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Finnegans Wake

by James Joyce

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Louis said: " "Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake," the Irish Rovers sing, and they're not out of their minds to put the most "unreadable" book in English into song. Because 'Finnegans Wake' is a long, unbroken chain of melodies on its own, a Wagnerian take--a la "Der "Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake," the Irish Rovers sing, and they're not out of their minds to put the most "unreadable" book in English into song. Because 'Finnegans Wake' is a long, unbroken chain of melodies on its own, a Wagnerian take--a la "Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg"--on the language of dreams in literature. This makes it a novel very much about symphonic sound in all its shades. Among my favorite of Joyce's orchestral passages is this one from page 74 of my Penguin edition:

"Humph is in his doge. Words weigh no no more to him that raindrips to Rethfernhim. Which we all like. Rain. When we sleep. Drops. But wait until our sleeping. Drain. Sdops."

Of course, my brain, for the ninth time, tries to break down the opacity of this thing, putting me through a fruitless process of translating "Rethfernhim" to Bethlehem, and turning the Italianesque "doge's" mysterious "Humph" into Herod. Because it somehow makes sense; because of the rain, somehow; because--or, does "Humph" really sound anything like "Herod?" So my point has appeared in a cloud, the cloud of a "somehow" and a "because," that makes questionable the validity of any purpose any critic or chess player may find in creating a theory on the 'Wake,' which I would, I think, have to read with the same sense of "fun" as I do Joyce's arrangement of tempos, portmanteau words and puns. Because it isn't worth one's time to try and clarify music, unless one does so in good fun.

And the music of 'Finnegans Wake' is extraordinary. I can hear it bounce and burst and circle me like "Symphonie Fantastique." This brings me to the fact that French is one of the dozens of languages Joyce builds on throughout the novel, a few dead long before Joyce started 'Dubliners,'--but, again, the point is music, "which we all like. Rain. When we sleep. Drops. But wait until our sleeping. Drain. Stops." Here, indeed, the rain stops, and the rivers begin to flow--rivers of images, rivers of references, rivers that churn beginnings with ends, washing time away. These are the many rivers that are Joyce's most beautiful child, Anna Livia Plurabelle. How do I love her? The same as I love 'Finnegans Wake,' like the waters whose currents I cannot fight but must follow to pleasure and to the sublime. ...more "

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(page 267 of 628)
— Feb 14, 2019 04:31PM

Feb 14, 2019 09:32PM · see review