Thinking God Knows What: James Joyce and Trieste January 15,
1941 dawned as a bleak, cold, snow day in Zurich, Switzerland. A
scantily attended funeral procession made its way from the
Fluntern Cemetery chapel to the burial plot. In the chapel, the
few attending dignitaries had made their funeral speeches: Lord
Derwent, the British Minister at the Legation in Zurich,
University of Zurich English professor Heinrich Straumann, poet
Max Geilinger, and Swiss tenor Max Meili, who sang the aria
Addio terra, addio ciel (Goodbye earth, goodbye sky) from
Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. As the deceased had not liked
flowers, there were none – only a green plant and a wreath with
a lyre, the symbol of Ireland woven into it. When the coffin
holding the earthly remains of Irish novelist James Joyce was
being lowered into the grave, his wife Nora stretched out her
arms to say goodbye; an old man going by asked the undertaker
who was being buried and was told “Herr Joyce.” The man was a
little deaf and asked again. The undert