Finnegans Wake

[cacian]

Cacian, I feel as though I am discussing the Wake with an online version of Gertrude Stein: "It is up make up mind up time". Your prose is garbled to the point of incomprehensibility, and your arguments, as far as I can make them out, are totally insubstantial.

Ok ''it is make up mind time''. My argument? I have no argument. You asked why could one not compare the two? That is your argument not mine

Firstly, do you really want to get into an argument over the definition of art? Okay. Art originally meant craft or skill, and what was Joyce doing all those seventeen years if not crafting? The Wake is NOT an example of automatic writing; in other words, we know Joyce made a conscious decision to use each word in a particular way.

You make a statement as if you were there? were you actually present at the time? Because if you were not you better not assert what you do not know for sure. I would keep it speculative.
Finnegan is not art. That is my opinion. It is your are then so be it. I am entitled my opinion.

Secondly, what on earth can you mean by saying sound implies understanding?

What you mean you do not understand the meaning of this but you do understand Finnegan??

Thirdly, I believe that your assertion that words have meaning independent of context represents a trivial understanding of language.

Explain how is that trivial? how does one begin to pick words if they had no prior understanding on their own? How does one formulate a sentence if the words meant nothing at the first place?

[cacian]

Cacian, I speak only English, and appreciate your attempt to use a foreign language. However, unless your English is at a very high level, I do not see the point of conversing about such complicated topics as the relationship between beauty and meaning and the definition of art.

I know tell me about it .and what a mischief. You ain't seen beyond the word yet. Appreciate nothing learn something.
Conversation is not complex it is about what is easy and manageable. You have neither. You seem to stick at a page and not look beyond it and you are thrown.
There is no relationship between beauty and meaning. Beauty is a word and a meaning is its colour its figurative. I know you won't understand that.
Art does not define it refines. A definition by design is a fixed meaning that you will find in the dictionary gathering dust and then you come along and you flick its page. Dust rises the meaning awakes and the word appears. Not before. Very slow indeed. In the meantime words huddle up awaiting the hand to shake then about . Dust does them food in the meantime.
I'd have my words turned inside and out not one speckle of dust about their be. Syntax troubles? I know.
But then you converse beauty art Finnegan all in one go and then for good measure you thrown a tantrum because someone else said what a lot of toss. That an achievement deserving of another book of its own. Try a new dictionary.
Now in the meantime get on with your complex and let me get on the perplexe. I'd like to shake a few .

[YesNo]

Criticizing a book you have obviously not read is ridiculous. The irony of you suggesting that Joyce wrote for sound without meaning or possible understanding is terribly amusing. Your posts are next to incoherent with a dearth of proper spelling, syntax, and a jumble of misplaced and mixed metaphors. Your own poetry rings more like deranged nonsensical nursery rhyme, it makes the english language arbitrary with no regard at all for spelling or sense, and there can be no understanding of it by any but the initiate.

Here's a link to Finnegans Wake: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/joyc.../episode1.html

I am proud to report that I have read only a few "words" from it.

Anyone who likes Finnegans Wake should have no problem with "incoherent" writing "with a dearth of proper spelling, syntax, and a jumble of misplaced and mixed metaphors". They should have no problem with "deranged nonsensical nursery rhyme" that "makes the english [sic] language arbitrary with no regard at all for spelling or sense" for which "there can be no understanding of it by any but the initiate".

[Emil Miller]

I have a contribution to make to this thread: what do we mean when we say 'to understand'? If I look at the Grand Canyon I know it is beautiful; does that mean it must also have a meaning I must find? And why should works created by a human be any different?

Consulting my dictionary, I note that 'understand' is given as ' to have or exercise the power of comprehension.'

[Lykren]

Consulting my dictionary, I note that 'understand' is given as ' to have or exercise the power of comprehension.'

The point I am trying to make is that understanding also implies the existence of something to be understood. The question of definitions, by the way, is not so simple as the makers of dictionaries would have you believe.

[Desolation]

I've never worked up the courage or stamina to sit down and try to read the Wake as a whole, so I can't really defend it to fervently...However, I really like to pull it off the shelf every few days and read passages from it.

It reminds me of listening to Miles Davis, especially at his most avant-garde...I have no idea what the hell he's trying to say, what messages or arcs (which I know seems like an odd thing to say, but jazz and other instrumental music does often have an arc in the way the notes are put together) are to be found in the pieces, and I don't particularly care - I find it beautiful whether I actually understand it or not. The music speaks to me on another level. It creates a certain emotional state, paints strange pictures in my mind. It's a totally visceral, aesthetic experience. You can't listen to Miles the same way you listen to the Beatles (and why would you try?), and you can't look to the Wake the same way you would look to other books. The experience either appeals to you or it doesn't; there's nothing else to be said, is there?

[Lykren]

Oh, Cacian:

That there is no relationship between beauty and meaning is, oh, just EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN ARGUING?

[cacian]

Oh, Cacian:

That there is no relationship between beauty and meaning is, oh, just EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN ARGUING?

Oh dear.
Here is what you said:

I have a contribution to make to this thread: what do we mean when we say 'to understand'? If I look at the Grand Canyon I know it is beautiful; does that mean it must also have a meaning I must find? And why should works created by a human be any different?

Now here is a question for you and try and 'understand' without reaching the dictionary:
How do you know the Canyon is beautiful?
And why do you think there has to have a meaning or Not?

[Jassy Melson]

Well this is one of the more absurd statements I've read. A "sloppy slobby writer"? You might say that Joyce wove labyrinths far too confusing and arcane with his writing; that he was purposefully obfuscatory; that he spent years hiding his meaning behind layer upon layer of language; you might say all this... However, to suggest that a man who spent 17 years carefully crafting one of the most unique, profound and multilayered narratives ever written, well, this is entirely inane. Congratulations on that.

I suggest such statements would fit better in that rather amusing thread about a make-believe world where Hidy the Clown has actually been published.

Your statement about Hidy the Clown only shows your jealousy. As for Joyce, I think he was insane. Any writer who spends seventeen years writing a book and not writing very much at a time is thinking too much and not writing much. Joyce probably went years between writing installments of Finnegan.

[Lykren]

This will be my last post in this thread.

Cacian, my question implied there was no meaning to the grand Canyon.

Then you ask me why I think "there has to [be] a meaning".

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