Listening

David found a YouTube video of James Joyce reading from Finnegan's Wake. I don't count this as scholarship because it's the author. I can't figure out where he's reading from, but it seems crystal clear in comparison to reading it on the page. If I can find the page, I think this might be a real key. I have felt from the beginning that this is something that needs to be heard instead of just read.

Anyone know what part of the book this is from?

Navigating

This seems really remedial, but I'm going to use this post just to document what I can figure out in terms of bare basics.

The first paragraph locates us. It's also reminding us of the circular nature of the novel ("a commodius vicus of recirculation") and then it lands us at Howth Castle and Environs. I wonder if Sir Tristram may be a protagonist of sorts? I think perhaps Sir Tristram is arriving from North America to Ireland ("the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor"). "The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man..." We're dealing with a wake, so is this an announcement? The announcement of his death? I love the words in this sentence:

The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the w

est in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

If I had to translate this - knowing nothing so far, and so probably completely wrong - I might say it's about a notice of some sort that entails the death ("pftjschute") of Finnegan, who was in life a solid man, but his death ("the humptyhillhead of humself," like a gravestone?) promptly sends someone on a journey to the west looking for him, and where he lies is in a grave "where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green."

So we have someone who has died and someone who is going to the wake now.

Maybe?

Whew. It's taken me an hour to get this far, and I have absolutely no idea if I'm anywhere near the zip code, let

alone the mark.

Many of the words are just flat out made up, of course, and onomatopeia must play a large role here. "The fall (bababadalgharaghtakammionarronnkonnbronn...thurnuk!)" - surely this is the sound of a fall!

I looked up "violer d'am

ores" on Google Translate, and it had trouble with it. "Violer" means "rape." I presume "d'amores" has something to do with love. May ask my French teacher friends. Of course Joyce could be created French words, in the same way he's making up English words, and so maybe it just means "violator of loves."

On page 4, we get our first description of Finnegan:

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen's maurer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofarback for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers of Helviticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very water was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!) and during might odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper's Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso.

Other than the fact that

my head is now pounding, there are some small shoots of understanding emerging here. I think as long as I can anchor myself in the subject and verb of each sentence, the adjectives and adverbs can become background noise. Of course, they are important too (and for me are both the most interesting and most distracting parts), but what's most difficult here is that the text doesn't feel like it has a foreground. As I read this section, just identifying subject-verb-object and letting the rest wash over me seems to help.

I do wonder, however, how this book was edited. It will be really interesting to look that up when I'm done. I love words like "hierarchitectitiptitoploftical," which (aside from driving the spellcheck crazy) looks at first like a word you want to skip over. But then you see the roots in there. Hierarchical, with "architect" and "tip top loft" embedded inside it. This now reminds me of e.e. cummings. One of my favorite poems of his is this one:

If you haven't seen this poem before, stare at it for a few minutes. The method here is the same - embedding words within words. Of course, the length of the cummings poem rewards effort with a quick sense of satisfaction, which is so far missing from the Joyce for me. And it takes a long time to work these things out, which explains why I'm only on page 5 so far (the book starts on page 3), and haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what may be at work here.

But each little pin-prick makes me feel like I have some small chance of entering in. I'm not navigating yet, but I feel like the compass arrow is starting to settle down.

Starting Over and A Little Housekeeping

So I've had the night to think it over, and while I really liked Sarah's idea of starting on page 237, I found 2 issues with this that go beyond comprehension.

First, 4 other people are reading this with me, and so for us to have any sort of meaningful conversation, we need to be (literally) on the same page.

And second, even though the book may be (in)comprehensible when starting at any point, there is an authorial intent in starting from the beginning.

These considerations seem strong enough for me to start at page 1, so that's what I'll be doing today. Don't worry, 237, I'll see you again!

Also, I have changed the settings to allow posting a comment without signing in and without moderation, so it should be much easier to comment now, and I hope you'll take full advantage of that!

And finally, if you want to follow the blog, there are several ways to do this. If you have a regular Google account, you can follow by joining over on the right side of the blog. Or you can subscribe through Google Reader, if that's your thing (very easy that way), or you can just check back to the page from time to time. Let me know if you want help with any of this.

All right. Here we go again!

FW Song

Vlastik posted this in the comments, but I thought it deserved its own posting.

Finnegan's Wake (traditional) (with audience participation notes)

by The Dubliners



Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
An' to rise in the world he carried a hod
You see he'd a sort of a tippler's way
but for the love for the liquor poor Tim was born
To help him on his way each day,
he'd a drop of the craythur every morn

CHORUS
Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
round the flure yer trotters shake
Bend an ear to the truth they tell ye,
we had lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

One morning Tim got rather full,
his head felt heavy which made him shake (audience convulses)
Fell from a ladder and he broke his skull, and
they carried him home his corpse to wake
Rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
and laid him out upon the bed
A bottle of whiskey at his feet
and a barrel of porter at his head

CHORUS

His friends assembled at the wake,
and Widow Finnegan called for lunch (audience yells "LUNCH!)
First she brought in tea and cake,
then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch
Biddy O'Brien began to cry, (audience yells "Boo hoo hoo!)
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see,
Tim, auvreem! O, why did you die?",
"Will ye hould your gob?" said Paddy McGee

CHORUS

Then Maggie O'Connor took up the cry,
"O Biddy" says she "you're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and sent her sprawling on the floor
Then the war did soon engage,
t'was woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began

CHORUS

Mickey Maloney ducked his head
when a bucket of whiskey flew at him
It missed, and falling on the bed,
the liquor scattered over Tim
Now the spirits new life gave the corpse, my joy!
Tim jumped like a Trojan from the bed
Cryin will ye walup each girl and boy,
t'underin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?"

CHORUS repeat

towooerds him in heliolatry...

Well.

Getting started on page 237. I can't believe I'm doing this. Just in case you haven't read the book, let me type out the opening paragraph on page 237 so you will get a sense of what I'm up against.

thing feminite, towooerds him in heliolatry, so they may catchup in their calyzettes, alls they go troping, those parryshoots from his muscalone pistil, for he can eyespy through them, to their selfcolours, nevertheleast their tissue peepers, (meaning Mullabury mesh, the time of appling flowers, a guarded figure of speech, a variety of perfume, a bridawl, seamist inso one), as leichtly as see saw (O my goodmiss! O my greatmess! O my prizelestly preshoes!) while, dewyfully as dimb dumbelles, all alisten to his elixir. Lovelyt!

That's what greets me at the top of page 237.

In a sort of a panic, I turned to page 1, just out of curiosity, to see what a devastating mistake I made. However, I ended up quite reassured since page 1 is no more comprehensible.

ruverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to weilderfight his pensiolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios whole they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoic from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kikdscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonn-thunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstraight oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstresly.

So at least on a surface level, I'm not any worse off on page 237.

But oddly enough, as I typed out the selections, they made more sense to me, on a sort of non-sense level. Or should I say on a sensory level, as opposed to intellectual. Something started to click. I can't name what it is yet, but it felt like something I could follow. I think reading it aloud will help, and from what I've read before, I think I shouldn't struggle too hard to understand the plot. I have a feeling the story will emerge on its own, and that really it's about sounds and images and the playfulness of the language. Like the difference between learning about biology in a class or just splashing around in a mud puddle. Sure, it may be difficult to figure out exactly what's going on, but it's still fun to splash around, and the education there is perhaps less linear, but no less profound. If this actually is non-linear but still something I can experience, I'll be mightily impressed!

I'm barely into Round 1 and already reeling from the punches, but the sounds and the colors are kind of pretty!

237

Snippet from a conversation with a friend and colleague in the hall today.

Sarah: So have you started the book yet? (This has been a fairly constant question for me this week.)

Me: No, not yet. Hopefully today!

Sarah: What is it you're reading again?

Me: Finnegan's Wake.

Sarah: Oh, right. I read your email about that.

Me: (showing the book) Yeah. Apparently, the book is circular, and the first half sentence is actually the second half of the sentence that ends the book. So the theory is that you could pick up the book anywhere and start from there.

Sarah: So where are you starting from?

Me: I'll probably just start from the beginning.

Sarah: Boring!

Me: Well, I guess that's fair.

Sarah: You should start on page 237. Find out if it's really true.

Me: Hmm. Good idea.

So I guess that's where I'm starting....

Boxing an Irishman

I've seen enough Jim Sheridan movies to know that boxing an Irishman is never a great idea.

Yesterday, I sent an email to our faculty to let people know what I was doing in case they were interested. I honestly didn't expect anyone to reply or even read the email. But very quickly, my inbox started filling up, and I posted several of them to the comments section of yesterday's entry. It seems like this project has touched a nerve. Two people even decided they want to join me in reading the book. All of the comments suggest intriguingly complex relationships to Joyce. The language at times implies the type of relationship you might have with an abusive father. There is grudging respect, emotional scarring, guarded tenderness, and the type of connection that clearly transcends the academic. You can read them yourself, but let me deal with a few of them here.

The responses I got seemed to fall into several distinct categories. The first can be summed up this way:

I'd rather burn my first edition of DeLillo's "Americana" than slog through "Finnegans Wake." I'll certainly read your blog and roll an occasional Red Bull across the cafeteria.

And then there are the dire warnings:

Please start with Dubliners and use a Reader's Guide which we have. Nobody attacks Joyce successfullly without a teacher, and forget about "Finnegan's Wake."

I love the compassionate tone, which could be read to imply some sort of physical danger could be involved. This was reflected elsewhere in the comments too.

It is like hearing the ocean is a really great place and jumping in the middle of the ocean when a storm is going on.

Or this:

If I were you, I would have chosen Ulysses. An easier opponent to box. At least the Bible is in English.

A lot of people said I should start with Ulysses, but I think if I conquer FW first, then when I do get to Ulysses, it will be like beach reading.

People in the hallways have expressed their commiseration as well, saying things like, "So I heard about your Joyce project..." followed by the type of pause they might use if they found out a close personal friend of mine had died.

On the other side of the spectrum, I've had some wonderful comments about how transformational Joyce has been, and these little hints are what make the project seem so worthwhile.

I probably think about JJ about once a week at least. While I was running yesterday, for instance.

Or this:

I can't say I like his work, I just can't forget it or let it go as I have so many others, it still fascinates.

Or this:

My favorite moment in "Araby" is the pause between these two lines: "'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you something.'" and "What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening!" So much is implied in that pause, that break. The 2nd sentence encapsulates 14-year-old love better than almost anything else. I was that boy at that age.

That's not the type of comment I've heard about Joyce before. Always the awed respect, but rarely the personal identification. All of this reinforces for me why I want to do the project in this way. The encouraging comments are all wonderfully complex and personal, and show that when the works touch you, they can leave a permanent scar. Those who connected find themselves looking at the world differently, and find this new paradigm unforgettable.

But what confirms me most are the warnings. If a book cannot be understood, unaided, by a reasonably intelligent person, then what does that say about the book? If those who were affected by the book could only achieve that in a classroom setting, then how much of that has to do with the relationship with the teacher? Perhaps - as has been suggested - this is the essence of post-modernism, that this type of book cannot be separated from its intricate context, and shouldn't be. David (my co-teacher of the Living Epic course) suggested that it would be like trying to start reading The Two Towers without reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and that perhaps FW is not a standalone work - that it needs the context of his other writings, and even perhaps his own biography, to be understood properly. And I do understand this, and it's probably why I'll lose this fight.

But losing, ironically, would be the best outcome here.

Or perhaps the only better outcome would be to succeed not in proving that the work is not worth the effort, but in proving that the work can be understood on its own terms, and what I can bring to the text are my own experiences, my own biography, my own cultural references, my own curiosity. I am certainly allowing myself to look things up - dictionaries, encyclopedias, the internet, and of course the contributions of those who participate with me and comment here. But literature is ultimately a conversation between an author and a reader, and should not require the intervention of the scholar or the critic. I know that's a Protestant belief, and Joyce's complex relationship with Catholicism may complicate this even more, but I stand by the principle that a great work of literature should reward the seeking heart without having to be filtered.

So while I'm boxing a dead Irishman here, I'm actually searching for ways for his blows to reach me.

I just heard the bell. Time for Round 1 to begin...