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Finnegans Wake
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Yea, reading the introduction is probably a must. ^^ I admit: I skipped the introduction after giving it a thought - then deciding I would need the time to manage at least one chapter this week. - Now I'm thinking about going back to the introductory part ... ^^
Thanks Jon, I'll check out the links later. I plan on reading my books introduction this week, so I'll add in the other resources too. Do you plan on reading any other guides or notes as you go along? I'm sure I'll need to digest and discuss after each chapter, but I might need some additional help.
On the plus side, I've read that it's practically impossible to understand what it's about, so there's no need to worry that I'm not comprehending it, as I expect not to.
I've also read that it's highly recommended to try reading aloud, to pick up all of those lovely puns, so I might give that a go.
Mod
Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
An' to rise in the world he carried a hod
You see he'd a sort of a tipplers way
but for the love for the liquor poor Tim was born
To help him on his way each day,
he'd a drop of the craythur every morn
Chorus
Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
round the flure yer trotters shake
Bend an ear to the truth they tell ye,
we had lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake
One morning Tim got rather full,
his head felt heavy which made him shake
Fell from a ladder and he broke his skull, and
they carried him home his corpse to wake
Rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
and laid him out upon the bed
A bottle of whiskey at his feet
and a barrel of porter at his head
His friends assembled at the wake,
and Widow Finnegan called for lunch
First she brought in tay and cake,
then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch
Biddy O'Brien began to cry,
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see,
Tim, auvreem! O, why did you die?",
"Will ye hould your gob?" said Paddy McGee
Then Maggie O'Connor took up the cry,
"O Biddy" says she "you're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and sent her sprawling on the floor
Then the war did soon engage,
t'was woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began
Mickey Maloney ducked his head
when a bucket of whiskey flew at him
It missed, and falling on the bed,
the liquor scattered over Tim
Now the spirits new life gave the corpse, my joy!
Tim jumped like a Trojan from the bed
Cryin will ye walup each girl and boy,
t'underin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?"
Mod
I've got A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: James Joyce's Masterwork Revealed by Joseph Campbell
Oh!!! *wounded reader crawls across the library floor* You guys are so lucky to read this now. *more crawling* That beacon of Joycean Goodness!! It's impossible for me to join.... and I have a Sniper's Promise of a good reason!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMK74...
*squeals* I'm reading Ulysses! But I'll haunt these threads in the fall when I get to Finnegans! Enjoy! With all your little Irish Hearts!
Thanks for the additional info Katy. That skeleton key book looks like a good idea. You'll have to let us know if it helps clarify things once we get started. Biblio, good luck with Ulysses. This thread will still be here when you're ready. Hopefully with lots of really insightful and not at all confused thoughts!!
Thanks, Katy, for posting the poem. I remember reading (and marking) some similar lines on the first pages of Joyce's version.
Reading aloud is probably the best way to go, as Joyce spells out rather the similar sounding words than the sentence he's formulating. - Though I think we can get used to the Joycean way of creative spelling the longer we read ...
Pair it with an Irish accent audiobook. Some of the words can be understood better in the accent. And it just add humour for the rest! There's a GR friend of mine who's all things Joyce, I'll mention to him your reading this. He's spending the year on FW.
@Biblio: Could you recommend such an audiobook/ online reading?
Katy wrote: "Here are the traditional words for the Irish Ballad of Finnegan's Wake.Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
An' to rise in the ..."
Reminds me of "Johnny Tarr" by Gaelic Storm in some ways!
Possibly this one:https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-A...
Jim Norton is excellent, but it's not free (that I can find)
https://www.naxosaudiobooks.com/ulyss...
The current Librivox is an embarrassment. (Usually they are pretty good)
I've recently re-listened to Ulysses narrated by Jim Norton and thought he done an excellent job.
Thanks Biblio! Things aren't going so well for me right now (in general, not connected to FW). So I'm thinking about dropping Finnegans Wake for another two weeks, then trying to catch up with you guys. The audio will come in really handy then. :)
Hugs for you! And anyone else who needs a hug ^.^
Right so I got through the first two chapters and while I think I was basically on top of most of what was going on in the first chapter that rapidly devolved in the second.Using the breakdowns from my contents page some of my still disorgandised thoughts on Chapter One to start us off:
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
- Great opening line, rather like Ulysses. Something about the rhythm of it just has me repeating it over and over again: ‘riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and the environs.’
- As a section I felt I could follow most of the descriptions of Tim Finnegan and the many warpings of his name (Bygmeister Finnegan, Mister Funn, Finnagain) and the ‘skyscraper’ he’s building which I think is a kind of Babel reference?
- Various lines of the song warped re-Joyceanly ‘His howd feeled heavy, his hoddit did shake.’
- Things I was looking out for because of the prereading I did were:
--References to the fall (Finnegan from a ladder, the ‘hurturtling out of heaven’ of Satan, and Eve and Adams fall in the garden of Eden.
--References to retold stories and the 1001 nights. ‘Heed, heed. It may half been a misfired brick, as some say [...] (There extand by now one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same)’
--References to the nightime (Ulysses being in the critical mind the book of the day, The Wake of the night.)
The Museum
-One of my favourite bits so far is the bizarre description of what I think is Waterloo: Napoleon (Lipoleum) and Wellington (Willingdone) at each other’s throat. And wasn’t Wellington a closet Irishman?
The Finding of the Letter
- Totally missed the bit where a letter was found in this section, despite the title.
The Prehistory of Ireland
- Not sure what the significance of those dates are? Anyone else?
Mutt & Jute / Jarl & The Prankquean
- I have few notes for these sections because I got a bit lost. Not least because I have no clue what a prankquean is?
- Though this line though seemed like a summary of Finnegans Wake itself: ‘So you need hardly spell me how every word is bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical reading throughout the book of Doublends Jined’.
The Fall / The Wake
- Relative* sanity, some good old fashioned ruckusing and a return to warped song lyrics: 'Did you drink me doornail?’ then I guess after he’s resurrected he goes back to sleep and all this might be his dream or something?
Introduction of HCE
- The best kenning for a ship I’ve ever read is ‘deadsea dugong’.
- Final word/pun of ‘Edenborough’ feels important. Celtic city melded with Eden, but draws away from the Irish thing. I guess Dublin could be the Eden-borough?
*Very very relative.
So, I've read the introduction and have a bit of grounding in what it's about. I'm intrigued by the idea that the first sentence is a continuation of the last sentence of the book, so I guess it could be read over and over. Coming off the back of my second reading of Ulysses and reading the notes on this, it sounds like we're getting some more indecent exposures, quirky sexual behaviours and probably some mentions of farting and faeces. Can't wait! Though I might not even notice what's going on.
I'll read the first chapter tomorrow and report back if I notice anything about the letter, have any idea what's happening and to give my initial thoughts. If it's anything like the first chapter of Ulysses I think I might also me lured into thinking it's not so hard to understand, little did I know! I'm expecting much worse here.
Pink wrote: "If it's anything like the first chapter of Ulysses I think I might also me lured into thinking it's not so hard to understand, little did I know! I'm expecting much worse here."I don't think there's much risk of you reading Chapter One and being lured into a false sense of security... Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the chapter though.
How's everyone else getting along?
I got very lost very quickly in chapter two.According to Wiki this is what happens:
I.2 opens with an account of "Harold or Humphrey" Chimpden receiving the nickname "Earwicker" from the Sailor King, who encounters him attempting to catch earwigs with an inverted flowerpot on a stick while manning a tollgate through which the King is passing. This name helps Chimpden, now known by his initials HCE, to rise to prominence in Dublin society as "Here Comes Everybody". He is then brought low by a rumour that begins to spread across Dublin, apparently concerning a sexual trespass involving two girls in the Phoenix Park, although details of HCE's transgression change with each retelling of events.
Chapters I.2 through I.4 follow the progress of this rumor, starting with HCE's encounter with "a cad with a pipe" in Phoenix Park. The cad greets HCE in Gaelic and asks the time, but HCE misunderstands the question as an accusation, and incriminates himself by denying rumours the cad has not yet heard. These rumours quickly spread across Dublin, gathering momentum until they are turned into a song penned by the character Hosty called "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly".
I did not follow much of this except in brief flashes.
This may also be of use as a reference, although I found it a bit too fine grain to help me much: http://www.finnegansweb.com/wiki/inde...
CHAPTER TWO
The Naming of HCE
- I am famous: ‘So he kinned Jom Pill with his court so gray and his haunts in the house in the mourning..’
- ‘[...] a pleasant turn of the populace which gave him as sense of those normative letters the nickname Here Comes Everybody.’ This nickname must be important because Joyce called used Here Comes Everybody as the title for this section when it was published as an extract. I guess this makes HCE some sort of Everyman?
-- I think thats backed up by the pun: ‘homogenius’/homogenous (homo=same in greek, man in latin. genius=spirit or attendant soul) .
-- While the ‘earwicker’ nickname is apaz supposed to link to an incest/insect pun somewhere in the text but I missed that.
The Cad
- One of the few bits where I felt I was on top of the text is the line about ‘the flaxen Gygas’ looking at his ‘chronometrium’ above the ‘floodplain, scene of its happening’. Gyges being the guy from Herodotus who founds a dynasty off the back of his peeping Tommery. And it all matches up with meeting in Pheonix park and being asked the time. All makes sense for a bit from here until it doesn’t.
The Spreading Story & The Ballad of Persse
- Got lost there for a while. But the song at least makes sense. About Earwicker’s sins. Feels fairly transparent for this book:
He ought to blush for himself the old hayheaded philosopher
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her...
I just finished reading chapter 1, aloud as recommended, allowed me to get a sore throat! I scribbled a couple of notes in the margins and highlighted some passages that I particularly liked, so I'll go through them later when I'm not on my phone. Initial thoughts were similar to what you've posted above. Some bits were easier than others and it swung from highly entertaining to a bit boring in the middle. Lots of lovely alliteration, portmanteaus of words and fun with language, many of which made me laugh when I realised what he meant. I haven't looked at chapter 2 yet, but will probably tackle that on Thursday. Have you moved onto chapters 3 and 4 yet? If you're a bit ahead a might try and read 3 chapters this week to catch up a bit.
Has anyone else started, or have plans to join in?
Okay, I'm back to go through the notes I made on the first chapter. If my thoughts seem totally incoherent, just think of them as being Joycean in style ;)I'll follow the outline of chapter contents too.
Introduction
So we get a couple of mentions of a fall on the first page, but surprise surprise, I'm not entirely clear who or what is fallen.
" The fall (bababadal....) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy."
Is this Finnegan? Speaking of him, on the third page, we get this passage -
"Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnagain!"
Woah, so is Finnegan really Finn and this is Joyce's play on words? I hadn't thought of that. So he's Finn, Finn again, Finnegan.
The Willingdone Museum
Missed all references to Napolean and Wellington, hah! Any idea why he keeps inserting the word tip throughout these pages. Or what jinnies means? Actually, I better not get into the habit of asking what specific words mean, as that could get very tiresome.
Here's a sentence I highlighted that I enjoyed. No idea what it means, but it sounded nice -
"This is me Belchum's tinkyou tankyou silvoor plate for citchin the crapes in the cool of his canister."
The finding of the letter
Hmm, I was on the lookout for this, but only saw a couple of brief mentions of stories or pages (p.12-13 in my edition), but they didn't seem to be about a letter. So I missed that too.
Pre-history of Ireland
Don't know what those dates refer to, but I did notice that 1132 is double 566, if that has any relevence. Who knows?!
Mutt and Jute
I liked this line about language -
"You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute."
I think Mutt and Jute went on to discuss speech and language, but it got a bit confusing.
Jarl van Hoother and the Prankquean
Lost! I can't help but read it as prank-queen, so to me it's a royal jester!
The Fall
Still lost! Didn't notice anything about a fall.
Finnegan's Wake
Oh yes, back to very relative sanity with the wake -
"Have you whines for my wedding, did you bring bride and bedding, will you whoop for my deading is a? Wake?"
and "He's duddandgunne now" I loved that spelling.
The story seemed to be explaining to Finnegan what was happening now and possibly what's to come in the future -
"But that's a world of ways away."
And another word play on Finnegan's name, this time he's not Finn again, but Finn no more.
"Repose you now! Finn no more!"
Introduction of HCE
The first mention of HCE and a possible name for him. One of many? "Humme the Cheapner, Esq."
Right that's it. I had to turn predictive text off to get all of those Joyce words typed out!
@Pink: Some responses to your responses:✘
’" The fall (bababadal....) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy."
Pink said: Is this Finnegan?’
My reading of it was that ‘wallstrait’ refers to both Finnegan as a builder but also to generally wallstrait characters like Satan, Adam & Eve, Cain, Moses, etc… who fell from grace. A kind of story retaled over and over in this nightbook (in bed) but also throughout the history of christian minstrelsy.
✘
‘"Hohohoho, Mister Finn, you're going to be Mister Finnagain!"
Pink said: Woah, so is Finnegan really Finn and this is Joyce's play on words?’
I suspect so, he’s also going to be a lot of other people again. They have a wake for HCE pretty shortly and he’s coming back soon presumably...
✘
’Pink said: Missed all references to Napolean and Wellington.’
They are called Lipoleum in his lipoleumhat and Willingdone but I’m pretty sure that’s who he means.
✘
‘Pink said: Any idea why he keeps inserting the word tip throughout these pages.’
I assumed it was onomatopoeic in some way, but not sure of what. Like the bit in the Siren chapter of Ulysses when you keep hearing the tapping of the blind piano tuner and the jingle of Boylan’s horses throughout even though they are outside the scene?
✘
Pink said: Right that's it. I had to turn predictive text off to get all of those Joyce words typed out!
God, yeah. Transcribing notes from this is a daynightmare.
Thanks for responding to some of my questions. Your thoughts on the fall make a bit more sense. I assumed Joyce would be referencing more than one person of event for this, but it's hard to pick out specifics from his text. Lipoleumhat! Haha, that's a great word for Napoleon and I completely missed it.
Using the word tip in an onamatopoeic way makes sense, as he likes to do this, I wasn't sure if the word had any other significance.
I haven't even started chapter 2 yet. My reading time has got away from me this week, so I've been picking up easier things. I'll tackle it sometime this weekend, preferably when I'm able to read aloud.
I read chapter 2 this afternoon and I have to admit that the words kind of drifted over me with little understanding. I've looked up some notes about the chapter, which had some interesting ideas about the fall, the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, with the cad possibly being the tempting serpent. These were all good to ponder over, but I wouldn't come up with these interpretations on my own. I can just about follow the basic descriptions from Wiki about the interactions between HCE and the cad. Sorry for not giving any more enlightening thoughts, but I'm a bit lost really! I'll be onto chapter 3 in a couple of days.
I started chapter 3, read a few pages, questioned my sanity, put it down, tried again, appreciated some of the nicely constructed words, didn't understand a thing, put it down again. Now it's just staring at me....
Hi All, I'm enjoying all your comments and reactions, even though I'm not participating. I've read almost all of Joyce's output apart from FW (favourite is Ulysses) and I regard you people as bravely exploring astronauts that we Earthbound followers can use to live vicariously!
Might try the audiobook, though.......
Audiobook may be the way to go, although the thing I like best about it is how he constructs made up words to sound like something else, so you'd completely miss all of this just hearing them and not seeing them written on the page. I'm going to give this another try today and see how I feel. I love Ulysses but this is a completely different kettle of fish!
Pink wrote: "I started chapter 3, read a few pages, questioned my sanity, put it down, tried again, appreciated some of the nicely constructed words, didn't understand a thing, put it down again. Now it's just staring at me...."Yeah, Chapter 3 has been the toughest read for me so far. Chapter 4 goes back to having islands of clarity but Chapter 3 was mostly just me going 'Nice sentence...I think?' for page after page. I'll put my notes / questions up over the weekend. Maybe we can help each other decipher WTF happened...
Mick wrote: "Might try the audiobook, though....... "Jump in, isn't there just a small completionist pressure to see whereabouts in Crazytown the Dubliners -> Hero -> Portrait -> Ulysses train screeches to a halt?
Jon wrote: "Mick wrote: "Might try the audiobook, though....... "Jump in, isn't there just a small completionist pressure to see whereabouts in Crazytown the Dubliners -> Hero -> Portrait -> Ulysses train sc..."
Yeah, but then I might have to start on Samuel Becket, and who knows where that would end.
I'm browsing here, also. Pink, it's a bit of a relief that you're not singing out loud about how good this is. It means that I feel no compunction to join in!
No Gill, I'm not feeling that way at the moment....although since you mention it, singing out loud might help with this!
I've not been great at putting my notes up here, but I have got through chapter 6. It gets easier... in some places. Way harder going in others.Notes will be forthcoming.
I made it to chapter 4 and have since given up. Right now, I don't think I'll ever pick it up again. There were things I liked about it, but if I continue it will only be to say I've read it and that's not enough reason for me. 100 pages was enough. On the other hand, I would still be interested to read your thoughts about it, if you're continuing to post them. Sorry for bailing.
Pink wrote: "...Sorry for bailing. Noooooooooooo. And then there was one.
My friend has taken out a guide book that goes through it almost line by line which might help a bit.
I refuse to be beaten by a 600 page crossword clue.
Sorry to leave you on your own! I was reading some in depth analysis at first, but decided I didn't like these so much. I liked to read a quick summary of what the chapter was about (as much as anyone can say!) then read that section, then read some notes on it. I came to realise that the actual reading was like attempting it in Spanish, which I don't speak. I could pick out some nice alliteration or clever word play and get the general gist of certain passages, but mostly I didn't understand it.
Anyone who hasn't got a copy might be interested to know that Amazon are doing Joyce's collected works (inc FW) for 99p....https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...
So I might have a go myself.
I tried a guide, then discussions, then googling things. I'm 200 pages in, I enjoy the play of words and that's enough for me. I did love "Ulysses", that's going to have to be my favorite Joyce. There is just too much great stuff I haven't read.
I tried a guide, then discussions, then googling things. I'm 200 pages in, I enjoy the play of words and that's enough for me. I did love "Ulysses", that's going to have to be my favorite Joyce. There is just too much great stuff I haven't read.
I feel the same. I love Ulysses, but haven't liked his other books. I'm glad I gave this a try to see what it's like, but don't feel the need to torture myself with more!
Pink wrote: "I feel the same. I love Ulysses, but haven't liked his other books. I'm glad I gave this a try to see what it's like, but don't feel the need to torture myself with more!"It does take a certain level of making a fitting decision! So much in this world to do! We can't date everyone, we can't see every movie, we have to use a sense of context for all decisions or we would never get anything done.
The book is looking to be insanely hard to parse in sections thanks to all the phonetics and neologisms, so if we need to slow down we can, but I'll be starting out doing two chapters a week and dropping thoughts here as I go along.
As noted elsewhere, there's no need to worry about spoilers, this book does not depend on plot twists, or even plot as far as I can tell. It's also about 90% puns so be warned.
Some useful things to read before going in might include the wiki pages for Joyce , the book and its spiritual prequel . And if your edition has one, don't skip the Introduction.
NB a handy attempt at a breakdown of each chapter in that second link.
This Irish Ballad from which the title and some of the structure comes is probably worth a listen and is quite fun.
Plus, at the risk of tipping into spam, my own pregame thoughts on this went out by bletter to the IRL person I am also reading this with. Read or don't, its not massively high content.