Finnegans Wake

MFW Non native english so attempting to read Finnegan's would be a senseless task

i believe you OP. I will read the whole thing once I finish re-reading dubliners, portrait and ulysses. Pretty excited.

don't know how accurate is this, but I saved this description a while back from another thread and every once in a while I stop to admire joyce's genius

"The book is about a family asleep in Dublin: an amiable but curiously guilty husband, his forgiving wife, their lovely daughter, and their two competitive sons. But the narrative does not concern itself with describing their tossing and turning and snoring and such: during the course of the night, the father dreams, and Finnegans Wake is the text of this dream. And not just any dream, for his dreams have dreams of their own, and these dreams encompass the whole of history, with all its races, religions, mythologies, and languages; all its loves and hates, enmities and affinities – all melting and flowing into each other, revealing the cyclical, unchanging nature of life.

Finnegans Wake does not describe a dream; as mentioned above, the text is a dream. Or at least, it comes as close as Joyce could bring it to imitating a dream.

In Finnegans Wake, Joyce takes stream-of-consciousness narrative to the next level, plunging the reader into another world, one where the narrative conventions of the waking world are abolished. In dreams, an entirely different set of rules congeals from the fog, and since analysis is a tool of the waking mind, we are not granted immediate comprehension of these rules – that is, assuming they can even be understood. In dreams, we are utterly complacent when the strange woman we are talking to suddenly becomes our mother, or a house we have never seen rings with all the familiarity of home, and then becomes a castle; or a tree becomes a stone. The narrative of Finnegans Wake reflects this mercurial reality, this hypnogogic logic: characters and scenes melt into each other (sometimes literally!), and allegorical or mythic counterparts exist for everything and everybody. Here time collapses and becomes meaningless, and all identities are mutable – a series of masks to be shuffled and discarded as the need arises. In the Wake, even the words themselves are impossible to pin down to any one clear definition."

What do ya'll think about Joyce's dirty ass love letters?

Finnegans Wake is a text that works by directly stimulating and kicking up the primordial unconscious murk of the signified. That's why it's so unmistakably dreamlike, it is freely associative and compounded and archetypal and unconscious. I don't know how Joyce did it but it's just mind-blowing

But even natives can't understand it.

I'm 75% thru pic related and it has given me a hundredfold multiplied appreciation for this book

Joyce wrote into Finnwake his own unique theory of vision, color, dreams, hearing, origins of language, and primarily deep sleep

The scope of the subject matter is mind blowing indeed, I can't wait to finish this book and start rereading Finnwake with a new orientation

It's probably the greatest book ever written (finnwake, though pic related has been super interesting)

I'll admit, it made much more sense than I thought it would. Thank you for convincing me to give it another go. It's tempting to click on all the annotations but I think it'll be more enjoyable if I just pick up the actual text. Have you read the whole thing or were you just blown away by the first 10 pages?

I do have an excuse: I'm reading history. Just took a break and I'm going back in now.

It's not worth the effort in my opinion. I admire him and enjoyed his other works, but I don't have time for this. I'm going to die without being able to read and learn 1/10 of all I want, and I don't plan on spending endless hours trying to figure out this riddle.

For me it's fun to read, you don't need to 'figure it out' on any level to enjoy it (imo)

I don't. I enjoyed his other works as I said but not this, but that's just me. Oh, and I'm not the user you were talking to by the way.

I wasn't either heh

If I were to read a guide to it what would be the best way of doing it? I'm not a fan of constantly referring to something else as I read a book, would it make sense to read a guide first then go into the book, or maybe read the book first then read the guide then read the book? Or maybe I should just read it at the same time as the guide?

A good starting point would be Joseph Campbell's book imo.
What I did was randomly open the book and read aloud 5-10 pages, I did this for awhile and enjoyed it, then I read the Skeleton Key
Eventually I read the whole thing, and now I'm reading John Bishop's book, and it's amazing. I don't know about any page by page sort of guide, I don't think that would be a fun way to read it, seems more like a chore.

I'd read a bit of the wake here and there just to get a feel and then read a book about it and then dive back into it start to finish

But I already read it this year

I like the enthusiasm user. That's really all you need to get through it. That and the understanding that you don't have to understand it 100% right now. I have a couple tips before you jump in. You should read Beckett; his style and structure is heavily derived from FW but imminently more readable, so you can use him as a way to reverse engineer FW. You should read The Bible or at least the gospels (the four are a recurring motif). And check out a Joyce biography, Ellmann's is good if a bit dry. FW doesn't lift as much from Joyce's life as his other works but there certainly is enough in there.

>reading stoned potatospeak in 2017

No thanks, I'm still trying to finish IJ

Redpill me on this. What's some of your favorite ideas in that book?

>bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
what the fuck

>Pow!
>Bang!
>oh onomatopoeia, gotta love it!
> bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
>what the fuck
come on bro it's just a neat way to explain the sound of what just happened

Isn't literature meant to flow well and be enjoyable? This is like shitty poetry with unnatural obfuscation, extended into a whole, continuous book.

One is that during deep sleep your sensory organs no longer take in the 'awake' frequencies of experience, in fact they block them off like an umbrella does rain
however, the higher bandwidths that float through the ether, ultraviolet, ultrasonic, these things... cosmic radiation all pervasive, still persist, and are given the front stage in the absence of your awake sensory phenomena, they coalesce behind the eyelids and form their own theatre of the mind... that which is constantly present everywhere in the universe now has play, which fits nicely with the idea that deep sleep reconstructs the monomyth, the omnipresent archyetypal narrative of the universe

also that ears never "shut down" during sleep because ears, unlike eyes, have no 'lid' and are therefore constantly modulating the experience of sleep / dreams even if we're not consciously aware of the external sounds
actually I'm still reading that chapter but, this and many other things are stimulating my mind like no other book has

Hmm, interesting. I think you're getting at brainwaves? There are alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc brainwaves.

In deepsleep your pineal gland enters you into another realm, but from some introspection in lucid dreams, I found out thst some things aren't *as* connected as we would like to think in a cosmic conscious/collective unconscious type of way (though this could have been affected by my current mindset and a dumb question to my unconscious that was something along the lines of "are you (person from life memory) experiencing this dream too, and we're both communicating to each other at the same time??) (Obviously in this instance that was not the case as shewn by myself)

Did you know melatonin is structurally similar to DMT? Take away C02 from it, and know that deeper, more oxygenated breaths happen within sleep, and you get something like that eh?

Mmm, deeper breathing occurring naturally in deep sleep huh
Pineal gland, the inner eye, also has its place in Finnwake, it might even be the unmentioned center stage if my interpretations thus far are accurate
When all the senses are gone, and in nearly every page on the wake there is the insinuation of a dead man (corpse, our moundings mass, tropped head, dead to the world), then the pineal would take precedent naturally

Thank you for actually posting something worthwhile on this shitty, contrarian board. I will actually take the time to try read and understand and hopefully discuss this with the rest of the people here that are actually interested in literature, cheers op!

Damn homie it really happens.

It's certainly an interesting-sounding book (but dont get too lost in tha sauce, keeķe keeķe namsayn? Aint irl and 30'outdateddepictions of ~dreamlife~

*blasts mybloodyvalentine only shallow at full dəçibeleys*

sometimes is their best track imo

“You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy?”

Great book, OP. I've been reading it for a few weeks obsessively. But making this post is a bad idea. This is Veeky Forums.

. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.

+1. I'm partial n nostalgic to Who Sees You

But I'm a brainlet, user :(

just read it

I don't plan on being a father in my lifetime
but if I could read to a small child in bed
I would read Finnegans Wake to the kid

It's a thing like that

I finished reading finnegans wake a few weeks ago. I really love Joyce and this was the last of his novels for me to read. As with his other books I had avoided any analysis/description prior to reading and went in blind.

There are so many tough parts to this book, it's a fucking chore to read and process. I've never had to focus on parsing what the fuck is happening before.

That being said it's a pretty fantastic book. It's fun to pick up on scenes and build your own narrative for the novel. Fun to read other peoples analysis after the fact. Fun to compare and contrast versus your experience and parsing of the text.

All in all something I need to read again.

This is a proper attitude

It's good to have no bias going in

Just let the book carry you along the white rapids of its foaming bubbling narrative

This is what I'm doing, as well. I picked up the Oxford World's Classics version in a comfy Dublin bookstore, and it has a brief chapter-by-chapter outline at the beginning.

I thoroughly enjoy writing notes to myself while I try to figure out what's going on, then reading the analysis. It really helps that I know German and a bit of French, but I obviously wouldn't recommend learning the languages just for a marginal increase in enjoyment.

youtu.be/TV3vT5nW_I4

At least try and do some research bro. The thunderwords are great.

You're not supposed to 'understand' anything!

'flow' is a hip hop/rap word, never heard it in relation to Literature.

Then you haven't read a lot.

go on...

I've tried a couple of times. I loved Ulysses and. contrarian I ma, wanted to love The Wake. It was over my head. Honestly I learned more from the wiki than the book itself - alone I couldn't have wroked out the name of a character or a chapter or any plot.

what the fuck.

One time my bipolar friend was manic and wrote a 10-page letter with no punctuation that sounded a lot like this.

I'm quite sure I will never be able to read this book.

Has anyone read Robert Anton Wilson's writings on Finnegans Wake?

thanks for the tips user. I've been meaning to reread his others works for themselves (especially ulysses), not just to get to FW, but I figured it would be good to do so just before FW.

>read beckett and joyce biohraphy
I will but unfortunately not now, will probably read him inbewteen my first and second FW read though

>bible
almost finishing OT so I can get to the gospels before FW

thanks again user

I don't know whether it is brilliant or like Grogarty said, 'The biggest leg pull in the history of literature.' But either makes it worth reading

why cant it be the most brilliant leg pull?

Whose voice do you hear in your head when reading? For me it's Joyce's friend Ezra Pound, I just love his exaggerated rolling R's.

Is good modern literature really just puzzles? Pynchon writes about Shakespeare and badgers, Borges is always alluding to shit, etc.

That edition is great, I would recommend it to anyone

Some critics feel like the techniques are a good idea that could have been used within another novel. A chaper long dream sequence perhaps. But a massive novel in this style just asks way to much of any reader. It takes a couple of hours, with google and college library, to parse each page. People don't put this much effort into the Bible anymore. Joyce himself had his doubts and at one point was considering having it ghostwritten.

The tragedy is the 17 years it took could have seen Joyce surpass Ulysses. John Banville thinks he should have, post Ulysses, gone back to the realism of Dubliners as a way to reign himself in artistically, as an artist needs form.

Shize? I should shee! Macool, Macool, orra whyi deed ye diie?
of a trying thirstay mournin? Sobs they sighdid at Fillagain's
chrissormiss wake, all the hoolivans of the nation, prostrated in
their consternation and their duodisimally profusive plethora of
ululation.

This sounds like music read aloud, its great. No idea what it means like, but still:)

Bump for the greatest novel ever written

genius.com/James-joyce-finnegans-wake-chap-11-annotated

Are dreams really like this? I've only experienced my own dreams, but they seem mostly visual...and the language thats in them is normal. I actually thought something similar about Joyce and Wolfe's more normal interior monologue use: do people think like that?

The bulk Joyce’s contribution to literature were essentially compilations of the entirety of western literature. So I can basically read the entirety of the canon and I would have already read Joyce.

Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore 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.

Isaac is a reference to Charles Parnell...who'd'a got that?

>mfw trying to read this shit
Coming from a guy who loved Dubliners, Portrait and even Ulysses

say this aloud in a sing-song Irish accent

They're at the wake of Finn MacCool. You just gotta look for stuff like
>>thirstay mournin'
>thirsty mourning
>Thursday morning
and note the duality of what's being said. A lesser Joyce would say it's funetic.

"macool" seems to be a lamentation or a term of endearment, followed by a slurred "oh why did you die? of a trying thirstay (Thursday/thirsty) mournin (morning/mourning)

>trying to read finnegans wake
>hasn't read Striking and Picturesque Delineations of the Grand, Beautiful, Wonderful, and Interesting Scenery Around Loch-Earn

Never going to make it.

I just call it 'The Wake...'

excuse my ignorance, but how does that book relate to that book (or vice versa) and/or what makes it relevant to the FW readinfg? genuinely curious, it seems interesting

>how does that book relate to that book
how does it relate to FW, excuse the alcohol

I've watched this twenty times. How does the branch go through the lower post on the bottom right??

Quantum tunneling. Doggo is very smart

OH FUCK

Is Finnegans Wake basically the Trout Mask Replica of literature?

What the fuck? How?

that's a pretty good comparison actually. I certainly couldn't think of a better one

It is, but Clarence Clarity's No Now reminds me of FW even more so, for many reasons

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo, goo, g'joob

dip in and out of it, a paragraph here and there, you can get something out of it if you forget reading it like a conventional novel

The dog twists the stick forward too, so the back of the stick juts further out back, and doesn't hit the bottom part of the wooden post

Look at how far out the bottom of the branch extends before doggo starts walking

Very true. That's what I was getting at really. Either it is pure brilliance or an absolute genius turning the English language on its head for a bit of fun which would still make it worth reading ahead of most books. Either way, I love it. I am by no means claiming to find it easy, but it is definitely worth the effort to read.

OP were not a faggot this time.

great thread OP, the ones like this give me a bit a hope in this place. I love discussing JJ and his works, even though I haven't read FW yet buy am very excited.

good day to you all

Thanks for the thread OP. I'm reading classic literature only this year, reading Don Quixote now and still have Paradise Loft to read, so there's my excuse.
so nice to see decent anons around here.
So, i get this and i get a part of the next sentence but still, what does this even mean:

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.

I get that Sir Tristram is a knight, returning to ireland, but right after that i'm lost again. With or without the annotations.

We're in a computer simulation.

I am actually doing a research paper on the themes of Finnegans Wake.