finish finnegans wake

A work of mad genius. Who am I to criticize? It took Joyce 17 years to write it and it contains the history of the world. It seemed to take me as long to read it and I comprehended only a few atoms of Joyce’s world.

It is a book like no other.

OK, sometimes Joyce catches me unawares and I laugh.

Thank goodness, or I don’t think I could finish Finnegans Wake. I’ve passed page 500, though, so things are looking good. The section between page 400 and page 500 was a little faster going because there were long passages where the words were real words. I still couldn’t understand the sentences and don’t know what happened, but at least I could read the words.

I am now over 2/3 of the way through (on page 425). I still do not understand anything that happens (not that anything really happens), but I still enjoy some of the words. Every once in a while, I come across something like “a slanty, scanty shanty” or “any filly in a fog” and I laugh. But right now, this is definitely an endurance contest, not a reading experience.

I was doing great with my plan to read 10 pages a day and get this finished by St. Patrick’s Day. But then I moved 10 days ago and things have been so hectic that I haven’t read a page. I should get back at it this week, but now it looks like an early April finish date (if I can stick with it).

As always happens, now that I am reading FW, I have come across several references in other books that I’m reading. Humbolt in Saul Bellow’s Humbolt’s Gift is a big Wake fan and sends postcards with Wake-like puns. Erika Jong mentions FW in Fear of Flying. I’ll probably find others before I’m finished.

Thank goodness there are smart people out there! This guy gives a pretty good explaination of Finnegans Wake for those of us who have never encountered it.

http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/joyce_works_fw.html

I’m 25 pages in, and all I can say is “What the Hell?” I understand that it is highly sophisticated word play, the elaborate product of a genius mind, blah, blah, blah. I can even decipher a sentence here and there. I think it has something to do with Irish history. But overall, it’s gobblygook. What’s going on?

My goal is ten pages a day. At that rate, I will finish it on St. Patrick’s Day. Appropriate. I can’t promise to understand it, just read it. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.