WarpMyMind

Ok, how about this.

Finnegans wake, masterpiece of literature or the biggest leg-pull in history?

What is it about? Was he serious in writing it? What ideas does it aim to convey?

Your thoughts please..............

Where is you source? I MUST SEE A SOURCE!! *Vomits blood*

SubmissMe wrote:Ok, how about this.
Finnegans wake, masterpiece of literature or the biggest leg-pull in history?
What is it about? Was he serious in writing it? What ideas does it aim to convey?
Your thoughts please..............

Here's some baseline information for people who might want to comment on James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/index.html

It has been said that the American national character is half-German and half-Irish. The German half makes detailed contingency plans for every... contingency. Then, when a contingency becomes reality, the Irish half ignores the carefully crafted plan and proceeds by the seat of the pants. (See, e.g., Hurricane Katrina.)

When debate swirls on the topic of what Joyce really meant in his literary work, you can tell he wrote it nearer the Liffey than the Rhine.

I agree entirely. I think that there are many underlying messages in this book that don't get picked up. The book took Joyce 17 years to finish, for me that sounds like an awful long time if you're just playing a literary prank.

I think it could be successfully argued that it falls under all three responses you listed.

sandy82 wrote:

It has been said that the American national character is half-German and half-Irish. The German half makes detailed contingency plans for every... contingency. Then, when a contingency becomes reality, the Irish half ignores the carefully crafted plan and proceeds by the seat of the pants. (See, e.g., Hurricane Katrina.)

I like this comparison. All the fun. Get to be meticulous and the thrill, and still get to do it all over again. :P

Any other comparasins anyone?

Try Gilligan's Wake

SubmissMe wrote:Ok, how about this.

Finnegans wake, masterpiece of literature or the biggest leg-pull in history?

What is it about? Was he serious in writing it? What ideas does it aim to convey?

Your thoughts please..............

Finnegans Wake is a dream about life, death, rebirth; it's Joyce's attempt to do for the night what Ulysses did for the day.

Nominally, it's the story of the River Liffey, personified as Anna Livia Plurabelle, as it flows into the sea to die and be reborn/wake up, but, like dreams, it's meaningful on many levels.

Joyce famously said FW was written for the "ideal reader with an ideal insomnia," and given its difficulty I'd say that's an accurate description. I certainly haven't read very much of it! But it's great fun to tease out, and it can be funny and beautiful. Most would probably say that Joyce got carried away and produced something so dense and erudite as to be virtually unapproachable, but it's certainly not a joke -- it's a serious work by a great artist.

I probably shouldn't comment as I haven't read the book. But in my Literary Criticism class last semester it gained the dubious distinction of being made fun of more than any other text. From the segments read both there and otherwise, I feel confident in assuming the text to be serious... but so ridiculously overblown and over thought as to be all but unreadable. As I write this I'm searching the book via Amazon and testing out some random pages. While leaping into the midst of a book is generally not great for comprehension, just the way things are phrased and the way the sentences lead one to the other... it is borderline tragic.

Route42 wrote:I probably shouldn't comment as I haven't read the book. But in my Literary Criticism class last semester it gained the dubious distinction of being made fun of more than any other text. From the segments read both there and otherwise, I feel confident in assuming the text to be serious... but so ridiculously overblown and over thought as to be all but unreadable. As I write this I'm searching the book via Amazon and testing out some random pages. While leaping into the midst of a book is generally not great for comprehension, just the way things are phrased and the way the sentences lead one to the other... it is borderline tragic.

Try reading it aloud. You may be surprised at what happens.