I would unironically like to read Finnegans Wake. What is/are the best guide(s)?

I would unironically like to read Finnegans Wake. What is/are the best guide(s)?

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fractiousfiction.com/finnegans_wake.html
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Dude just fucking don't. It's really a piece of shit book designed to troll it's readers. I mean, Joyce himself that the best way to ensure your immortality is to keep scholars guessing about what you meant for years to come. He wrote that fucking thing in several different languages, and basically made up words, so that what he's saying is a vague stream of consciousness mind fuck. Nothing about that book can be comprehended by any of the readers on lit, nor should it be attempted to, unless you're like the most fantastic scholar in all of the world. Because otherwise you'd just be wasting your time.

Finnegan's Wake is all the difficulty of Ulysses but amped up to 11 and without any of the engrossing subtext. No one really reads it, they """read""" it. For example, I """read""" it, purely for the sake of telling other people I read it, and got nothing from the experience because it's obscurant to the nth degree, as that was Joyce's purpose.

If you want something challenging that you have to sink your teeth into, read Ulysses. FW is just a mess.

why is finnegans wake a cube

Better question:

Is timecube the spiritual successor to Finnegans Wake?

>can't understand timecube
Do you even reality?

Can I get the Finnegans Wake copypasta please?

I don't know about guides, but read sections out loud to yourself in an Irish accent. It helps some of the linguistic puns come across better and honestly it's also pretty fun.

Don't listen to everyone else, Finnegans Wake is a total blast to read, and if you don't like it you can always stop. Also I don't know if a guide is the best way to go mainly because most of the fun was reading weird fragments of common phrases I vaguely remember from back when I was a toddler or something. I think that's basically the point of the book, to capture the feeling of that stage in life before you fully started to grasp the concepts of language/logic/life in general. Basically I think a guide is pointless because the assloads of allusions are there so you everyone can have something to get out of it, not so you can crack some puzzle and figure out Joyce's intent.

This.

The Skeleton Key is OK if you want to get a grip on the plot. There are also lots of lectures available. Once you understand who the characters are and what they represent you can safely leave guides behind.

fractiousfiction.com/finnegans_wake.html


also, fun fact: Harold Bloom thinks the difficulties of Finnegans Wake are just surface level.

>read TOO much into
No, in fact the fun part is you cannot.

haven't read but plan to someday

this might help:

google FWEET
Finnegans
Wake
Extensible
Elucidation
Treasury

>reading a thing that requires you to read 50 other things before, during, and after
>ever

I find something humorous on every page of FW. Maybe ya'll are just dumb?

You're reading it out loud to yourselves, right? You have to actually pronounce the invented words to get the jokes.

Oh definitely keep talking about it then instead of reading it.

Read the chapter on it by Robert Anton Wilson in the book Coincidance

what the fuck

If you're a genius scholar with a brain overflowing with canonical knowledge, then you might be able to make some sense of it in an absurd diagrammatic form a la pic related, but its quite a pointless endeavour. Read it for its playfulness of language, instead of trying to make sense of it as a narrative as such.

seconding. If I were to recommend any supplemental material for FW it would be Robert Anton Wilson's essay.

>not even including how you say "stephen" in "past eve and"

It is Adam and Steve!

OP here, I love Joyce and I have read Ulysses. Guys, I should clarify that I'm mainly looking for a guide to understand a lot of the allusions, multilingual puns, etc. Not to "get it" or anything. I understand what kind of reading experience it's supposed to be.

So you want someone else to do all the work for you? Just start the book already pussy, and remember to read it out loud.

That's silly user. A lot of the allusions and puns are nigh impossible to get for the layman without some scholarly guidance. Bad advice.

While this is an interesting graphic, it still leaves me wondering why I should care about this particular sentence. Clearly it's packed with allusions, but what's the point of them? It points you in so many directions but doesn't actually say anything substantive.

>the point
is the point. it's just the work of man whose equally insane as genius

>it still leaves me wondering why I should care about this particular sentence.
The point isn't that you should care. It's not trying to prove how great the sentence is, just that its use of language means you can find many things inside it that you might find amusing. It's just something that people have found entertaining to do.

>Love loves to love love

Uhh, what did he mean by this?