JD'A – 9A: The Mookse & the Gripes — 1977

---

JD'A – 9A: The Mookse & the Gripes | By | JAMES JOYCE | GRAPHICS By D’AMBROSIO | The Compulsive Printer | Portage, Indiana 1977.

numbering only on recto of pages, 

8 1/2 x 10 inches: cream endpaper, [1]: blank, [2–4]: images containing title, [5]: remainder of title page, [6]: image, [7–27]: text with large decorative E on [7],large decorative N on [21], and colored crosshatching on [25–27], [28]: image, [29]: text, [30]: image, [31]: colophon, [32]: logo, cream endpaper.

Colophon: This edition of The Mookse and The Gripes, limited to seventy-five copies and five artist proofs, has been set in 18 point Bulmer and printed on Rives BFK paper by the Compulsive Printer, Portage, Indiana, on a No. 3 Vandercook proof press.

All serigraphs, blockprints, and binding by D'Ambrosio.

Cover relief-serigraph gilded with 23K gold.

The story is taken from Two Tales of Shem and Shaun. This edition published by Joseph J. D'Ambrosio, 3824 Alta Vista Terrace, Chicago, Illinois, 60613.

This is copy number

[in pencil]#/75

and signed by

[in pencil signature of Joseph J. D’Ambrosio]

Joseph J. D'Ambrosio, artist,

[in pencil signature of Elmore Mundell]

Elmore Mundell, printer.

Binding: Red velvet cloth over boards framing a relief-serigraph gilded with 23K gold leaf

Lined clam-shell box of paper over boards.

Larger container of paper over boards which houses a special serigraph not included within the book.

Images:

[in outer container]: numbered in pencil bottom left, “The Mookse and the Gripes” at bottom center and signed by D’Ambrosio bottom right with ’77.

[2]: “The Mookse” over art numbered in pencil bottom left and signed by D’Ambrosio bottom right with ’77.

[3]: “And” over art numbered in pencil bottom left and signed by D’Ambrosio bottom right with ’77.

[4]: “The Gripes” over art numbered in pencil bottom left and signed by D’Ambrosio bottom right with ’77.

[6]: Domed cathedral signed in pencil vertically on left: Mundell, #, D’Ambrosio ’77.

[28]: image with eyes numbered in pencil bottom left and signed by D’Ambrosio bottom right with ’77.

[30]: image with face on top signed in pencil on bottom: Mundell, #, D’Ambrosio ’77.

JD'A – 9B: The Mookse & the Gripes | By | JAMES JOYCE | GRAPHICS By D’AMBROSIO | The Compulsive Printer | Portage, Indiana 1977.

Same as 9A but no lining of clam-shell box, no larger outer container and no additional art that was in that container.

From 19 Years and Counting:

1977

The Mookse & the Gripes,

from

Two Tales of Shem and Shaun, by James Joyce

Edition: 75 numbered copies, and 5 artist proofs

Size: 8-1/2 x 10 inches

Type: 18 pt. Bulmer

Leaves: 32 - Rives BFK paper

Binding: Red velvet cloth over boards framing a relief-serigraph gilded with 23K gold leaf.

This book is presented in a manner similar to The Ondt & the Gracehoper (1975), but this time the pages are not loose. They are sewn within the box-like structure.

Once again, a coat of red silkscreen ink lies just below the 23K gilt surface of the cover relief-serigraph. Mr. Mundell and I printed the text from type which he set. I printed the graphics and bound the book. The first 25 copies of this edition are presented in a lined clam-shell box of paper over boards. This box slips into a much larger container of paper over boards which houses a special serigraph not included within the book. It depicts the "mookse" confronting the "gripes" from the opposite side of a flowing river.

In the background, a female form within a cumulus cloud sheds water and is the apparent source of the river. The next 50 copies are presented only in an unlined clam-shell box of paper over boards. I must admit that I tried to avoid doing The Mookse & the Gripes simply because I could not comprehend what message James Joyce was trying to communicate in writing it. I cannot recall if it were Mr.Mundell or Tom Joyce (both were coaxing me to do it at the time), who found an article explaining Joyce's symbolism in this work. Once enlightened, I joined James Joyce in his satire of Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Break-Spear), and hence the papal red velvet and gold leaf cover.

From A Memoir of Book Design:

This book is presented in a manner similar to The Ondt & the Gracehoper (1975), the other tale of Two Tales of Shem and Shaun, by James Joyce. But instead of the pages being loose within a book like box as the previous publication, this time the pages are sewn within a boxlike structure. Now, you may be asking yourself, how does one make the leap from a book-like box to a book sewn within a box? And, more precisely, why? Why not leave the structure alone? The codex style of binding has proved itself most durable ever since its inception after its predecessor, books as scrolls. The answer is another question: Why not? The codex style was a natural evolution in the structure of printed matter. And a book bound within a box (for even more protection) seems yet again a further natural evolution. Once again, a coat of red silkscreen ink lies just below the twenty-three karat gilt surface of the cover relief-serigraph of the Mookse.

Mr. Mundell and I printed the text from type which he set. I printed the graphics and bound the book.

The first twenty-five copies of this edition are presented in a lined clam-shell (side-hinged) box of paper over boards. The box slips into a much larger container of paper over boards housing a special serigraph not included within the book. It depicts the Mookse confronting the Gripes from the opposite side of a river. In the background, a female within a cumulus cloud sheds tears and is the apparent source of the river. The serigraphic print is much larger than a page of the book and hence the necessity for a larger container. It is within a paper folio and slips into a pocket which makes up one side of the larger container. The next fifty copies are in an unlined clam-shell box of paper over boards. This was a mistake. Without fabric lining the box, the paper in the joint area tears easily.  Over the years I have repaired those that l have come into contact with.

I tried to avoid doing The Mookse and the Gripes because I could not comprehend what message James Joyce was trying to communicate in writing it. Joyce is adept at bringing various languages together to form yet another word with a new convoluted meaning. So if one does not have some insight into a number of other languages, the new meaning will be nothing more than wonderful bouncing syntax, which in itself is no small thing. However, one must understand a work before one can retell it in another form. I found a pamphlet explaining Joyce's symbolism in this work. Once enlightened, I joined him in his satire of Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Break-Spear), and

hence the papal red velvet and gold leaf cover design.

The book opens similarly to The Ondt and the Gracehoper in that the first three pages carry the title in black and white linoleum block prints. The Mookse is depicted as a real moose (complete with antlers) in papal garb. The style of letters is based on my childhood recollections of attending Roman Catholic mass every Sunday and the inevitable exposure to rococo decoration.* 

*My younger years were spent in an ethnic Italian neighborhood on Chicago's west side. My mother would occasionally take us to an ornate Italian church on Grand Avenue just outside the city center where she grew up as a young girl. The name of the church was Santa Maria Eldorado, and it was a scenic designer's heaven. The altar area was entirely hand-carved wood in the Rococo style-all in white and gold leaf. In many niches within the backdrop were statues of saints with Santa Maria Eldorado occupying the center and most prominent place. All of the statues were painted and their robes were magnificent blends of silk and gold. From the altar area, the nave of the church extended in a giant horseshoe shape with a balustraded balcony all around-it, too, hand carved in white and gold leaf. The altar area blazed with lighted candles while the rest of the church was deep in shadows.

The word "and" which follows continues the same style with an added pair of black eyes peering from below vegetation at the top of the letter "d." The eyes give the viewer a sense of the Gripes (vox populi), who are yet to appear and will have no eyes because they are represented as dried grapes. The eyes hint that they are not blind, but indeed can see from between their wrinkles. The last graphic in the series depicts a group of Gripes (or a cluster of dried grapes making a single entity) on the vine, wrinkles and all, with a leaflike hairdo and a modesty leaf over the groin. One Gripe hangs apart and beneath the cluster, not only drawing the viewer into the last two words of the title, but also suggesting the interpretation of the entity as "shitting" on the words. The style of the words has shifted to leaflike letters in keeping with the essence of the vine.

The credits follow on the next page. A graphic print is then presented, which should cue the reader into thinking along Catholicism and papal lines when reading the text. A domed cathedral dominates the image with words from the Latin Mass below it beneath a forest of trees. The color and texture of the sky behind is the same as the river running at the bottom separating the "Dominus Vobiscum" from the "Agnus Dei." The crosshatching use of color to create the image of the trees is a direct result from the experiments with the cover of A Checklist (1977), which is the previous work. The background sky utilizes only vertical blue lines to indicate its presence. The type was printed first and then the colors were integrated into the scene. The serigraphic plates were all made with the glue-resist method. A grease pencil was utilized to obtain the lineal elements of the images.

James Joyce did not write a story in which all the facets were easily ascertained. I can only guess at the reason, but, nonetheless, there certainly was a reason. For the designer to simplify the telling of the story to the point that it no longer has a enigmatic quality is like the pamphlet that allowed me to do this story. It is informative but lacks the pith needed to convey emotion along with the words. So the designer must not only convey the story, but the essence of the author's intentions as well.

The text begins with the opening capital letter, “E," ("Eins within a space and a wearywide space it wast...") completely dominating the page, with the text jammed in between the letter strokes. The broad body of the letter contains a bunch of grapes hanging over a full goblet of wine. The colors are deeply rich to convey the opulence of the papacy in contrast to its needy subjects: the Gripes! Stuffing the text into the letter conveys the obesity of the lopsided religious and civic arrangement. The large capital "E" was hand cut with an X-acto knife out of lacquer film and then adhered to the screen with  a solution that is highly volatile and melts the film directly into the mesh of the silkscreen. The solvent for cleaning the screen is equally volatile. The balance of the imagery relies on a grease pencil and glue resist method. 

The text is then allowed to go on for many pages with no visual representations. Joyce's prose is so difficult to comprehend that I felt the reader should have no distractions until the essence of the piece is absorbed. Then follow more graphics than in the previous tale, The Ondt and the Gracehoper.

The next graphic appears when the mediator, Nuvoletta, enters the story. A full page "N," the capital letter of the section's opening paragraph, dominates the page, with the text once again crammed in between the letter strokes. Nuvoletta is portrayed as a blue cloud, dominating one side of the page and seen through a vertical section of the capital letter. The tone of blue that makes up her cloud form is the same tone repeatedly used for the river flowing through many of the visuals. So, both the visual shape and the basic color of the image convey meaning by association.

Reflected in the next graphic, the author forms a triangular analogy between the ebbing light of the setting sun, tears, and numbers falling one by one from the sky. A group of numbers, split-font serigraphed in basic dusk colors (only paler because dusk falls as tears), makes up the background behind Joyce's printed prose. I have no idea why Joyce forms an analogy using those three elements. I could only project what I found inherent in the material. And, if he were alive and I could ask him, I would not. Being an author myself allows me to understand the enigma of creativity. And it seems to have worked in my many associations. The only true conflicts that I have ever had have been with other visual artists. And, once again, the conflict has always been good for the eventual essence of the piece.

The next few graphics, behind the printed words, hint at the crosshatching of the laundry basket to come. The woven basket ultimately holds the washed laundry of humankind's folly. And the laundry is washed in the stream that is made up of Nuvoletta's tears. The final graphic shows Nuvoletta as a cloud raining colored tears of happiness into (and the source of a flowing stream. The overlying text pokes fun at humankind's perfidy to itself by allowing itself to be manipulated and used by

spiritual advisors.

The red velvet on the cover is genuine and difficult to work with when used as a book cover cloth. Water-based glues could not be used nor could weights, for they would crush the velvet. Vinyl wallpaper adhesive turned out to be the best solution to adhere the cloth to the boards.

©Book Club of California.