5 ms·

What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

53 points by samclemens 9y ago

bshepard 9y ago
"If Ulysses is the Algebra of literature then Finnegans Wake is the partial differential equation." - Terrence McKenna, from "Surfing the Wake", a talk given at Esalen Institute in 1995. Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk Text: http://dominatorculture.com/post/78408036619/surfing-finnegans-wake-part-1 http://dominatorculture.com/post/78408036619/surfing-finnega...
- bshepard 9y ago
  "People say that the psychedelic experience is hard to remember, that dreams are hard to remember but harder to remember than either of those is simply ordinary experience. You lie in the baths and you close your eyes for thirty seconds and empires fall, dynastic families unfold themselves, power changes hands, princes are beheaded, a pope is disgraced and then somebody drops something and you wake up and fifteen seconds have passed. That’s the reality of life but we suppress this chaotic irrational side. The genius of Joyce and to some degree although in a more controlled form, Proust - and there were other practitioners, Faulkner certainly – what they called stream of consciousness but what it was, was an ability to really listen to the associating mind without trimming, pruning, judging or denying. One of the great puzzles to me is the great antagonism between Jung and Joyce because you would have thought they would have been comrades in arms but Joyce loathed psychoanalysis. He thought that to use all this material to elucidate imagined pathologies was very uncreative use of it and it should all be fabricated into literature. " McKenna, from "Surfing the Wake" above.
  - zoul 9y ago
    Woolf also does this in a beautiful way. To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway.
oceanghost 9y ago
Can anyone recommend a way to appreciate Finnegans Wake? I'm a lit buff, high-IQ by and standard (among those whose IQs are measurable at least) and have found this book impenetrable. Yet I feel drawn to it.
- grzm 9y ago
  Pick up a copy of annotations, such as Roland McHugh’s. I found it interesting on an intellectual level, but in the end it felt more like decoding than enjoying literature. Of course, tastes do vary! Give it a shot. I expect 2000 words submitted by next Friday.
  - twoWhlsGud 9y ago
    Those help, as does the realization that FW is the encoded file for some sort of advanced hypermedia (words + sounds) document system where the executable was only ever in James Joyce's head...
- anguswithgusto 9y ago
  It's enjoyable to listen to (audiobook-wise) after a tall glass of scotch. Not unlike, say, Gertrude Stein. The euphony and cadence of sentences, the unlikely word pairings, the stark impenetrability of it—it gives it the pleasure you'd get from an abstract painting. Certainly not everybody's glass of prune juice, but in those strange moods you can get yourself into, it can sometimes hit the spot. Definitely not required reading for your moral (or even literary) education, though. It's a madman's backflip of a novel; something you'd write for a lark once you knew you had nothing to prove.
  - anguswithgusto 9y ago
    Just imagine writing a program with the most perfect, functional, well-documented code.... but obfuscated and self-referential to the point of total unreadability. That's what Joyce did with FW.
    - 9y ago
hawktheslayer 9y ago
I do enjoy the fact that the first line is incorporated in the last line of the book, making it an infinite loop of sorts.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
  And then, a few decades later, Stephen King recycles the twist.
user2994cb 9y ago
The audiobook by Jim Norton (aka Bishop Brennan) is a good way in to FW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAc901X7gK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAc901X7gK0
krylon 9y ago
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/joyce https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/joyce SCNR!
avip 9y ago
Just listen to the song instead - it's way shorter, and let's face it - objectively better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6CHq9mXkJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6CHq9mXkJ8
dubeye 9y ago
There are multiple ways to read the book. You can go deep, geek out on the references and annotations. Or you can read more casually and recreationally, and just let the words flow over you, treat it almost like music. Know there is underlying meaning but don't attempt to dig it out, enjoy the surface impression. Both are valid, an academic does more of the former, a serious student probably does a bit of both. Most general readers do the latter.

53 points by samclemens 9y ago

"If Ulysses is the Algebra of literature then Finnegans Wake is the partial differential equation." - Terrence McKenna, from "Surfing the Wake", a talk given at Esalen Institute in 1995. Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk Text: http://dominatorculture.com/post/78408036619/surfing-finnegans-wake-part-1 http://dominatorculture.com/post/78408036619/surfing-finnega...

bshepard 9y ago
"People say that the psychedelic experience is hard to remember, that dreams are hard to remember but harder to remember than either of those is simply ordinary experience. You lie in the baths and you close your eyes for thirty seconds and empires fall, dynastic families unfold themselves, power changes hands, princes are beheaded, a pope is disgraced and then somebody drops something and you wake up and fifteen seconds have passed. That’s the reality of life but we suppress this chaotic irrational side. The genius of Joyce and to some degree although in a more controlled form, Proust - and there were other practitioners, Faulkner certainly – what they called stream of consciousness but what it was, was an ability to really listen to the associating mind without trimming, pruning, judging or denying. One of the great puzzles to me is the great antagonism between Jung and Joyce because you would have thought they would have been comrades in arms but Joyce loathed psychoanalysis. He thought that to use all this material to elucidate imagined pathologies was very uncreative use of it and it should all be fabricated into literature. " McKenna, from "Surfing the Wake" above.
- zoul 9y ago
  Woolf also does this in a beautiful way. To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway.

oceanghost 9y ago

Can anyone recommend a way to appreciate Finnegans Wake? I'm a lit buff, high-IQ by and standard (among those whose IQs are measurable at least) and have found this book impenetrable. Yet I feel drawn to it.

grzm 9y ago
Pick up a copy of annotations, such as Roland McHugh’s. I found it interesting on an intellectual level, but in the end it felt more like decoding than enjoying literature. Of course, tastes do vary! Give it a shot. I expect 2000 words submitted by next Friday.
- twoWhlsGud 9y ago
  Those help, as does the realization that FW is the encoded file for some sort of advanced hypermedia (words + sounds) document system where the executable was only ever in James Joyce's head...
anguswithgusto 9y ago
It's enjoyable to listen to (audiobook-wise) after a tall glass of scotch. Not unlike, say, Gertrude Stein. The euphony and cadence of sentences, the unlikely word pairings, the stark impenetrability of it—it gives it the pleasure you'd get from an abstract painting. Certainly not everybody's glass of prune juice, but in those strange moods you can get yourself into, it can sometimes hit the spot. Definitely not required reading for your moral (or even literary) education, though. It's a madman's backflip of a novel; something you'd write for a lark once you knew you had nothing to prove.
- anguswithgusto 9y ago
  Just imagine writing a program with the most perfect, functional, well-documented code.... but obfuscated and self-referential to the point of total unreadability. That's what Joyce did with FW.
  - 9y ago

hawktheslayer 9y ago

I do enjoy the fact that the first line is incorporated in the last line of the book, making it an infinite loop of sorts.

B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
And then, a few decades later, Stephen King recycles the twist.

user2994cb 9y ago

The audiobook by Jim Norton (aka Bishop Brennan) is a good way in to FW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAc901X7gK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAc901X7gK0

krylon 9y ago

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/joyce https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/joyce SCNR!

avip 9y ago

Just listen to the song instead - it's way shorter, and let's face it - objectively better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6CHq9mXkJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6CHq9mXkJ8

dubeye 9y ago

There are multiple ways to read the book. You can go deep, geek out on the references and annotations. Or you can read more casually and recreationally, and just let the words flow over you, treat it almost like music. Know there is underlying meaning but don't attempt to dig it out, enjoy the surface impression. Both are valid, an academic does more of the former, a serious student probably does a bit of both. Most general readers do the latter.