Irish-born physicist and writer, E. E. Fournier d'Albe, the man Cameron reveals as the improbable knot tying Joyce to the optophone. He wrote Quo Vadimus? — one of a series of books on the future that Joyce read in the mid-1920s and quarried for Finnegans Wake, including a passage reading Martian thunderstorms as an attempt at communication — and he also invented the optophone itself (1912, improved 1914), a real machine that scanned print into musical tones for the blind. His announcement to the Royal Society came, because he was not a Fellow, as a communication from Sir Oliver Lodge.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the single figure who fuses the episode's two threads — the writer of a book Joyce mined for the Wake who also invented the real optophone, closing the loop between Joyce's word and the machine
Cameron springs the episode's key coincidence — the author of the future-book Joyce mined for the Wake is the same man who built the real optophone.
"is the guy that invented the optophone, believe it or not."
reading from Quo Vadimus?, Cameron shows the passage — Mars, older than Earth, signalling through thunderstorms — that Joyce lifted into the Wake's thunder.
"it may make some attempt at communication. But the attempt might take the form which to us would be quite unrecognizable."
Connections
Fournier d'Albe built the optophone (1912/1914) to turn print into musical tones for blind readers.