JOYCE		LUCK CLUB
DUBLINERS	ULYSSES	THE PORTRAIT

Chapter 15 / CIRCE - The Ashplant: What it is, and what it means. You people who know all his books, and have read them, most probably, more than once, are at a greater advantage compared to my groping around in this world for the first time. I will look for that article on the ashplant. And, I will be very glad to move on to the next chapter. Chandra Quite a lot has been written about the ashplant. Unfortunately I have not kept a string on everything relating to Joyce (there is simply too much of it for that to be possible) but the significance of the ashplant relates to its magical properties and this in turn arises from the connection between trees and the alphabet. The 18 letters of the Irish alphabet (this is why Ulysses has 18 sections just as the Odyssey had 24 because there were 24 letters in the Greek alphabet) relate to trees. Entymologically the word 'book' derives from 'beech' because early writing was scratched on the bark of the beech tree. Knowledge of writing among early civilizations was a closely guarded secret and hedged about with all sorts of magical hocus pocus. There is a bunch of information in Robert Graves The white Goddess, a highly entertaining book and offered by its author with entire seriousness but mention it to an anthropologist and watch him or her turn purple with rage and indignation. Bob Williams Bob, my Oxford ref dictionary has an illustration of the Ash tree. Did not know that it had magican properties! About book: In German, Book = Buch. And books were written, as you said, on the bark of Buche = Beech. An alphabet is called 'Buchstabe'. The 'rod' or staff used to make 'Buch =Books' using latein alphabets). Chandra  Top! HOME!