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“OMNIUM GATHERUM”
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obstacles, and past glories, traps. The more Crawford remains
dissonantly invested in nostalgia, the less able he is to look
forward. A newspaperman is supposed to deal with “news,” yet
Crawford is preoccupied with the old. Unable to revive past
glories, nor to modernize the paper’s journalism
—
where this
modernization may lead to is another matter
—
Crawford falls
to alcoholism and cynicism. He may curse his profession (Joyce,
1986: 113), but in this new, competitive age he will soon be
eliminated if he fails to adapt. Kershner surmises that
Crawford’s dismissal of Bloom may be rooted in his uneasiness
with the notion that advertising income will gradually replace
sales and subscriptions as the main financial support of
newspapers: “Much as he might wish to demand that
advertisers like Keyes kiss his royal Irish arse . . . under modern
economic pressures the reverse is more likely to happen”
(2010: 104). Ironically enough, Crawford has inadvertently
assimilated ad phrasing and endorsed the significance of
advertising. In his description of Gallaher’s device, the editor
exclaims: “History! . . . Out of an advertisement” (Joyce, 1986:
113). Not only does the exclamation sound like an ad slogan,
but the near juxtaposition of “history” and “advertisement”
suggests the great import of advertising in modern Irish history.
However much he dislikes the emerging ad industry, Crawford
has been ensnared in its web, and yet he would passively resent
and resist advertising rather than actively turn it to his and the
paper’s advantage.
Indulging in past glories as he does, Crawford is
hopelessly submerged in historical confusion such that his
version of history tends to be distorted. When attempting to
recruit Stephen to the pressgang, the editor tells the story of
the great Gallaher: “That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time
of the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you
were born, I suppose” (Joyce, 1986: 112). The Phoenix Park
murders occurred not in 1881 but in 1882, the year of