The Dubliner in Each of Us (“The Sisters” and the logic of what is said)

Considering both published versions of James Joyce’s “The Sisters,” this essay discusses the relation between each other in order to question the validity of using the journal version (1904) to increase the intelligibility of the one published in Dubliners (1914). The analysis will attempt to demonstrate that here we may find the first flickerings of Hugh Kenner’s “The Arranger” and that the mirror Joyce intended Dubliners to be may have been transforming us critics into its own characters.Keywords: James Joyce; The Sisters; gnomon; sodomy; indeterminacy

CIS by TRANS

Cis, trans: above all, metaphors. Cisjordan, region skirting the Jordan River. Cisplatin, Uruguay’s ancient name, region occupying one of the banks of the Prata River. Trans- Amazonian, that which crosses the Amazon; transatlantic, that which crosses the Atlantic. Cisalpine, transalpine. The geometric isomerism of Organic Chemistry, where “cis” are atoms that, when molecules are divided in half, remain on the same side, and “trans” those remaining on opposite sides. Even the Houaiss dictionary, presenting the cis etymology as “from the Latin preposition cis ‘below, on this side’ (in opposition to trans)”. And many other examples. Metaphors, always metaphors. Something that crosses, trespasses, goes through and something that remains always on the same side, skirting, not crossing, that avoids crossing, all in relation to a given line. Can we imagine the use of one of these terms without, immediately, referring to the other? From this rhetorical question, I dare to claim that medical discourse, by naming as “trans” our peculiar way of living, of claiming existence, has automatically named the other way, its way, non-trans, as “cis”, leaving to us only the task of thinking ways of making the two images proposed, something-that-crosses and something-that-avoids-crossing, translate themselves into more tangible meanings

O Cis Pelo Trans

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