An opinion about Finnegans Wake

[Jassy Melson]

First of all, I think Finnegans Wake is incomprehensible. I've read the book twice and in my opinion the work simply doesn't make sense.

I think what Joyce was trying to do was simply experiment with twentieth century language. He wasn't trying to create a new language; he was simply playing around with the language at his command.

Joyce himself admitted that Finnegans Wake was a book of the night and of dreams. I think what he was trying to do was to capture the essence of a dream and to put it in language on paper. Did he succeed? No, I don't think he did. I think what he did was write an essentially incomprehensible unreadable book.

There are those who proclaim Finnegans Wake to be a masterpiece and one of the greatest books ever written. I happen to disagree. I think for a book to be considered great and a masterpiece of literature it must be comprehensible and able to be understood by the majority of people. Finnegans Wake does not meet those requirements.

[cacian]

Hi Jerry very brave of you to read that twice. How do you do it?

I guess the way to address Finnegan is to think about the dream and how it occurs in normal life.
Most of my dreams are how shall say incomprehensible if they were translated or transported to reality but they would make perfect sense in a dream context because that is why a dream is called a dream. It is not real.
So taking that into account look at the book as a great piece of a jigsaw that would only fit if you were dreaming the story too. In other words if you read this book in your dream or a state of dreaming then it would propably make sense to you then.
It is about the setting and where it is assigned to take place.
I hope this helps at all.

[Jassy Melson]

After reading Finnegans Wake the first time, I waited for about ten years to read it a second time, thinking that the years would add something to my understanding of the book. It didn't.

[cacian]

After reading Finnegans Wake the first time, I waited for about ten years to read it a second time, thinking that the years would add something to my understanding of the book. It didn't.

Yes I think whilst some us grow some books don't I am afraid such is the nature of things.

[Anton Hermes]

I've read the book twice
Of course you have. And I'm Lady Nelson.


There are those who proclaim Finnegans Wake to be a masterpiece and one of the greatest books ever written. I happen to disagree. I think for a book to be considered great and a masterpiece of literature it must be comprehensible and able to be understood by the majority of people. Finnegans Wake does not meet those requirements.
The "majority of people," you say? How many people truly understand Dante or Shakespeare? How many truly comprehend what Bach or Beethoven were doing? It would take years of study to achieve such understanding of the life's work of these geniuses, and it would certainly be time well spent.

The Wake is comprehensible, in the same way that the Cantos of Pound or Eliot's The Waste Land are comprehensible. By availing oneself of the scholarship that has accrued around the work in the seventy years since its publication, the dedicated reader can appreciate the allusions and get a reasonable understanding of what Joyce was trying to accomplish.

I happen to admire Finnegans Wake greatly, and am always amused at the amount of resentment the work still inspires.

[Jassy Melson]

I don't feel resentful that Finnegans Wake is incomprehensible. Your sarcasm and snide remark directed toward me is infantile. Grow up.

[Scheherazade]

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Off-topic/inflammatory posts will be removed without further notice.

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[MorpheusSandman]

It's a linguistic playground, and a frequently very funny one at that. Read it out loud, enjoy the language, and don't worry about getting it. Getting things is overrated anyway.

[Anton Hermes]

It's a linguistic playground, and a frequently very funny one at that. Read it out loud, enjoy the language, and don't worry about getting it. Getting things is overrated anyway.
I quite agree. My wife can testify that when I was reading it this past Spring, I was often laughing out loud. The four judges performing the Marx Brothers-style seance is priceless comedy.

[kelby_lake]

Joyce was part of a movement. If you like Modernism, you probably ought to read him as an example of linguistic experimentalism. I sort of agree with the OP in that great literature is partly comprehensible: comprehensible in its language although not necessarily when we think of its themes. Even if the prose is complex (i.e. Faulkner) it is still understandable. Great works of literature are more than an experiment.

[mona amon]

It's a linguistic playground, and a frequently very funny one at that. Read it out loud, enjoy the language, and don't worry about getting it. Getting things is overrated anyway.

Sounds like fun, but I don't think I'll ever be reading this. Sometimes you feel you've read about all you can take from an author, at least that's how it is with me. For example, I read Love in the Time of Cholera and loved it. The next year I read Hundred Years of Solitude and loved it. Yet I knew when I finished it that I wasn't going to read Marquez's memories of his melancholy whores.

Same with Joyce. Liked Portrait, loved Ulysses. But enough is enough. I didn't have the slightest desire to read Finnegan's Wake.

[Anton Hermes]

I don't think I'll ever be reading this.

I didn't have the slightest desire to read Finnegan's Wake.
:confused5:

Um, who cares?

I can't think of another book that makes people do this. I can't imagine why readers go out of their way to inform the world that they're not interested in reading this book, but it's not because they're not up to the challenge or anything, it's because it's just not worth it, they can't spell the title correctly, and it's unreadable anyway.

Read what you want, for whatever reason you want. Some experiences aren't for everybody.

[Paulclem]

I think Mona makes a valid point about author fatigue, and never mentioned that it's not worth reading Finnegan's Wake. Don't we all get a bit of author fatigue sometimes, but come back later?

[Anton Hermes]

I think Mona makes a valid point about author fatigue, and never mentioned that it's not worth reading Finnegan's Wake.

Oh. Okay, fair enough.

[Hal]

I think Finnegans Wake is a practical joke.

[MorpheusSandman]

Great works of literature are more than an experiment.One could equally argue that all great works of literature are experiments on some level. Authors, especially poets, have been playing games with language for centuries before Joyce; that Joyce finally did it in prose in novel-length, and did it by combining language from multiple cultures and idioms, seems only a matter of scale.

[My2cents]

Getting things is overrated anyway.

You hit the nail on its head. And just to expand on it, knowledge is unquenchable, so to get to the bottom of anything is as futile as having a rosy economic forecast live up to its rosy forecast.