First Official blog post - May 3, Chapter 1, pages 1-8

Daily Summary                   “Reading Finnegans Wake” -  May 3, 2017

   riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend          
   of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to    
   Howth Castle and environs.    

      

From page 1, Finnegans Wake, 1939 by James Joyce     

Note: the first sentence is famous a continuation from the last page of the novel, establishing circularity and recursion as the novel’s defining trope.

                                                                                        

What happens?                   

As the book opens, Finnegan the Hod Carrier has fallen from a ladder and is presumed dead.  A wake for Finnegan begins. The general environment of Dublin is described.   Finnegan is also conflated with Finn McCool, the giant of Irish myth, whose (fallen) body lies beneath Dublin.

Experience of the text:      

I read the text aloud, using my best “Irish” voice.  This works much better in terms of “heard meaning” than my normal voice. In this way, the experience mimics the reading of Chaucer (a Middle English / French / English voice used there.)   Much more meaning comes out of the text in spoken version than read quietly as both texts rely heavily on vernacular, musicality and poetics. Reading FW aloud is a real kick, a challenge of interpretation and impersonation.  The language varies from soothing and beautiful to harsh and to nearly incomprehensible.

My psychological appreciation while reading goes from elliptical (circularity and repetition are noted) to fragmentary (information accrues in fragments spread through the text) to legibility (I “get” what is happening right now).  These senses during the reading create a very different brain sense than is usual in fiction, it is more akin to poetry.   (Can you say, “non-linearity”?)

The text assumes circularity and cycles of life and history. It seems to span history (Irish, Western, Biblical) and compress all history into a parallel repeating cycle.

 

Procedure:                           

1. First reading – aloud    2. Second reading – read with annotations / gloss  and the Skeleton Key text by Campbell 3. Third reading – silent read through following first two readings.   I will take several days for the initial (7 pages) reading, to break in and familiarize myself.                                               

Discussion:                         

I think the start-up reading will cost more time than successive days’ readings.  Like Chaucer, it will take me time to regularize the text into clear meaning for me.  As I move forward, I anticipate that, as with Chaucer, the text will become less opaque and even gradually become fully legible.  Another similarity to Chaucer is the fluidity of spelling and syntax – both artists liberally deploy orthographical variety to aid in their sonic, logical and shadings of meaning. 

This is a very beautiful text in many ways.  I come to this reading with a great deal of feeling already for the opening, which I have read often in the past.  I think it challenges the great openings of literary history – Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales;  Milton’s opening to Paradise Lost, Genesis. 

The text slips without notice between times and (equivalent) characters. This is an extreme version of this technique, somewhat of a staple amongst the modernist (Faulkner, Woolf). The text also seems to be overall a stream-of-consciousness dream narrative (this again echoes Chaucer and his dream narration).  Above all, the book, like Joyce’s Ulysses is pinned to and exists in Dublin; name-checking and describing it in all possible detail.  (note to self: get that detailed Dublin map!)

The opening includes the famous 101 letter word which combines languages and approximates the sound of thunder / the voice of God when Finnegan falls from his ladder.  This is replicated in Sylvia Plath’s novel, the Bell Jar.  Her character reads this just before going into a deep psychological depression. 

After the first day’s reading, I’m feeling pretty invincible.  The Literature Professors with who I have discussed this project agree that it’s a good approach (pages per day, spread over the summer, take a systematic approach). They each gave me good advice – read it aloud, seek help (ha ha!), and “you can do it!”  It is notable that none of them have read it!  Also, Joel Stein helped me out with a link to the original Finnegans Wake Society in Manhattan, and I am planning on attending their next monthly meeting. 

I am undecided about seeking a recorded full Finnegans Wake, but I might listen to fragmentary recordings such as James Joyce’s.  (His voice will help refine my adopted Irish voice, no doubt).

All this said, it is a challenging text that will consume many brain cells and that will rearrange many brain molecules.  What a writer!