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Nov 14, 2011

Paul added it

Stealing an idea from Manny's review, here's part of the (British) Highway Code if it was written by James Joyce any time during the last 17 years of his life. This is the section called

ROAD SIGNALS

Swarn and inform other roadusers aminxt that nombre of evelings, including pedestrigirls and jumbleboys (see 'and twinglings of twitchbells in rondel’ section twoozle para fleeph), of your inbended actions. You should have a kelchy chose and clayblade and at all times make pra More...

16 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Manny rated it:

The other day we saw The Ghost, the rather fine new movie by Polanski. Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter, who's been brought in to fix up the memoirs of a British ex-Prime Minister who absolutely isn't Tony Blair. He's given the manuscript, and groans in pain.

"That bad?" asks the woman who isn't Cherie Blair.

"Well it's got all the words," says McGregor. "They're just not in the right order."

This suggested to me the following simpl More...

22 comments like (16 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2007

Emily rated it:

Many people find this book perplexing, but I find it’s something like a magic hat crossed with a hall of mirrors. You can pull almost anything out of it, but usually you'll get a twisted reflection of your own ideas, obsessions, or hidden fantasies. Perhaps that's the cause for perplexion, but I think its good to dig all that stuff up.
I love this book for its tangled etymologies, and the way these pieces of words delve so deeply into a common mystical, lingual history that spans nations a More...

9 comments like (12 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

Kelly rated it:

The easiest book in the world... seriously. With scholars unable to ever reach consensus on what the book is or how it should be read or even if it actually has value, you can simply ignore them. Your opinions are just as valid. Add to this the wads of cultural ephemera that Joyce has packed the book with and you find yourself in the rare position to occasionally be BETTER qualified to interpret parts of the text than academics.
Try this, get some friends together, pop the cork on a few More...

1 comment like (21 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Ed rated it:

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

Fourth time through! The date is set to the date I read the final word "the".

(Read twice before and a third time selected passages.)

This is my favorite book of all time. More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Andrew rated it:

Finnegan's Wake is the night to Ulysses' day. It is riddled with obfuscatory language to separate the reader from the events described as a sleeper is separated from his waking consciousness. If anyone has captured the language of dreams it would be Joyce. It is often playful and insightful and other times it is aggravating and loathsome. I, like many others, had a Joyce phase once, where reading his works was akin to eating ambrosia; could not put his books down for fear of losing my grip on hi More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Charlie rated it:

Since this book is an anomaly unto itself, I will review it with a true story that I made up. There's a custodian in my apartment complex i've become friendly with named Red. One day, I noticed Red eyeing me up while I sat reading my copy of Finnegan's Wake and asked him if he was familiar with it. He replied "Yes" in his kindly old Red way, and launched into a breathless, half hour criticism of Joyce as a literary thief, "Picasso of letters" he called him, convincingly accus More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 29, 2009

Nicholas rated it:

This is not a fair score, I'll admit it right up front. This book affirms my reasoning for reading the first few pages of a book before buying it. This I bought because I've been trying to read more classics, and after the attempt I have added the requirement to classics as well.

Here's the second paragraph of the book:

"Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor t More...

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

Nick rated it:

Major life admission: I've never actually finished this book. Let me explain.

I first came across Joyce in the spring of 1996. When "Araby" was assigned for an evening's BritLit homework, I was fifteen and still playing Final Fantasy Legend on my Gameboy from that Christmas ; up until that MARTA ride home, The Catcher in the Rye had seemed the most meaningful and personally evocative thing around. The last line almost blinded me:

Gazing up into the darkness I saw More...

3 comments like (10 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2011

Adam rated it:

Who am I kidding, I got off to a strong start and then just never picked this up to read each weekend as I had planned. Page 56 is probably as far as I'll ever get, but that's enough to be completely blown away. Language, history, time itself all collapse/overlap (fall/resurrect) to form all-language, all-history, and all-time. All this is set into action by the thunderclap of the fall, the thunderclap of Giambattista Vico's four-phase history dawning a new cycle.

7 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2008

Suzanne rated it:

Would need to take a class to follow this. Stopped and started many times. I just always get lost.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Daryl rated it:

When I first embarked on reading the 100 Best 20th Century novels, the first one I read was Ulysses by James Joyce. It was a very difficult read and I felt pretty accomplished when I made it through. Now that I’ve gotten to Finnegan’s Wake, Ulysses is just a walk in the park.

This novel is not really a novel in any traditional sense of the word. Or any untraditional sense of the word. No characters, no plot, no narrative to speak of. It’s really more a collection of words than a novel. More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Michael rated it:

The professor who taught my "Homer and Joyce" honors seminar in college best described how one should read Finnegans Wake:

After you have a couple of Guinnesses in your stomach.

(Seriously, it does help.)

There are several things one can [try to] say about this book (I don't really want to call it a novel), but there is really no point in going into much in-depth discussion about this work. It's best instead to just skim the surface: it's cyclical (the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Stephen rated it:

I spent a couple of years working my way through this book. Besides Flannery O'Connor's short stories and Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony, I can think of no other text that inspires me with evangelical zeal. I think about Finnegans Wake and I want to convert everyone to the Church of James Joyce.

For me, reading the Wake was about getting to know Joyce. Finnegans Wake is written in a stream of consciousness that is both unconscious (that is, the language of dreams) and clever (puns More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2007

Owen rated it:

This is one book that I will finish before I die.... however it may have to wait until full-fledged alcoholism sets in, because the only way I've ever been able to make any headway is to read it after a night of heavy drinking. Proof positive that if you spit out hundreds of pages of stuff no one understands, people will think you’re a genius because they’re afraid of sounding dumb because they don’t get it. The truly amazing thing about this work is that it is NOT utter nonsense; it actually ha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2008

Kevin rated it:

read to me at 16 by the lunatic frank mccourt (in his joyce class elective at stuyvesant), this book changed my language capacity. sometimes i think the only real writers in english are poe and joyce. and maybe flannery oconnor. thackery knows flourish. faulkner knows how to fuse inner monologues. henry miller knows the value of the present, gaitskill grabs boredom, will somebody tell me their favorite english writer. burgess is too off the wall. malcolm lowry was too one hit. chandler dripped b More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2007

Prostetnic rated it:

Wow, what can you learn from this book? That Joyce is the self-indulgent, self-mythologizing king of all pretentious literary bullshitters? Yes, that's probably the most important thing. Other possible conclusions: (1) the canonical status of this book indicates the insanity of the canon and of current literary studies; (2) it's possible to publish a totally unreadable book that will become assigned reading for grad students if you spin your public image just right. Way to go, Mr Joyce.

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Joseph rated it:

Condensation of An Introduction to An Introduction to An Introduction to An Introduction to a 1600-Page Essay on Finnegans Wake Yet With Thousands of Characters Left I See Now I Refrain To Begin, A-Gain, Fin, Again, Awake, Begin:

After a period of six months I have finished, from cover to back, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. I often told people over the years that I had read this 'Novel' twice over as a teenager, with all the most ardent notes out, taped to the walls, wit More...

0 comments like

Jun 17, 2011

Lara rated it:

In What Is Art? Tolstoy unleashes criticism on all things artistic, sparing no one. His main argument is that art--whether literature, paintings, music, or drama--should be accessible to everyone. He says anything that the common man cannot understand or that does not represent the common man is actually a form of war on the common man. All art must teach; all art must be accessible; all art must tell the common man's story. Else, it is not art but an elitist manipulation--a dangerous one, at th More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2010

Kayla rated it:

FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce

My Thoughts:
I knew going into this book that it is said to be one of the most difficult (English language) books to read. I wouldn't call it difficult, just more...exhausting. I find it hard to enjoy a book that has so little structure and clear plot to it. When I did finally grab onto some clear(ish) plot and understand what the heck was going on something would change and I'd be back to where I started wondering what was going on. Each scene like More...

0 comments like

Jun 18, 2010

Audrey rated it:

Review by Rob W. Lewis

Last week I went into the forest and read Finnegan's Wake. Well, I guess read is the wrong word. You don't read Finnegan's Wake, Joyce's seminal modernist work. You simply allow it to wash over you, as if viewing an endless stream of artwork the ultimate European gallery. You allow it to climb inside your mind and rustle around for a while, attacking countless houses of meaning, a display of pure aesthetic mastery.

In the Wake, Joyce is totally unrep More...

0 comments like

May 07, 2009

Anthony rated it:

A lot of people disregard Finnegans Wake as incomprehensible, and some people even get angry, as if the book has somehow wronged them. The text, being as it is infinite, requires you to ditch your notions of "mastering" the text and accept that you will never get to the bottom of Finnegans Wake. however, with some patience and perhaps the consultation of a resource or two, it's not difficult to really get into it...

In many ways it is the booklength night to Ulysses's book More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2009

Louis rated it:

Call me a late bloomer to have read this book now. And stating that I "read" this book is somewhat of a misnomer. Any of you who have "read" or attempted to "read" this book will know what I mean. You have to admire the artistry involved in putting this work together. It did make me tired of alliteration. This is the kind of book that would be worthwhile as the subject of a seminar, guided by a Joyce scholar. Then it would be much more rewarding. Parenthetica More...

0 comments like

Feb 27, 2011

Jim rated it:

I have not penetrated much of this text - a few dozen pages. I had heard it was one of the most impenetrable English - okay, borderline English - books ever written, and I thought I'd take a crack at it. I'd read Portrait of the Artist in grad school, and that experience helped me when I finally got around to reading Ulysses. I was deeply flummoxed by WAKE until I got the bright idea to read it aloud.

Didn't help.

So I tried reading with a (terrible) Irish accent.

He More...

0 comments like

Dec 12, 2011

Veronica rated it:

Anyone who has read my other Joyce reviews is well aware that I am most certainly no fan of the enigmatic writing style many consider genius. I am not one who considers it as such, however, I did approach Finnegans Wake with an open, but honestly not hopeful mind. Once again, I was disappointed, no, more than that, I was perplexed. Were I to say I read this much praised tome, may possibly not be truly forthright. As it were, there were paragraphs…no sentences…no words…no letters (and sometim More...

0 comments like

Dec 14, 2009

Jesse rated it:

The most brilliant (and, therefore, impossible) book ever written. The language in Finnegans Wake shimmers and oozes, crawls along the page. Every single word is packed with multiple meanings. I mean, Jesus, I still can't comprehend how a man achieved this, how he wrote this!! Don't let anyone tell you that they thoroughly "understood" Finnegans Wake". It isn't a book you fully "understand"; it's a book to be experienced, a book to admire. It is so incredible that it rea More...

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Jun 21, 2011

David rated it:

"Tim Finnegan’s Wake"
by David B. Lentz

When God reeled in good auld Tim Finnegan,
And looked into his green Irish peepers,
Said He, “Now, what was I thinkin’?
Poor lad, he ain’t one of the keepers.”

To hell Tim descended without any fear,
To the devil, whom not much is lost on,
Said he, “I’m sure you’ll be comfortable here,
Among all your old friends from South Boston.”

Tim’s jokes night and day caused Satan to swear,
As More...

0 comments like

Jan 01, 2008

Andrew rated it:

Having read it, now I am at last able to start reading it. Damnit. And do you want to know how virtuous I am? Even though I've finished Finnegans Wake, I am not going to list it as one of my favorite books. It's pretty damn good, but I think you just can't claim for it what I would for Ulysses or the Recherche.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2011

Mike rated it:

A test of patience? An extended discourse on sanity?

“She gave ilcka madre's daughter a moonflower and a bloodvein: but the grapes that ripe before reason to them that devide the vinedress. So on Izzy, her shamemaid, love shone befond her tears as from Shem, her penmight, life past befoul his prime.”

This quote should be the example under "obfuscation" in the dictionary, or perhaps “q.v. ‘Finnegans Wake.’” If you have not the patience, nor the intellectual wherewi More...

0 comments like

Oct 15, 2009

Phillip rated it:

This book is a doozy to read. Many think it is unreadable. I tried to read it many times and gave up after the first page. Then I found a book called "A Skeleton Key to 'Finegans Wake'" It is here in Goodreads. I did not put it in as one of my Read books is because I no longer have it and I am only listing books I have, in all categories.
Now I do not agree with everything said in the Skeleton Key but it was that book which allowed me to understand Finegans Wake. Now I can read it More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)