Summer of the Wake discussion

(I'm on page 100, that's not TOO far behind is it?)

Yeah, stuck here on page 135 for now. Looking for reading time . . .

I'm at 90-something, the start of the Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter, and even that's after skipping ahead several pages.

(Contemplating throwing in the towel...)

I have thought of that too, but this is such a great book -- so full of jokes, puns, and fascinating info on Irish history, Egyptian myth, other languages, clothing, drink, and oodles of other topics -- that I am loath to do it.

I think the 5 page a day schedule is just tough to keep up, though. Reading this book really takes a lot of time.

Revision to my previous post, I'm now around page 116, and it's not really the ALP chapter I was thinking it was when I wrote that. It's the one that starts "In the name of Anna the Allmaziful..." with the Lord's Prayer parody, and has the part about Belinda the hen finding Anna's letter in dungheap.

This chapter seems MUCH easier than the previous two.

The problem for me is that it feels like for every one pun than makes me go "ha! that's brilliant!" there are around 20 that either completely escape me, or just seem like empty, show-offy wordplay. It's like hearing the same joke over and over, it ceases to be funny and amusing and just becomes tedious. It gets to be where the only way I can find any shred of "narrative" is to literally open the Skeleton Key and FW side by side and read back and forth between them. That seems to take some of the pleasure out of the experience, and on top of that I can't really do that on the bus - and I tend to do most of my reading on my morning bus rides to work.

That's a problem for me too. I tried reading the book on the bus as well and it is impossible -- I need to take notes, and I find most of it incomprehensible if I don't look at finwake.com and the plot summary guides as I go. So the book not only takes time, but special at a desk or table time.

Still, this is a remarkable book. More and more it makes me feel as though I'm reading complex, deeply laid embroidery.

Don't get discouraged, guys!

Daniel, when I read what you said, this quote that naru posted in the Introductions thread came to mind:
-"If one surrenders the need to be master of everything – or even most things – in this strange and magnificent book, it will pour forth lots of rewards. As it says in the Irish American ballad from which Joyce derived his title, after all, 'There's lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake.'" -John Bishop

I think "surrender" is a really good word for the experience of reading this book. For me, its most rewarding to read this when I focus on the text and the emotional flow of it... I guess you could say trying to make out the "gestures" that Joyce is making using hints of narrative.

Like I've mentioned before, I'm using guides sparingly and just trying to get as much from the text itself as possible. I know I'm missing a lot, but the way I see it, I'll always be able to come back and dig deeper if I want to. I probably spend about 5 minutes on each page. I think one of the things I've found in reading Joyce is that it's much more enjoyable when I don't try to come to a "final" reading/understanding like I would reading other books.

This James Joyce quote has always stuck with me, not sure where I first read it:
"“All I ask of my reader is that he devote his entire life to reading my works."
(haha!)

Maybe we should try to take a close look at a single page?