laughing in their shawls" in Molly Bloom's final soliloquy.
Explaining how the order operates, writer and editor Malcolm Otero said every year the group, which was founded in 2008, looked for tests that the various members must pass in order to maintain their membership. “One of our passions is to expel members,” he said.
Reading Ulysseswas, of course, one such membership test. All six members managed to complete the task and their impressions resulted in the order's book, which Vila-Matas described as "a written meeting".
Each author read from their work before taking questions on the society that brings them to Dublin every year. Antonio Soler described it as “an order without order”, adding that the members continue to partake “without any concrete aim but the vindication of literature”.
Members of the Order of the Finnegans are required not only to honour Ulysses, but also to attend the order's annual Bloomsday event in Dublin.
The event comprises a visit to various points of interest around Dublin, beginning at the public reading in Meeting House Square and ending at the James Joyce Tower in Sandycove, where the members read from the novel, and where new members can be nominated.
After the ceremony membersof the Order of the Finnegans walk to Finnegan’s pub in Dalkey, the establishment that gave the order its name.
Gentlemen of the Order, as they refer to themselves, are only permitted to miss one meeting in a 10-year period or face expulsion from the group.
Eduardo Lago’s failure to appear at yesterday’s event was acknowledged as a possible reason for his expulsion.
The order also boasts its own motto, read aloud each year at their Dublin meeting, which is taken from the final words of the sixth chapter of Ulysses: "Thank you. How grand we are this morning!"