The easiest book in the world... seriously. With scholars unable to ever reach consensus on what the book is or how it should be read or even if it actually has value, you can simply ignore them. Your opinions are just as valid. Add to this the wads of cultural ephemera that Joyce has packed the book with and you find yourself in the rare position to occasionally be BETTER qualified to interpret parts of the text than academics.Try this, get some friends together, pop the cork on a few bottles o...

Only after you have read Dubliners & Portrait & Ulysses a half a dozen times each, and your mind still demands more Joyce, are you ready to read Finnegans Wake.

The other day we saw The Ghost, the rather fine new movie by Polanski. Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter, who's been brought in to fix up the memoirs of a British ex-Prime Minister who absolutely isn't Tony Blair. He's given the manuscript, and groans in pain."That bad?" asks the woman who isn't Cherie Blair."Well it's got all the words," says McGregor. "They're just not in the right order."This suggested to me the following simple experiment with Finnegans Wake, one of the greatest etc etc in t...

Update, 2021:OK guys, gals, and others.I'm repenting, a bit. What is written below is the representation of my head from bygone days. It's an amusing rant, and maybe I still feel marginally the same as those ways stated therein. At the same time, I am open to the challenge of the toughies of the canon. I may yet attempt a completion of this. Some people have nudge-nudged me along a bit on the virtues of modernism/post-modernism, and one of those people is myself, having engaged some taunting and...

We may come, touch and go, from atoms and ifs but we’re presurely destined to be odd’s without ends.Finnegans Wake ~~ James JoyceSelected by ME for July 2021 Big Book ReadHow do I review Finnegans Wake???I spent two weeks in Joyce's Universe, reading Finnegans Wake. I could think of nothing else but the Wake during those two weeks. I was so consumed by the Wake it felt like an intense, short term love affair ~~ ending, as it began ~~ A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve a...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Causabon's Key To All Mythologies with Guinness and Opera: “Finnegans Wake” by James Joyce"We'll meet again, we'll part once more. The spot I'll seek if the hour you'll find. My chart shines high where the blue milk's upset."In “Finnegans Wake” by James JoyceJoyce could really write. “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is exquisite, and “Ulysses” is a masterpiece. I see Joyce as a product of his 'modernist' era, certainly, but a si...

I take no shame in admitting that I cannot read this book. I was defeated after three paragraphs:"What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod’s brood, be me fear! Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms...

"Wipe your glosses with what you know." I tend never to retread the same book twice. I finish a novel or a book, digest it, then move on. Having just finished 'Finnegans Wake' I'm not sure that approach is even possible. This is a book that is simply impossible to really finish. Yes, I read from the beginning to end. Yes, I listened to it while reading. Yes, I spoke sentences out loud. Yes, I shouted words. Yes, I underlined phrases that tickled and rhymes that ringed. But, I feel like I've scra...

Looks daunting, unintelligible and incomprehensible at first. However, read it aloud and with open mind and the meaning might come down on you. I said "might" because no matter how much thinking I put on some of the paragraphs or lines, some meanings seemed so obscure and I had no choice but to let them stay that way.Still I found this book amazing. It is one of its kind. What amazed me really was its play of words. Unmatched. Never seen before. Close to it so far is Anthony Burgess's Clockwork

Prelured to a Nocturnal Pleasure"It isn't a matter of submitting uncritically to a difficult work; it's about trusting that the artist knows what he/she is doing, even if you don't apprehend it right away. Just keep reading: even the most difficult novel will eventually make some sense, and if you realise you've missed things, you can always go back for a second try if still curious...some people like a challenge...some people are open to new, initially puzzling experiences...": Steven MooreThir...

Was bin you? :: Ein luger ; faelscher ; Father of ; flibber flabber ; Miss MacLeader ; desimulate ; hazug ; trick a her stir ; leogere ; false wit ; phonitical ; cheet a puma ; con ; equal vadar ; story hearer ; promotorcross ; mensoganto ; rascal ; hṛṣi ; hyper cryter ; Hair Pseudo ; mwongo ; path and logical ; dish o nest and storter ; libel and label ; not a squarestraight shooter ; counterfèting ; defamé ; calumniacator ; ;Porce? Vava Varoom? Howso? :: I say I confirm I assert I am truthtosa...

Finnegans Wake is Joyce’s masterpiece, the culmination of his life’s work, the apex of his art, the tremendous final achievement of the 20th century’s greatest prose stylist. To ignore Joyce’s masterpiece is to miss out on one of a handful of great events in literary history. Dubliners anticipated A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A Portrait of the Artist… anticipated Ulysses, Ulysses anticipated Finnegans Wake. Joyce’s individual works are particularly momentous set side by side, as the

The Slalom of JoyledgeHowto scaledown this Beschova finntailThis filletov beginnings that sings of all endings,This pest of a pal in jestAnd bad cess to you, JoykingFor the reeding is tufftuffBut the prize is the laffingTho low in the bellyIt sores with the learningOf finnglish and jinglish Pigeon linguish and djoytischTen stories tallAnd twenty the deepingsSome to the writeoffAnd Moore to the leftingsFinn’s houseful of hawsers And hods and their spillingGive Humpty his tallwallAnd role in all f...

It is not possible to write a review for Finnegan’s Wake like I normally write my reviews. Instead, I will do a list of bullet point thoughts I had along the way and after finishing.- First, I can already tell this is one of those books that some are going to be really into for its classic cultural impact and relevancy. Because of this, my two stars might “offend” or cause some to reply “you just don’t get it!”. Well, that’s true . . . I didn’t get it and I don’t mean to irritate fans of the boo...

Why you will read Finnegans Wake:The short of it is this: have a think about all your greatest achievements, the accomplishments you’re most proud of. What they have in common is hard work and originality. Read Finnegans Wake. Fine, you know what? If you’re even in this review for the short term, chances are you won’t read it. If anyone’s still interested, please let me convince you further.Michael Chabon, Pulitzer-prize winning author, wrote a big article for The New York Review of Books on why...

Everybody knows the plot of Finnegans Wake. Rich, old man Finnegan has died, leaving behind no will and no direct heirs. A riotous comedy of errors ensues at his wake (an open-casket affair), where his extended family and business associates (a collection of colourful, conniving characters to say the least), vie for supremacy, each one plotting and scheming to inherit Finnegan’s vast business empire and considerable real estate portfolio, which features amongst numerous holdings the grand and op...

This is not a fair score, I'll admit it right up front. This book affirms my reasoning for reading the first few pages of a book before buying it. This I bought because I've been trying to read more classics, but my experience has shown me that classics shouldn't be exempted from the first few page practice.Here's the second paragraph of the book:"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 t...

Let me explain the five-star rating. When I was teenager I was ludicrously shy. I was the son and heir of a shyness that was criminally vulgar. My all-conquering shyness kept Morrissey in gold-plated ormolu swans for eight years. Any contact with human beings made me mumble in horror and scuttle off to lurk in dark corners. But I developed this automatic writing technique in school to ease my mounting stress whenever teachers were poaching victims to answer questions, perform presentations or ge...

Stealing an idea from Manny's review, here's part of the (British) Highway Code if it was written by James Joyce any time during the last 17 years of his life. This is the section called ROAD SIGNALSSwarn and inform other roadusers aminxt that nombre of evelings, including pedestrigirls and jumbleboys (see 'and twinglings of twitchbells in rondel’ section twoozle para fleeph), of your inbended actions. You should have a kelchy chose and clayblade and at all times make prayses to the three of clu...

Well, let's be honest. I'll try not to hurt susceptibilities.Did you like Joyce's Ulysses? Do you want more? So get around Finnegans Wake!The object defies all summary; I renounce it. Suffice it to say that the work is deemed untranslatable, even illegible. Of course, we do not ask that of the genius, but it is clear that Joyce does not condescend to leave heaven to put himself a little at our level. The burlesque and iconoclastic puns tearing away a thin smile, the obscure references to literat...