Literary Disco discussion
Finnegan's Wake-Up
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Jun 29, 2013 08:12AM
I'm in. Seriously.
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Can anyone recommend a good guide to Finnegans Wake? I don't think I could tackle it on my own. Ulysses was hard enough...and I read it with a guide as well.
We need Rider to commit to doing this with us.
Come on Rider!
Come on Rider!
Mod
Julia,I believe so. I have been doing 2-5 pages every morning. That is all my brain can handle.
Mod
I just need a solid date to start and I'd like to announce it on the show so others can join if they want. Our next show will go online July 22nd, so August 1st would be the earliest start date.
Julia's original suggestion was 2 pages a day. Does that sound like enough? Or should we up it to 5?
I'd also like to find an annotated text to accompany us so let's all try and do some research. I will try and get in touch with a professional Joyceian for suggestions.
This is awesome! You guys rock.
-Rider
I'm up for 5. I did 10 a day on Ulysses.
Five also sounds good to me! Really looking forward to it!
5 is perfect for me. I have already started, but I will hold off until August 1st! Can't wait! I will work on Ulysses until then.
I'm anxious to start Wake-ing off!
Okay...not the best joke I ever made. We all have those days.
Is this for real? I want to play! Count me in on these shenanigans.
I'm in!Also, Eric- Boo, hissss (but also laughing).
Having so far avoided Finnegan's Wake out of sheer fear of its complexity, I am most definitely up for this challenge!
I am thinking about getting "Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, but mostly becasue I find Joseph Campbell and his ideas interesing. I don't know if this is the "best" book to use as a guide or not.
From what I've read, Campbell has an agenda there to explain FW in the context of his other ideas.
I'm in. 5 pages a day sounds good to me too.
I can't pass up this opportunity to read the one book I swore I'd never, ever, even think about reading. Let's do it!
Here are the additional titles that Rider mentioned in the podcast as supplements to the reading:Annotations to Finnegans Wake
A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake
He also said that both the Viking edition and the Penguin edition of Finnegans Wake are the same in terms of pages etc.
Can you tell that I'm a little stoked for this? Can't wait for August 1st.
I'm thinking of also joining Finnegans Wake-up August 1. But as I've yet to read Ulysses, I suspect that it's going to end in disaster.
Jennifer wrote: "I'm thinking of also joining Finnegans Wake-up August 1. But as I've yet to read Ulysses, I suspect that it's going to end in disaster."I haven't read Ulysses either, actually. But i'm going to give this a shot anyway. If it ends in disaster, it ends in disaster. I'll live to try again another day. =P I happen to have the Wordsworth edition, though. It's 628 pages long, which both the Vikings and the Penguins are as well. That means it'll probably work, right?
Mod
Wanted to jump in here and say, I don't think anyone needs to buy the Annotated Guide or the Reader's Guide. I hadn't cracked them open when we recorded our last episode, but the more I've learned about this book, the less necessary they seem.
And there's no need to have read Ulysses.
Part of the reason I thought the annotations might be helpful is because of my experience with Ulysses, where knowing the organizing principle of a given chapter, passage, or single sentence was pretty essential to enjoying the book.
For instance, it was helpful to know that the chapter in which Bloom is going to a funeral, parallels the "Hades" journey of Odysseus. So there is a plot, a "reality," where a man named Bloom is riding in a carriage and going to a funeral, and then there are multiple levels of writing technique that are used to convey that experience (third person narration, sounds (dialogue), internal monologue, and a "fourth estate" narrative voice that Joyce employs to comment and make allusions). At it's heart, reading Ulysses is a challenge of navigating these levels of technique in order to a) understand "what's actually happening," i.e., Bloom is riding in a carriage on his way to a funeral and b) enjoy additional information/feelings that the allusions and language innovations offer.
Finnegan's Wake, as far as I can tell, isn't as clearly referential. Or rather, is so chock full of references that it's not "the point" of the book to understand them. It doesn't even seem like knowing what is happening on the basic level of plot (there is a wake going on for a pub-owner named H.C.E.) matters, because the book keeps shifting realities (H.C.E. is dead, then he's alive). Characters blend together, become other people, fantasize, hallucinate, die, resurrect -- and in general move effortlessly through time, space, and language.
We're not reading it to "get it," we're not cracking a code, we're not even reading a story in the typical sense (in his introduction, Tindall questions if FW is a novel at all).
To be honest, I don't know WHAT we're doing.
But it should be fun.
-Rider
We're having a literary adventure, and we will probably never do anything like it again and I for one am completely looking forward to it.
I feel this would be a wonderful literary experience. What would be the best version to use in this case?
I'm in and really excited and looking forward to it. I've even gotten my sister committed and she's never listened to the podcast!
Got my copy. I'm ready!
Don't get a copy that says its "the original text". That's the one that contains all the typos that Joyce spent another two years to correct.
I picked up my copy yesterday, and rounded up my book group to participate. Looking forward to it!
I will get a copy from the library tomorrow and look forward to starting.
Count me in, too. My library has a copy and I put it on hold to pick up later today.
Bought my copy last night, and read the first page to my husband. He thinks we are crazy. Mission accomplished.
I read the first page. Consider me daunted.
I just bought the iBook on my iPhone and there are 1990 pages. I'm not sure how this is going to work for me personally reading "5 pages" a day. I fear I'm going to perpetually be a couple of pages behind or a couple of pages ahead just because it won't be a 1 to 1 (page) ratio. But I'll push through.
I read the first five pages. I think it's best to view it as a prose poem rather than a linear narrative. I can't say I get the sense of a story, but more a string of related puns. I think reading it aloud to yourself helps. Thus you can better get the sense of his word mash-ups. For example, in the second paragraph of page 4, "pentschanjeuchy" might describe a character who is both an Orthodox Jew (Pentateuch) and funny in a violent, slapstick way (Punch and Judy). I think if you're constantly looking for those kinds of goofy compound words, you'll get more out of it
Are we hash-tagging this on instagram/twitter/facebook/reddit/etc.? Maybe #finneganswakeup or #FWU or #litdiscochallenge...
I've had the book for a few weeks and I'm scared, but also ridiculously excited. haha Yay lit nerds! And I'm down for #finneganswakeup :D
It's already 1 Aug for those of us in Asia. So it begins. *gulp*
Spawn and I picked up our copies today! This hoedown just got real, folks.
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