Finnegans Wake

HeadPig

How much of a step up from Ulysses is it? Read Ulysses and really enjoyed it so I'm open to it. Then again I'm not willing to waste my time on inane babble, if babble it be.

Anyone read it?

andrew369

I tried to read it after reading Ulysses and was hugely disappointed. Just seemed like gibberish and was not able to get anything that made sense from it. Turned out to be the only book I was not able to finish reading. Probably some PhD students who would attempt a thesis on it, but as something just to read and enjoy I would avoid it like the plague. If you liked Ulysses you might like some of Samuel Beckett's work, especially his earlier stuff such as the novel Murphy.

Tin Foil Hat

I managed this much:-

iverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
linsfirst loved livvy.

I'm absolutely convinced it's a practical joke.

catallus

I think Finnegans Wake was a bad move for Joyce; his own fans gave him not-so-subtle hints while he was writing it, but I guess he did it as part of the "art for art's sake" philosophy which was very strong at the time.

The pity of it is that it puts people off the whole idea of Joyce; a quite justifiable reticence to approach what one cannot hope to understand; Joyce was a genius writer, Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man are great reads, something to drown in with delight; I think Finnegans Wake is the Joycean style taken to absurd lengths.

It probably was great fun to write, knowing the depth of knowledge he had about English words and their place in the language of the world; but if the measure of a novel is the pleasure it brings to the reader through communicating the truth of the world then it is really bad; I waded through it years ago and got a fifth of the way through it before I just started skimming; it really is just Gobbledygook, I wouldn't even grant it the term "inane babble". Although in fairness the last lines are pretty good, but that's as good as it gets.

"sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad
father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere
size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me
seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them
rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo
moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me.
All. But one clings still. I'll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff!
So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you
done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now
under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink
I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes,
tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush
to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us
then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous-
endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a
long the
PARIS,
1922-1939."

--Kaiser--

I know the mythographer Joseph Campbell wrote a guide to this work 'A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake'. I like these words from a review of this guide on Amazon:

But those who approach the Wake, or this purported exegisis of it, with an open mind will realize that, for thousands of years men claimed to find meaning in tea-leaves and sheep's entrails, and pictures in the stars, but those images and tales lie more in our own minds than in the entities themselves.

Perhaps the Emperor has no clothes?