Finnegans Wake Reading Group - Are We at Least Three Edition

[Anonymous No.12486388]

>FINNEGANS WAKE READING GROUP
Around 20/30 pages a week.
Sunday Threads
Comfy pacing, comfy discussion.

>SECONDARY LITERATURE
W.Y. Tindall - A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake
J. Bishop - Joyce’s Book of the Dark
R. Elllmann - James Joyce
J. Campbell - A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
R. McHugh - Annotations to Finnegans Wake

>READING FOR NEXT SUNDAY (03/02): I.2 & I.3 (p. 30-74)

>TODAY’S DISCUSSION (27/01): I.1 (p.3-29)
What did you understand of the chapter?
What passages where you impressed with the most?
What’s the most interesting word(s) you find and why?
Are you enjoying the general experience or not?
Also suggestions on how to improve the thread

>But the world, mind, is, was and will be writing its own runes forever, man, on all matters that fall under the ban of our infra rational senses fore the last milchcamel, the hearten throbbing between his eyebrowns, has still to moor before the tomb of his cousin chairman where is date is tethered by the palm that’s hers. But the horn, the drinking, the day of dread are not now. (pp.19-20)

[Anonymous No.12486410]

Aint no body readin 30 pages a week of finny's wake, not happenin

[Anonymous No.12486430]

>Finnegans Wake

[Anonymous No.12486469]

>>12486430
Love the shit outta this /lit/ meme, but I will not be basedposting, out of respect for this thread

[Anonymous No.12486625]

OP here, going to start with my own opinion. I tried, I really did, but the text is incredibly dense and difficult, and deciphering each and every word is impossible. What I am doing at the moment is following the outline and then try to decipher what is happening from the text. I also had the immediate impression of reading multiple stories at the same time. As if I was going through a myth, a ballad, and other things, and the linguistic confusion was the result of putting more than one text there at the same time. Despite many nonsensical bits, I have also found passages that were very evocative, such as this one:

>(Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this daybook, what curios
of signs (please stoop), in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since
We and Thou had it out already) its world. It is the same told
of all. Many. Miscegenations on miscegenations. Tieckle. They
lived und laughed ant loved end left. Forsin. Thy thingdome is
given to the Meades and Porsons. The meandertale, aloss and
again, of our old Heidenburgh in the days when Head-in- Clouds
walked the earth.

I feel like the first chapter was mostly going through the major themes of the book - this sort of “psychedelic” way in which all stories are one story or are somehow expressed in each other, and how the story of the fall somehow embodies them all. It felt like going through different references to those stories - Adam & Eve, the babel story, Tristram & Isolde, up to the story of Tim Finnegan in the ballad to present the main theme.

At the moment I am trying to avoid guides as I would like to get as much of it myself as possible. I feel that the text requires me to work on it on my own first, and that I have more fun trying to figure out things alone (despite still relying on the outline to have at least some point to hang to). But I am thinking to use a bit of Tindall from the reading list I provided you at the beginning for the next bits (I am actually almost a 100 pages in at this point but I want to keep the pace slower so that more people can join in, at least in the next sessions).
I will try to keep these going, anyway, if someone is interested!

And oh, I had found a useful website to help deciphering the words, called finwake.com, but it seems to be down today. I’ll put the link in next Sunday’s thread, if it goes back up!

[Anonymous No.12486638]

>Finnegan's Wake

[Anonymous No.12487142]

You're doing God's work OP. I think this may be the push I need to finally pull myself through this beast.

[Anonymous No.12487209]

How many people do you know are involved? I was planning on starting the book sometime this week.

[Anonymous No.12487245]

>>12486430
Based

[Anonymous No.12487261]

>>12486430
My sir you are based

[Anonymous No.12487292]

>>12486388
Coincidental because last night I did a ton of research on books to use as guides and videos and such. I’ll try to join in too once I get a copy of the book

[Anonymous No.12487348]

this is cool, I didn't know you guys were doing this. I'll try and catch up as quickly as I can

[Anonymous No.12487368]

>>12486388
very motivating
I’ll finally take a look at it

[Anonymous No.12487392]

>>12486430
Very, very based

[Anonymous No.12487402]

>>12486430
>>12486469
you people need to all go back

[Anonymous No.12487423]

>>12486388
good for looking at when can’t get to sleep

[Anonymous No.12487654]

>>12487142
>>12487209
>>12487292
>>12487368

This is so great! I do not know how many we are, I think there were another couple of anons who said they would join in last week. I am beyond next week mark so that maybe, if I have time, I can put some extra research into this. I tried to read around 10 pages a day, maybe a bit more if I can, but I want to progress slowly so that I can make it through. All of you can still jump in fairly easy at this point, and if other people are interested I can slow the pace a little bit more next week.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of links to things I found useful.

>An Adventurer's Guide to Finnegans Wake
http://www.fractiousfiction.com/finnegans_wake.html
This is a series of advices on how to approach the book. Some of them are good, others are not.
>read aloud
This was definitely useful! It's not the key to understand everything, but let's say that if when you read you get 20% of what is written, by reading aloud you can bring it up to 35% (at least this is my experience).

>The Finnegans Wake Toolkit
http://www.fractiousfiction.com/fwtoolkit.html
This is a list of books from which I have taken the suggestions I put in the post. There are other books, but I am planning to keeping it light and stick solely to Tindall (maybe Campbell later) when I can't understand anything of the text. I want to try to engage with the book by myself as much as possible. Again, reading aloud has really helped!

I am by no means an expert in Joyce, but I only miss FW and I want to read it. If we are lucky enough, maybe we'll get some scholarly level anon to help us out!

[Anonymous No.12487685]

>>12487654
>if when you read you get 20% of what is written, by reading aloud you can bring it up to 35%
I would highly recommend everyone interested in reading the book listen to this clip of Joyce reading part of the book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kFqiv8Vww

The text has a lot going on, but it is also very influenced by Joyce's specific dialect. Understanding what that sounds like and some examples here of how that plays out in the spelling of certain words should help a lot.

I'll be studying it in a doctoral seminar and can try to comment on anything that seems particularly useful. (Hasn't started yet.)

[Anonymous No.12487735]

>>12487685

Thanks for the video, and please yes, stick around if you can! Meanwhile if we can keep the thread up for a couple of days, people can catch up with the first 30 pages and maybe we can discuss that more deeply!

[Anonymous No.12488953]

I've been reading myself, just got to page 75. Next week's section has some really cool passages but I won't "spoil" them.

Some general things to look out for: HCE or ALP, any words that begin with those letters in a row signify the main characters. The first reference to HCE is "Howth Castle and Environs".

There are many puns on Dublin, like Dobbelin or Dyoublong.

References to Cain and Abel come up occasionally.

Humpty Dumpty is everywhere in this book. "Falling" is one of the book's main themes.

There are a lot of giant puns and references. HCE is the "giant of Dublin". There's a passage somewhere that describes the giant using landmarks in Dublin, and the penis is a monument that's shaped like the Washinton monument in the US, I forget where the passage is.

One of my favorite short passages in the first 30 pages is on page 6. The paragraph that starts with with "Shize?". It describes the rowdy scene at Finnegan's Wake (yes the apostrophe is intentional).

Also the book references itself. I've found at least two passages that are "rewordings" of earlier passages. They sound similar but are made of different words.

[Anonymous No.12489055]

Oh another cool passage is the one that begins with (Stoop) on page 18 quoted in >>12486625

It goes on for a few pages and covers the history of writing (also mentions Saint Patrick banishing snakes from Ireland). On page 20 the book makes a meta-comment on itself, and is one of my favorite sentences I've read so far.

>So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined

A relatively clear statement that describes the complex language of the book. The ending pun is great, "the book of Doublends Jined" is both the book of "Dublin's Giant" (HCE) and the book of "Double-ends Joined" because the end loops back to the beginning.

[Anonymous No.12489075]

Why can't you all just admit to yourselves that the book is a gigantic piece of shit, like maybe the worst thing ever written and save yourself all that time?

[Anonymous No.12489087]

>>12487685
That's dope. Let us know how learning FW within a doctoral setting is vs. random internet speculation

[Anonymous No.12489091]

>>12487654
>All of you can still jump in fairly easy at this point
A good thing to note is that there's really no reason to start at the beginning. The book is designed to be a circle. This is one of the few reading groups that can be joined at any point, and it also doesn't matter much if you miss a few weeks and just start reading without "catching up". You won't be significantly more lost than anyone else.

[Anonymous No.12489094]

>>12486430
My oh my, this is based

[Anonymous No.12489117]

>>12486430
Came here just for this

[Anonymous No.12489262]

I have absolutely no intention of reading FW for now but this is a great thread, you almost made me change my mind.

[Anonymous No.12489386]

I have this book but have never really tried to read it

[Anonymous No.12489451]

>>12489075
I just listen to the audiobook sometimes when I'm bored.

[Anonymous No.12489525]

>>12489386
Coward, pick a random point to start with and then read it out loud. Make sense of it later u might enjoy yourself

[Anonymous No.12489527]

>>12486430
Cringe. Predictable.

[Anonymous No.12489534]

>>12486625
Respect.

>>12486430
Fuck off.

[Tristram Shandy No.12489537]

>>12486388
Aight as someone who has personally studied the fuck outta this book, lemme give yall some suggestions.

1) The only secondary lit that OP posted work getting is McHugh's annotations. This is a required companion. One literally cannot read the book without them *to start.* Once u get the hang of it, however, it can be fun to tread water for a bit without the notes, going back to them when u feel u really need to get something (wtf are law of 12 tables, etc)

1a) Secondary literature I recommend
-Finnegans Wake: A Plot Summary by John Gordon, Syracuse UP 1986 (believe he writes the introduction to the most recent Penguin edition, correct me if I'm wrong?). Admittedly dated. Admittedly a conservative approach to the novel (Gordon says as much on p1) BUT highly HIGHLY helpful for answering the question: What the actual fuck is going on? See, reading McHugh, like reading Gifford along with Ulysses, will let u know what each word means, but it isn't going to help at really with what the fuck is going on and that's at least part of what we're interest in, right? Joyce is an ideas man, a wordsmith above all, but he also tells a good story and FW is no exception. It takes place on a particular day. In a particular place. Actual things occur. Gordon's Herculean effort helps elucidate all this stuff. It's very effective, I've found to go from Gordon->FW->McHugh->Gordon on a first read. Really, to do it all justice, and because of how fun it is, I recommend u spend most of your time with the primary text, but Gordon is going to be a much more effective spotter than McHugh, in my opinion. Depends on how u read tho.
-The Aesthetics of Chaosmos by Umberto Eco. This is on the more scholarly side, but not at all as scholarly as some of the other stuff I could recommend for FW. Essentially, Eco traces the influence of Aquinas, Bruno, and da Cusa on Joyce. Obviously the chapter on FW is the relevant one, but the points made in the Ulysses chapter can also be illuminative of issues at play in the Wake. If you're on your way towards theoretical interpretations of the novel, this Eco essay is instrumental in laying out the transition in theory from linguistic models of rational order to that of chaos and crisis. You may note bubbling beneath the surface of that comment a nod towards poststructural theory. FW was a premier inspiration to the likes of Derrida and Lacan (who credited the mirror scene in FW to inspiring his own writings on the mirror stage) and is a great foil to poststructural theory.
Anyway
Finally I recommend ReJoyce by Anthony Burgess for the chapters of his readings of the Wake. Excellent for a layperson with enough precision and wit/genuine insight to seriously buttress anybody's private readings. Seriously, if you get only one of these three books, buy ReJoyce
What else can I say? see next post (1/2)

[Tristram Shandy No.12489554]

>>12489537
(2/2)
What else can I say?

Deleuze's essay, "Plato and the Simulacrum" (first appendix from The Logic of Sense) has been instrumental to my own readings of the book and I highly recommend this if you're looking for a nuclear supplement to go with this reader-nuking book (Martin Amis' metaphor, not mine)

Someone above noted that chapter 1 feels like it lays out the themes of the novel's approach to representation. I would specify this a bit and say every page, almost every sentence, functions as a microcosmic statement of poetics for the book at large. This is to say, the forms present on each page (serial representation/connection to every other image in the novel, the fractal references that bloom out of each pun) continually make overt the novel's representational investments in 1)language as such 2) partiality, partial forms of representation. We can get into this more if u so desire.

I would say a good way to read is to pick a page u like and do a close reading of it. This is to say, more than decoding the references, figure out the arguments that are put forth by the formal play...

[Anonymous No.12490622]

>>12489537

Thank you very much! I will include these in the next thread!

[Anonymous No.12490634]

>>12486388

Why would anybody even bother before at least reading the New Science?

[Anonymous No.12490639]

But while I'm thinking about it, take my content.

[Anonymous No.12490868]

Another bit I would like to discuss is the Pranquean story (21-23) which I was rereading this morning. First of all I thought it was really masterfully build, and it is a good example of how the book works. If you read the story aloud, it has all the sounds, the repetition, and the structure of a fairytale. But given the density of the language, again, it is not entirely clear what is happening. My understanding is that the Pranquean (ALP?) comes three times at the house/inn/Lighthouse of Jarl van Hooter (HCE?) and asks a riddle:
>why do I am alook alike a poss of porterpease?
“a” then becomes “two” and then “three”. (I also like the riddle because it sounds a bit like the sound of a sentence of someone ordering a drink, at least to me, so it was somehow evoking HCE as innkeeper). Now, what the riddle means, and why it is the cause of the “skirtmisshes” is difficult to understand. Nonetheless you get a sense that Jarl Van Hooter not understanding or not answering the riddle, and mistreating the Pranquean, enrages her somehow, so she kidnaps one of the “jiminies” (twins - Tristopher and Hilary, Shaun and Shem) and turns them into each other. Now something happens when she wants to kidnap the third one - the daughter “dummy” - which enrages Jarl, then follows a confrontation and Jarl is sent away/defeated “was to git the wind up”.

All this to say: you get a series of impressions that evoke stories in you, although you may not be able to understand everything that happens. This sounds like a fairytale and has the structure of a fairytale, but ultimately the mystery is to understand both what happens in the fairytale and what the purpose of inserting at this point of the text is.
For me, up to the point where I am now (96) this was possibly the passage that “explained” more about the family relations of the main characters. The twins are interchangeable, the daughter, as a “dummy”, is somehow passive in respect to the actions of her brothers and father, HCE has this sort of static quality of resisting to change and not understanding what is coming at him, and ALP, the Pranquean, appears like an almost magical character, capable of changing things into each other “liquidly” (she “rains, rains, rains”), her dynamism opposing HCE’s static quality.

But what is the defeat theme about? And why is it marked by a thunderword? How do you interpret the opposition between Jarl van Hooter and the Pranquean here, what does it mean for you?

>>12490639

Thanks anon, I saved it!

[Anonymous No.12491106]

>>12486430
yeah, I'm thinking this is based

[Anonymous No.12491237]

>>12489117
>>12489094
>>12487392
>>12487261
>>12487245
>>12486430
Holy fuck, how much samefagging can be crammed into one thread?

[Anonymous No.12491249]

>>12491204

Start with the ____

[Anonymous No.12492118]

>>12490868
>prankquean
This video illustrates the repetition in that passage well.
https://youtu.be/wH1kaHt3Fa8

[Anonymous No.12492641]

Going to try
Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.12492696]

What's the consensus on this?

[Anonymous No.12493611]

>>12492696

http://www.fractiousfiction.com/fwtoolkit.html
This link can give you a perception of it. The author says it is outdated and reccomends Tindall. But I have to say, I am not enjoying Tindall very much and I am going to try and pick up Gordon at my library tomorrow. I feel like >>12489537 was right when he said it's better to have an outline of the plot and then enjoying decoding it yourself. Maybe the Skeleton Key can be a bit better, as it seemed more plot oriented when I read the first pages in the library.. But I am not sure, anon, I would check multiple books out and see which one you enjoy more in terms of approach. I will touch upon several texts, just to be sure.
Another motivation to go with the Skeleton Key it's that its title is so much cooler than the others.

[Anonymous No.12494265]

>>12492118

beautiful, thanks anon