Have any of you guys actually read it? If so, is it worth the effort? How difficult is it as compared to Ulysses?
>>7838731
Ten times harder. You won't get anything from reading it
couldn't get past 30 pages
>tfw pleb
>>7838731
I can sum it up in one word: Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk.
>>7838788
>tfw that actually *is* the summary
Yes , it's extremely difficult in the second book and entering the book but once you are used to the style it is very enjoyable, of course you will not fully understand it or even half understand many parts but it's a wonderful reading experience. Chapter Summaries are helpful to keep you on track so I recommend you read one after having completed each, to catch anything you've missed.
>>7838731
Do at least 3 hits of acid then dive in
I read this a few years ago, when it was the only Joyce novel I haven't read.
I fucking hated it. Joyce was so full of himself that instead of writing more intelligibly, he wrote this piece of shit.
Does anyone even dream in 600 languages? No. Sleep studies say that we dream in the languages we're familiar with. So in essence, it's just Joyce masturbating to his own genius and laughing at us.
Oh, look! Commodius vicus, haha toilet and Vico! So smart of Joyce, amirite?
I still finished it, however. I re-read The Dead after this because I didn't want to totally hate Joyce.
>>7839243
I think the complexity was his way of confusing the reader into the dreamstate that he was laying down literally. He wanted you to be in a trance so you could experience it as a waking dream but he didn't want it to be so obvious as to just be a shallow exploration of a dreamscape.
Find out for yourself OP.
http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1/1024finn1.htm
Who wants to waste enough of their life trying to read and understand this twaddle
>>7840143
My thoughts too.
I have an enormous amount of respect for him and I consider Ulysses to be the greatest book ever written, but I know that without dedicating my life to it I won't get enough out of it to justify the time investment. I love experimental films, music, paintings etc. but I can't see myself putting in to time to read FW. If it were much shorter I might have a go, but it's a bloody long book too.
>puns
seriously
>>7838731
Yes and Yes. It's several times more complicated than Ulysses, but it's not a "puzzle book" with concrete solutions the way Ulysses can be thought of. There's an intentional overabundance of meanings to the point where they take on a noise-like quality of blending together into a vague impression rather than forming a concrete picture or meaning even when you do recognize them. It's best thought of as a dream with a plenitude of potential meanings and ideas but no definitively "correct" ones.
Read about 100 pages, decided I couldn't do any more until I have a massive amount of time to devote to it.
It does have a plot, contrary to what some people say, and it isn't really even THAT hard to figure out what's going on or what characters are involved once you know some of the basic tricks, but holy fuck does it take work. And it's not really that fun or funny, the "jokes" are usually something where you spend 10 minutes looking up a reference and go "yeah I guess that's funny."
It's certainly not incoherent or sloppy though. I plan to come back to it someday.
The first 100 pages and the last 100 pages are worth slogging through if you have the time and a guidebook and are a Joyce fan. Otherwise, don't bother. The middle of the book, representing deep sleep, is unintelligible by any standard.
>>7838731
its the worst book beckett wrote imo other than dream of fair to middling women
>>7840148
Joyce said outright that he asked of his reader that they spend their whole lives reading his work.
Which version of Finnegans Wake should i get?
>>7838731
It's not meant to be read.
It's a work of genius.
>>7838731
To anyone who has read this:
I've read portions of this book before and as far as I can tell he's doing two things mainly. First he's representing in verbal form something like the conscious/unconscious stream of thought and word we all experience. Second he's playing with the nature of language, specifically for sounds/signs to represent multiple different meanings and for sentence structures to veer off in illogical fashions, both creating a sort of 'semantic illusion' which represents the uncertainty and fluid branching of our interior reality .
Is this at all close to what is going on in this book?
>>7842882
Again this is somewhat bullshit primarily because we don't dream in 600 languages. The 'collective unconscious' propounded by Jung doesn't apply to language. Sleep studies, done in the last 20 years, have observed that our dream language always involves the languages that dominate our daily lives. Although there may be exceptions, such as a person able to speak German while sleeping because he was close to a neighbor with a German radio, most of the languages that dreams possess are the languages that the dreamer uses in daily life.
So if we're English we don't dream in Japanese. This has been corroborated consistently, which is why this novel offends me so much because bottom line it's just Joyce jacking off to his own genius - which is fine, since he's really one, but I disagree with Finnegans Wake being a work of art.
tl;dr: No one really knows, but the closest answer to that is probably yes.
>>7838731
It's worth the effort if you're willing to put in the time.
I read it. It was ight.
>>7842895
Why would you not agree with Finnegans Wake being a work of art? Because of that one issue with not dreaming in multiple languages? Surely one flawed premise of the book doesn't make it "not a work of art"
>>7842895
You're taking it too literally. He wasn't saying that everyone dreams in every language, he was using multiple languages to illustrate the the symbolic language of dreams itself, which is often confusing, foreign by the standards of waking logic, and possibly even entirely impenetrable to the conscious mind.
>>7842895
>dream in 600 languages
>collective unconscious
check your reading goggles
>>7842895
It's a celebration of language, you tool. It literally starts with stuttering and the tower of Babel.
We're not dreaming in 600 languages, but we all dream in language.
>>7843169
More of a celebration of life that pushes the boundaries of language.
>>7843169
What's this with 600 languages anyway? It's an exaggeration, right? Right, anon?
>>7843226
It's actually ~60 languages. They all combine and interweave, though.
>>7838731
I'm currently reading it without a guide (outside of the vague chapter summaries in the front of the book). I went into it after reading Ulysses thinking that it would be a massive slog but I'm genuinely surprised at how fun it is. It's playful with it's language and you should keep that 'playful' mindset when reading it. Be thorough but don't kill yourself over not understanding everything (especially since that's sorta the point).
>>7844010
About how much do you think you've been able to understand so far?
Finnegans wake is probably the most aesthetically perfect piece of literature ever written
Anon's which book first.
Finnegans wake vs Ulysses
Ive been reading some Mr Anton Wilson, he talks about Mr Joyce quite a bit, don't know what book I should read first.
>any suggestions ?
>>7846030
Definitely start with Ulysses. Joyce shows his ability and genius by telling one day in a different number of ways. One chapter is a play (definitely the hardest chapter IMO), another is a research paper. The last chapter of Molly is just one long sentence.
Before that, though, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
>>7846069
Thanks anon.
Is Finnegan's Wake supposed to be satire of modernist and avant garde fiction? That's the impression I got
>>7846112
I don't really understand it, so I don't know.
I think Finnegans Wake is shit. Read Ulysses instead. It's more intelligible.
>>7845583
Enough for it to be enjoyable. It's pretty much a choose your own adventure in regards to how much you understand it. For the most part I read into it just far enough to understand what's happening in the plot (which is when I choose to move on to the next paragraph) but this still requires me to do some heavy (wikipedia) research depending on how vital the obscure references are to understanding a particular paragraph.
I think it has a nice rhythm. That's all I got from reading the first ~10 pages.
