Dressed in green for a wedding: Ulysses again

the book:

Ulysses by James Joyce

published 1922   section 12







The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley… The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty motif of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at the conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre in Horto after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.





observations: Rather charmingly, the business/people/ search website Zoominfo features Jean Wyse de Neaulan of the Irish National Rangers in its list of professional profiles: contact this person for FREE. Employment history: Grand High Chief Ranger. So he becomes real, even though he isn’t even real in the book, this is a fancified form of his name (Nolan). He is a minor character in Ulysses and this report of his wedding is a parody of a society magazine report, with implications about reafforestation (a subject which comes up in this section) and fertility generally (features throughout the book).

Links up with:
Ulysses – one of several appearances. Nancy and Plum dressed as a tree. Weddings all over the blog, click on the label below. Women dresssed in green here and here and here. Joyce’s The Dead features here with one of the most beautiful pictures we have used on the blog.

The picture is of Enid Bennett and Errol Flynn playing Maid Marian and Robin Hood in a
1922 silent film.

Comments

  1. Moira - I always love it that you find such interesting commentary on wardrobe even for minor characters. I love the way the wedding gown description is used to make a point here - very clever!

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  2. This is a book that I keep promising myself that I will read. One day....

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