Finnegans Wake Grappa discussion
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McHugh's Annotations
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Nathan "N.R." wrote: "McHugh's Annotations to Finnegans Wake is the very first thing I recommend for reeding The Wake. It's hell to use if you're reeding The Restored ; but get used to it. Get the Thir..."
I agree - it is very useful indeed - though most of these annotations (and more) can be found on websites these days as well, so do not feel like you have to spend the money if you don't want to...
Jonathan wrote: "though most of these annotations (and more) can be found on websites these days as well"Yes but I've found a particular pleasure in having McHugh above the Wake on my desk during a reading, looking up and down and seeing the McHugh or the Wake as transparencies on top of the other, seeing down into the desk and floor and dirt, etc. There's a kind of what was that magic 3D picture effect? Those magic 3D pictures that were popular in like the 90's or something... that goes on.
Jonathan wrote: "though most of these annotations (and more) can be found on websites these days as well,"I'm a little hesitant to trust most websites. The McHugh has been rather rigorously test'd by the Joyce scholars (it's in it third edition) -- and many/most websites I suspect of not having that level of credibility. I still believe in the authority of the Printed Book. ; )
So does the Campbell Skeleton suck? I would like a good excuse to not dig it up for to do so may mean braving spiders.
Gregsamsa wrote: "So does the Campbell Skeleton suck? I would like a good excuse to not dig it up for to do so may mean braving spiders."Oh no no no. But it's not anything like a substitute for McHugh. McHugh is the Gifford of Ulysses fame ; Campbell is the/a Blamires. But there are I suspect a few others which could substitute for the Campbell, such as the Tindall ;; but I'm not certain. Campbell serves well enough as a cap for the narrative arcs, revisiting where you've been or are about to head off for ;; but you'll need the McHugh to see how the words are built. Indispensable.
Those curious :: One should do what one should to have the THIRD edition of the McHugh. I don't think you'll be too wrong with the SECOND ;; but the third, at a minimum, incorporates in angled brackets the textual-emendations made in 2005 when the translators of The Dutch Wake discovered that the text they were translating from had some difficulties and things which needed to be corrected. These textual=emendations are NOT 100% consistent with those made in The Restored Wake ;; and I suspect that they may differ somewhat from the emendations listed at the back of the OUP edition of 2012. And for the curious ;; James died before he could make any kind of final version of The Wake ;; printers errors famously abound ; even an entire line of text gets dropped on occasion (like when my eye moves from the right back to the left and misses its target).
And :: The "Finnegans Wake" Experience which can be had at google :: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=04...
If this is already noted somewhere I am sorry but I haven't had time to read through everything on here.Perhaps I am wrong but it seems odd to me that at the beginning of III.1 (403.2) McHugh identifies the word elf as being of German origin for the word elf.
While this is perfect true I think it should have been noted that the word elf is also German for the word eleven.
Seeing as this is a line of text that includes many numbers I am wondering why McHugh didn't note it down as such.
I checked Bonheim and he lists the word as meaning eleven and not elf.
I know there are no rights and wrongs when it comes to the wake but I just found McHugh's annotation curious.
Any thoughts?
Harry wrote: " McHugh identifies the word elf as being of German origin for the word elf."This is just part of McHugh's conventions. He generally does not translate common French German etc words. So the intention here is simply to id it as a German word ; and he assumes a basic knowledge of German, so indeed he's tell us "eleven."
I don't know whether this was mentioned here because I haven't shown up on Goodreads for a long while, but this site is good as reference while reading the Wake. Note the cool link to definitions while you're reading. Not a McHugh but pretty darn good from what I see so far and easy to navigate.http://finwake.com
Did we know about this? It seems we should have known about this.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1421...
Harry Collier iv wrote: "Did we know about this? It seems we should have known about this.""This thoroughly updated fourth edition draws heavily on Internet resources and keyword searches. For the first time, McHugh provides readers with a synopsis of the action of Finnegans Wake. He also expands his examination of possible textual corruption and adds hundreds of new glosses to help scholars, students, and general readers untangle the dense thicket of allusions that crowds every sentence of Joyce’s nearly inscrutable masterpiece."
We do now!!
Well, mine is now in the mail. Shame that I live in a place where the mail will take no less than a month to reach me but I am excited!
Joshua wrote: "McHugh wants our money."I needs it! He's got a Wake=habit!
My III Ed. seems to have lost a small part of its luster today.
Shit. Now that sounds fantastic. Maybe a re-wakeing plus a new Mchugh is called for
I've put off buying a copy of McHugh's Annotations due the existence of Raphael Slepon's excellent Fweet (Finnegans Wake Extensible Elucidation Treasury, www.fweet.org) search engine, which includes an evolving line-by-line commentary on the text. Does anyone have an opinion on whether fweet.org is an acceptable subsitute for McHugh?
M'Intosh wrote: "Does anyone have an opinion on whether fweet.org is an acceptable subsitute for McHugh? "In my opinion, there is no subsitute for McHugh!
But I've only fweet'd a dozen times ;; honestly not too impressed. McHugh's still got that old fashioned (f)research behind it.
Well, thanks to an unavoidable 3 week trip to Lithuania I will finally get my hands on the 4th edition. I am excited to see what is new. I am also taking along Begnal's Dreamscheme and Solomon's Eternal Geomater, which are two that I have been meaning to get to for a while now,I bought FW on the kindle finally and this brought me back to McHugh. The kindle let's you use a built in (changeable) dictionary that allows you to touch a word and then a page with a definition and a lot of info pops up. I wonder if McHugh or anyone else ever thought of making a kindle dictionary for the wake. I think it would prove to be the best way for a newcomer to read it. If you could open FW and by touvhing a word get all the references and theories about it in a split second, why just imagine...
Harry wrote: "I wonder if McHugh or anyone else ever thought of making a kindle dictionary for the wake"This is the kind of thing the editors of the Restored Wake are supposed to be working on. But not so much dictionaries and such, but the whole encrustation of renditions Joyce worked through. Touch a word and see how Joyce built it through all the notebook versions.
Am I the only one who finds McHugh's Wake Annotations more of a hindrance than a help... and consequently of minor use? I've ditched it a couple times now, even during my re-reads because it just slows the process down to the point of not being enjoyable. And as soon as I stop the back and forth, the poetry resumes its leaping off the page and I'm back into Joyce's world.My current, and preferred reading is as follows:
1) Read 2 chapters straight with no glancing at 'materials' and first impression annotations.
2) Read Skeleton Key for those sections
3) Read Tindall for those sections
4) Re-read with heavy annotations, connections, interpretations, Joycisms, etc.
I rarely look at McHugh at all now, with a few exceptions.
I think there is a big difference between reading the wake and studying the wake.If I am reading for pleasure I don't use any annotations or guides but rather just let the words and the rhythm take my thoughts where they may.
When I am studying the wake and looking for meaning among its pages annotations and guides are great. I think McHugh's dilemma is one of space and often look up his references in several other books.
Using McHugh is like working (but not solving) the crossword puzzle. You look back and forth between clues, discover a thread that leads in new directions, but absolutely lose the rhythm of the work which I think is key to a proper reading but not necessary for study as Harry puts it. But I think in spots it helps to have worked through some of the puzzle with McHugh to find the rhythm - all the clues are German, this section must have a German rhythm, whatever that may be, so on and such like.
So I got the 4th edition yesterday and while I admit I don't have the 3rd with me for comparison at the moment, I am struggling to see the differences.From the description there was supposed to be a new part about Internet resources and text corruption. Don't see it in there though. I have my own theory about text corruption and the future if the wake which I will save for another post in another topic.
Anyways, I'll go through this and see if anything new that makes this 'the' version to own hits me.
M'Intosh was asking about fweet.org and in the introduction to the 4th McHugh mentions making use of it in the creation of the new edition. So while maybe not a replacement it is still a valuable resource.I think most of the changes in the 4th will be slight.
Harry wrote: "I think most of the changes in the 4th will be slight. "Wanted to ask about this. The brief look-inside at amazon makes it look very much like the Third. The publisher's webpage says :: "This thoroughly updated fourth edition draws heavily on Internet resources and keyword searches. For the first time, McHugh provides readers with a synopsis of the action of Finnegans Wake. He also expands his examination of possible textual corruption and adds hundreds of new glosses to help scholars, students, and general readers untangle the dense thicket of allusions that crowds every sentence of Joyce’s nearly inscrutable masterpiece." Is there much evidence of this?
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/conte...
I have been meaning to post more about this. I'll be returning home in a couple of days and post my findings.
So I have been incredibly lax about actually reporting on my findings due to work taking me away and losing the 4th Ed. amongst my other books.I will search my library tonight and see what I can find.
I do remember that the intro pages were different (the 4th Ed. had a few more) but I don't recall anything too different in the actually annotations themselves. At least, nothing that would justify buying the 4the Ed. if you already owned the 3rd.
I'll let you know if anything turns up.
I have both the 3rd and 4th. They're both in pieces. I was in the middle of scanning the 3rd when the 4th came out. I'm barely into the 4th. I hope the 5th doesn't come out or will come out as an eBook. This is a painful book to read. I much prefer the Wake.
I have the 4th as an ebook and a hardcopy. You can order it as a pdf from Johns Hopkins website.I will finally be home tomorrow and will list some differences by the way. Sorry for the delay.
Harry, thank you for the information on the eBook! I've been searching forever for that.
So I finally got around to analyzing the 4th ed. (4) and how it compares to the 3rd (3).The intro in 4 is 10 pages longer with 3 ending at page xx and 4 at page xxx. However, the prefix of 3 starts with page vii and 4's prefix starts on page ix.
As for the extra pages there is a little about different editions and such but the real treasure of 4 is that McHugh has included a synopsis of FW. This runs just under 7 pages.
The actual annotations themselves have been updated with a few minor (I believe) tweaks on every page. To show this I photocopied page 3 and 4 random additional pages from both editions, held them together, and then up to the sun. With 4 being behind 3 it was easy to see the additions. What I was unprepared for, however, was the omissions in 4. Have these thoughts been disproved? Or has McHugh now filed them under obvious stuff anyone should know and therefore not needed?
So to give a brief example I will list a few differences of page 3 in the manner of 3 / 4.
riverrain: pertaining to a river / river run: an excursion on a river
(not in 3) / commodious
G wiederfechten: refight / G weider: again
Topsawyer's Rock: formation on r Oconee / (not in 4)
Peter Sawyer / Peter [actually Johnathon] Sawyer
These of course are just a few of the many differences on Page 3. I am unsure if they are worth buying 4 but for me they are. In fact, doing this project today has convinced me to track down the 1st ed. and the 2nd ed. to see what has been omitted and how interpretations have changed.
The other thing that must be noted is that the print quality of 4 is not good. The letters are a little blurry like it is a photocopied or print-on-demand book. It is perfectly readable but can be annoying after a few hours.
I hope this helps.
Harry wrote: "So I finally got around to analyzing the 4th ed. (4) and how it compares to the 3rd (3).The intro in 4 is 10 pages longer with 3 ending at page xx and 4 at page xxx. However, the prefix of 3 start..."
Many thanks!
Oh, then I better keep my mutilated scraps of 3.
Harry wrote: "So I finally got around to analyzing the 4th ed. (4) and how it compares to the 3rd (3).The intro in 4 is 10 pages longer with 3 ending at page xx and 4 at page xxx. However, the prefix of 3 start..."
Thank you sir! How did you like the synopsis in 4?
I have seen a whole lot worse. In 7 pages not much can be done but McHugh does give us a complete overview (he calls it a scaffolding) of the book. I would say that it is enough for someone who has never read FW before (who I assume it is meant for) to get the idea and for those that have it still reveals one or two new things. It is quite heavily sigla based but this is to be expected from McHugh.
I'm reading the Wake in tandem with the latest McHugh, I noticed the Oxford version of FW does not line up with the McHugh, What version of FW should I use?
Aloha, I think there probably is further detail somewhere in the introductory content of McHugh but I'm pretty sure you'll need a Viking or Penguin edition for the pages to match up with McHugh. Here's an excerpt from the Amazon (our overlords) description: "Each page of the Annotations corresponds directly to a page of the standard Viking/Penguin edition of Finnegans Wake and contains line-by-line notes following the placement of the passages to which they refer, enabling readers to look directly from text to notes and back again, with no need to consult separate glossaries or other listings."
Aloha wrote: "I'm reading the Wake in tandem with the latest McHugh, I noticed the Oxford version of FW does not line up with the McHugh, What version of FW should I use?"There's also a lot of helpful discussion regarding the various editions here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The latest McHugh did not indicate which version unless I missed it in reading it. I have the eBooks, and the Oxford and the Restored in paper. I'll have to order the Viking/Penguin edition unless I have it hidden in my jammed bookcases somewhere. I'm trying to read the McHugh properly, which is in tandem with the correct FW version. Thanks for the info, Joshua!
I just ordered what I hope would be the version to go with the McHugh. I can adjust the type in the eBook for each page to match the McHugh, meanwhile. Desperate times...
All 628 page editions will work with the McHugh page layout. The only edition that deviates from the standard pagination/line count/etc count is the Restored. Some of the selected variants listed on page 631ff of the Oxford you will also find incorporated into the McHugh.
I checked my Oxford edition again. It does match. I must have been looking at the wrong page of the McHugh. The FW chaosmos had me confussed.
Finnegans Wake Grappa
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The Finnegans Wake Experience (other topics)Annotations to Finnegans Wake (other topics)
Annotations to Finnegans Wake (other topics)
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