When Cunningham and his companions reach Kavanagh's bar in Wandering
Rocks, they find the subsheriff in the doorway: "Long
John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry
Clay decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled
intelligently over all their faces." Henry Clay was a brand of
Cuban cigars that came in various sizes, with pompous names to
glorify the big ones.
The brand was American, named for the important 19th century
Kentucky politician Henry Clay and owned by a company
headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. The cigars, though, were
manufactured in Havana. Cuban cigars have long been regarded
as the world's finest, owing in part to the intense flavor of
the tobacco grown in the island's warm humid climate, and they
have long commanded premium prices. In Circe Long John
Fanning's cigar is described as "pungent." Later
in that chapter, aspiring politician Bloom hands out "expensive
Henry Clay cigars" as well as many other goodies.
When Fanning's cigar first appears it is not called a cigar,
just a "Henry Clay," and a reader may experience some
momentary confusion because the unfamiliar character "Jimmy
Henry" has been mentioned only four or five sentences
earlier. In thus toying with similar names (perhaps with a
glint of inspiration from Shakespeare's plays, discussed by
Stephen in the previous chapter?), Joyce continues the pattern
of disorienting linguistic ambiguity
found from time to time in Wandering Rocks. Readers do
not only have to construct mental maps and timetables to find
their way around the city. They must avoid being led astray
even by quite ordinary words.
