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I like to think that Finnehans Wake was an elaborate practical joke aimed at the literary establishment. Can imagine Joyce chuckling to himself as he imagined
by grabcocque 10y ago
I like to think that Finnehans Wake was an elaborate practical joke aimed at the literary establishment.
Can imagine Joyce chuckling to himself as he imagined generation of literary critics and bedevilled students trying to make sense from its fractured dreamscape.
I love the book, though. It's words come closest to capturing in words what it is like to dream. Glimpsed fragments of meaning, locations and people and ideas that shift and stir in and out of existence. A lingering sense that there was some kind of narrative there, but there's no way you could ever describe in words what it was.
- sanderjd 10y agoI've been reading the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman recently, and this is exactly how I feel about them (especially the one I'm currently on: volume 9 "The Kindly Ones").
- zzalpha 10y agoSo you'd subscribe to (g) in his list of possible interpretations: (g) The reliable readiness of critics, doctoral candidates, and know-it-alls to enshrine difficulty for its own sake, to rise to the bait of erudite obscurity that Joyce laid for us in this, the greatest literary prank ever played (outside of revealed religion).
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago> I like to think that Finnehans Wake was an elaborate practical joke aimed at the literary establishment. This is how I feel about the two books by J.M. Coetzee[1] I've read, Disgrace and The Childhood of Jesus, minus the 'elaborate' part, they're simply practical jokes, and wholly unremarkable. A bit like Jean Micheal Basquiat's art. That's not art, it's a fucking joke. Coetzee must be having a good chuckle when he sees the critics write "a masterpiece" and "richly enigmatic". That's just my opinion, of course. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee