After half a year, I've finally finished Finnegans Wake@

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Re:joys, prix!

― Leee (Leee), Sunday, 1 December 2002 00:10 (twenty-two years ago) link

Rah! And what did you learn?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 1 December 2002 00:47 (twenty-two years ago) link

The important thing isn't what one learns, but the nifty honorific 'C.F.W.' one is entitled to put after one's name (Completed Finnegans Wake). It adds the right note of distinguished accomplishment and tones up one's personal cheques, don't you think?

― Aimless, Sunday, 1 December 2002 00:54 (twenty-two years ago) link

I can't say that I "read" most of it, since I tried reading it as I do with other novels. Sometimes I got into the flow of things, other times my mind kept wandering, especially during the grossly opaque sections. And reading out loud didn't work for me either (i.e. I was too self-conscious to try). There were several chuckleworthy puns I managed to catch.

The "Anna Livia Plurabelle" chapter was supposed to be one of the most straightforward in FW, yet I managed to retain nothing from it. But I began to use a new strategy around in time for Book III, chapter 1, which I recall enjoying. And the end of ALP's soliloquy that closes the novel was thoroughly moving and rhapsodic -- it makes me wish I paid better attention throughout.

From the general commentary and summaries I've seen, FW's plot would have fascinated me, and had I invested enough effort into its tendrils of language, I might've had more fun getting lost.

― Leee (Leee), Sunday, 1 December 2002 01:46 (twenty-two years ago) link

oh you FOOL! since the last sentence winds back around to the first, you are now condemned to keep on reading it FOREVER!

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 1 December 2002 05:32 (twenty-two years ago) link

How very Dahlgrenesque. Er, in reverse.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 1 December 2002 06:56 (twenty-two years ago) link

Can you explain it all to me? I bought a copy a few years ago, and I open it and look at the first few sentences and give up. I want a full and complete explanation before I'm prepared to give it another go.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 1 December 2002 17:44 (twenty-two years ago) link

cripes, i wasn't even having any luck getting started with ulysses

― ron (ron), Sunday, 1 December 2002 17:48 (twenty-two years ago) link

The Pinefox can explain Ulysses to us, though. The Pinefox, can you write an explanation of FW please? Take your time, this Christmas will do.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 1 December 2002 18:33 (twenty-two years ago) link

My edition has a fairly good introduction by John Bishop himself (whom I can name as a prof of mine). It briefs some thematic concerns, and then goes into a schematic interpretation of the plot. The "main character" HCE falls asleep or dies, and his narrative gives way to his family: wife ALP, and childers Shem, Shaun and Issy. A lost of words happen before Shaun takes over as the prominent figure when he becomes the postman, delivering letters, then finally he comes exactly like HCE, reemerging from unconsciousness.

In the meantime, Joyce sez: read it aloud with an Irish accent.

― Leee (Leee), Monday, 2 December 2002 01:29 (twenty-two years ago) link

Then it would sound like Bono free-associating lyrics circa 1994. Maybe.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 December 2002 01:33 (twenty-two years ago) link

as much as I like U2, Ned, what you posted above scares the hell out of me!

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Monday, 2 December 2002 04:19 (twenty-two years ago) link

Please note I am probably talking major smack.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 December 2002 04:22 (twenty-two years ago) link

Bono certainly needs major smacking.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 2 December 2002 13:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one month passes...

hi!Im from Azerbaijan!I need translation on russian or british(english) could you help me,on February Ihave to give my diplom work ( James Joyce "Finnegans Wake").
thanks!Bye!

― seva, Tuesday, 14 January 2003 10:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

Eeek! Ned knows of Dhalgren! Oh, wait, except he spelt it wrong, which seems unNedly. Ned, do you know of Dhalgren?

FW is my canonical favorite book but of course I've only read about half of it. And I haven't the strength to enter the Wake Zone that I was in during the several months I was reading it closely (and reading a lot about it, etc., etc.).

― Chris P (Chris P), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 10:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Reading "Finnegan's Wake" -- let alone doing diploma work -- as a non-English speaker... oh boy.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

It has been translated into other languages. I skimmed a bit of the French translation of the Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter, but my French is certainly not good enough to appreciate if it was an interesting translation. I seem to recall someone was translating it into Japanese, which seemed like a dubious goal.

If Seva comes back to read this and still wants help, http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/index.html is a page where you can start reading about Finnegans Wake, and it will make you go insane.

― Chris P (Chris P), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 17:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

apparently if you read Finnegan's Wake in a knacky Dublin accent it makes perfect sense.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 17:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wishful thinking, Vicar.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 14 January 2003 17:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

David Norris said it, so it must be true.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 17:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

''The "Anna Livia Plurabelle" chapter was supposed to be one of the most straightforward in FW, yet I managed to retain nothing from it. But I began to use a new strategy around in time for Book III, chapter 1, which I recall enjoying.''

what was this startegy then?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

It is funny seeing a thread revived celebrating finishing reading a book on the same day as Mark P's thread celebrating his finishing writing one. There's a Peter De Vries novel where one character gets an arts grant on the basis that he is working on an epic poem, and it eventually turns out that he is reading Beowulf.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's worth remembering that this is the book Sylvia Plath is reading when she cracks up in "The Bell Jar."

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 00:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was hoping this thread was going to have been posted by James Joyce.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 00:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

Who was the famous writer who said that he was saving FW for the retirement home? I was thinking it was Saul Bellow, but that can't be right, because then he'd be reading it now. Anyway, whoever said it, I think I'll emulate him.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

Eeek! Ned knows of Dhalgren! Oh, wait, except he spelt it wrong, which seems unNedly. Ned, do you know of Dhalgren?

*looks over at copy in bookcase* Yup. Wrote on it and James Baldwin's Another Country in a paper that actually got me into grad school. Should I be happy, I wonder...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hm. I have been trying to foist it on a certain mutual acquaintance for some time now. Well, I have foisted it on a number of people. This is mostly because I can pick up copies of Dhalgren pretty cheaply but I can't pick up, say, The Motion Of Light In Water or Times Square Red, Times Square Blue so cheaply.

I have two Delany books in my pile of books to read = I am in heaven. The thought of reading them is almost pleasurable enough to keep me from actually reading them.

― Chris P (Chris P), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 07:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

what was this startegy then?

I don't remember. :(

― Leee Majors (Leee), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 21:41 (twenty years ago) link

five years pass...

there is actually a FILM of finnegans wake, from 1965, and you can see it here: http://www.ubu.com/film/joyce_wake.html

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 28 April 2009 07:35 (fifteen years ago) link

That's fantastic. Make's me want to look at the book again.

― Bop Dylan (Ned Trifle II), Tuesday, 28 April 2009 08:19 (fifteen years ago) link

seven years pass...

the twitter account that just tweets line after line from this book is delightful:

https://twitter.com/finnegansreader

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 6 January 2017 07:05 (seven years ago) link

https://twitter.com/FW_WOTD

^ this is also good.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 6 January 2017 16:56 (seven years ago) link

two years pass...

Tipatonguing him on in her pigeony linguish, with a flick at the bails for lubrication, to scorch her faster, faster.
Ye hek, ye hok, ye hucky hiremonger!
Magrath he’s my pegger, he is, for bricking up all my old kent road.
— Finnegans Wake (@finnegansreader) June 29, 2019

― mark s, Saturday, 29 June 2019 19:49 (five years ago) link

Do they only tweet the naughty bits?

― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 30 June 2019 03:20 (five years ago) link

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