3 ms·

I took a class on FW in college, and that definitely helps. Perhaps the book is "hard," but it is hilarious. I can't read a page of it without finding something

I took a class on FW in college, and that definitely helps. Perhaps the book is "hard," but it is hilarious. I can't read a page of it without finding something laugh out loud funny. If that is hard, bring it on. The book really has no beginning or end so feel free to jump around at will. I don't think it is good comparison to taocp.

kens 11y ago
What did you find laugh out loud funny in Finnegans Wake? (A serious question, I'm not trying to be argumentative.) To me, there were lots of things that were clever or slightly amusing, but nothing near hilarious. Some examples from the first chapter "oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods" - ok, that's clever turning Ostrogoths and Visigoths into seafood gods. The Willingdone Museyroom section was entertaining enough with "Willingdone" and "Lipoleum" for Wellington and Napoleon. "And a barrowload of guenesis hoer his head" - Guinness the beer and Genesis the book of the bible, clever enough. I've read a few comments before saying that FW is hilarious. Maybe it's pointless to try to dissect humor, but I'm just not seeing it.
- jhedwards 11y ago
  "Shem was a sham and a low sham and his lowness creeped out first via foodstuffs. So low was he that he preferred Gibsen's tea-time salmon tinned, as inexpensive as pleasing, to the plumpest roeheavy lax or the friskiest parr or smolt troutlet that ever was gaffed between Leixlip and Island Bridge and many was the time he repeated in his botulism that no junglegrown pineapple ever smacked like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' cans, Findlater and Gladstone's, Corner House, Englend. None of your inchthick blueblooded Balaclava fried-at-belief-stakes or juicejelly legs of the Grex's molten mutton or greasilygristly grunters' goupons or slice upon slab of luscious goosebosom with lump after load of plumpudding stuffing all aswim in a swamp of bogoakgravy for that greekenhearted yude!" I personally think this passage is one of the funniest things I've ever read. First of all, it rolls off the tongue in the most ridiculous way ever (you have to read it out loud) and second of all he manages to write entirely about food while making you think entirely about naughty things.
  - BellsOnSunday 11y ago
    No accounting for taste but you have got a peculiar sense of humour if that makes you laugh. Give me Professor Stanley Unwin any day.
- ruraljuror 11y ago
  As you say, it is difficult to explain humor. The best I can do is try to give examples. And to be honest most of the things that immediately strike me as funny deal with sex. In the passage cited below by jhedwards, I find the way Joyce suggests Shem's Greek-Jewish heritage explains his taste in cheap prostitutes very funny (as well as his skewering the sanctimoniousness of it all, "you like prostitutes but only the cheap ones"). Also, that he gives the address of the whore house, like it is an advertisement is also funny. You mention the first chapter, so I started reading from the online link given earlier in the thread. In the second paragraph, I found it funny the way he says that topsawyer (Tom Sawyer?) had not exaggerated the size of his balls when they were "doublin their mumper all the time." It's all about the wordplay and frankly being ridiculous. Obviously if you read these things in the context of a forum, you are probably not going to find it funny. Context is very important: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0i0fy2/stand-up-hannibal-buress--uncensored---comedy-is-a-weird-job http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0i0fy2/stand-up-hannibal-bures... As jhedwards suggests, if you read it aloud you will hear the jokes.

kens 11y ago

What did you find laugh out loud funny in Finnegans Wake? (A serious question, I'm not trying to be argumentative.) To me, there were lots of things that were clever or slightly amusing, but nothing near hilarious. Some examples from the first chapter "oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods" - ok, that's clever turning Ostrogoths and Visigoths into seafood gods. The Willingdone Museyroom section was entertaining enough with "Willingdone" and "Lipoleum" for Wellington and Napoleon. "And a barrowload of guenesis hoer his head" - Guinness the beer and Genesis the book of the bible, clever enough. I've read a few comments before saying that FW is hilarious. Maybe it's pointless to try to dissect humor, but I'm just not seeing it.

jhedwards 11y ago
"Shem was a sham and a low sham and his lowness creeped out first via foodstuffs. So low was he that he preferred Gibsen's tea-time salmon tinned, as inexpensive as pleasing, to the plumpest roeheavy lax or the friskiest parr or smolt troutlet that ever was gaffed between Leixlip and Island Bridge and many was the time he repeated in his botulism that no junglegrown pineapple ever smacked like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' cans, Findlater and Gladstone's, Corner House, Englend. None of your inchthick blueblooded Balaclava fried-at-belief-stakes or juicejelly legs of the Grex's molten mutton or greasilygristly grunters' goupons or slice upon slab of luscious goosebosom with lump after load of plumpudding stuffing all aswim in a swamp of bogoakgravy for that greekenhearted yude!" I personally think this passage is one of the funniest things I've ever read. First of all, it rolls off the tongue in the most ridiculous way ever (you have to read it out loud) and second of all he manages to write entirely about food while making you think entirely about naughty things.
- BellsOnSunday 11y ago
  No accounting for taste but you have got a peculiar sense of humour if that makes you laugh. Give me Professor Stanley Unwin any day.
ruraljuror 11y ago
As you say, it is difficult to explain humor. The best I can do is try to give examples. And to be honest most of the things that immediately strike me as funny deal with sex. In the passage cited below by jhedwards, I find the way Joyce suggests Shem's Greek-Jewish heritage explains his taste in cheap prostitutes very funny (as well as his skewering the sanctimoniousness of it all, "you like prostitutes but only the cheap ones"). Also, that he gives the address of the whore house, like it is an advertisement is also funny. You mention the first chapter, so I started reading from the online link given earlier in the thread. In the second paragraph, I found it funny the way he says that topsawyer (Tom Sawyer?) had not exaggerated the size of his balls when they were "doublin their mumper all the time." It's all about the wordplay and frankly being ridiculous. Obviously if you read these things in the context of a forum, you are probably not going to find it funny. Context is very important: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0i0fy2/stand-up-hannibal-buress--uncensored---comedy-is-a-weird-job http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0i0fy2/stand-up-hannibal-bures... As jhedwards suggests, if you read it aloud you will hear the jokes.