Finnegans Wake is the primal James Joyce meisterwork. It is a confusing and confounding piece of experimental literature, which Joyce considered (unironically?) a piece of everyday reading for the "common reader". It took him almost 20 years to complete (1922-1939--over half of his literary lifetime"), and is, in the words of Joyce scholar John Bishop, "perhaps, the single most intentionally crafted literary artifact that our culture has produced; the work which Joyce considered his greatest, and on which he rested his reputation."
It is, nonetheless, a super difficult piece to walk through without any sort of guide, unless you happen to speak the over 50 pieces of language he uses in the work. Also, it helps if you are a master of anagrams, and can speak with an Irish brogue. That last point is essential really, as well as an appreciation of puns. If you don't like puns, wordplay, or Irish culture, I suggest you disembark here. If you want to excavate, explicate, or otherwise journey through this challenging piece of word-jumbled literature, I can only assure you it has all the charm and some of the expectation of an archaeology dig. There is a lot of dirt sifting, with only the faintest hope of unearthing a treasure. The difference is, if you are an amateur philologist, Celticist, Joycean,
I am on my first-second read through of the work, armed only with a faint imprint of Irish mythology, some elementary German, and a weak Irish brogue (I've spent my entire life in the Southern United States). Oh, and I've read John Bishop's introduction to the 1999 edition of the book.
My goal is to try to simply walk through the text with you as I am receiving it currently, with as small a sideboard of commentary as possible, as I myself am trying to take it on. I encourage you to take it on with as little introduction as possible other than what I am offering here. If you become frustrated with the obscure subtext, I suggest beginning with Bishop's introduction to the novel. I began reading about a year ago, cover to cover. After several months with little progress, I broke down and read the introduction. After about a year, I have decided to spend a lot more time beginning to excavate what seems at this point to be the heart of the matter (in medias res) rather than simply in the midst of things (in medias rebus) as the book begins. Don't get me wrong, the first few pages of the book reeled me in, but after that I broke down for lack of plot-based narrative to keep me moving forward. My plan is to begin with what seems to be the heart of the book, and see where that leads me.
In short, my introduction to you is thus: the book represents a single night's dream of a sleeping Irishman. It often times appears to be a series of word-puzzles and puns only loosely interconnected with rambling characters and narratives. At times, there seems to be the interposition of noises coming from the world outside of the dozing Irishman.
Otherwise, I will begin you Finnegan with where I think is the heart of any kind of story or character, of Fenian dreams, in the book: the Watches of Shaun (Book 3). I strongly urge you to try to read it aloud, with the best Irish brogue you can muster, however silly it sounds. I also encourage you to simply overlook any language you cant make any sense of, and continue reading aloud until you have finished the passage. Enjoy the humor of the puns, wordplay, and intentional misspellings.
The structuring and line breaks are my own translation of the text. Meant to help translate the semantics of Joyce's dense verbal assault.
FINNEGANS WAKE
BOOK 3
THE WATCHES OF SHAUN
CHAPTER ONE: THE FIRST WATCH OF SHAUN (SHAUN THE POST)
PART 1. "Post the Post!" p. 405-406
"Hark!
Tolv two elf kater ten (it can't be) sax.
Hork!
Pedwar pemp foify tray (it must be) twelve.
And low stole o'er the stillness of the heartbeats of sleep.
White figure spans. The arch embattled. Mark as capsules.
The nose of the man who was nought like the nasoes. It is self-tinted, wrinkling, ruddled. His kep is a gorescone. He am Gascon Tibutante of Tegmine--sub---Fagi whose fixtures are mobiling so woibling befear my remembrants.
She, exhibit next, his Anastashie. She has prayings in lowdelph. Zeehere green egg-brooms.
What named blautoothdmand is yon who stares? Gugurtha! Gugurtha! He has becco of wild hindigan. Ho, he hath hornhide! And hvis now is for you. Pensee! The most beautiful of woman of the veilch veilchen veilde. She would kidds to my voult of my palace, with obscidian luppas, her all in her dhove's suckling. Apagemonite! Come not nere! Black! Switch out!
Methought as I was dropping asleep somepart in nonland of where's please (and it was when you and they were we)
I heard at zero hour as 'twere the peal of vixen's laughter among midnight's chimes from out the belfry of the cute old speckled church tolling so faint
a goodmantrue as nighthood's unseen violet rendered all animated greatbritish and Irish objects nonviewable to human watchers
save 'twere perchance anon some glistery gleam darkling adown surface of affluvial flowandflow as again might seem garments of laundry reposing a leasward close at hand in full expectation.
And so as I was jogging along in a dream as dozing I was dawdling, arrah, methought broadtone was heard and the creepers and the gliders and flivvers of the earth breath and the dancetongues of the woodfires and the hummers in the ground all vociferated echoating:
Shaun!
Shaun!
Post the Post!
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