Man the Fuck Up and Let's Finnegans Wake

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Man the Fuck Up and Let's Finnegans Wake

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

Not sure why I should bother reading the deranged ramblings of a dying man that people keep insisting is a book when in fact it is not.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 23:46

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 12:36

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

Officer Sandvich posted:

He must have been dying for a long time, it took him like 20 years to write it

We're all dying every day mate

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 01:03

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

I did some reading about the book and I apologize for my earlier dismissal. While I was trying to be funny, the sentiment I expressed was still what I thought about the book and was based only on offhand comments seen across the internet and elsewhere. So now I actually think it seems like something really interesting.

I own Dubliners, though, and I read the first story and Clay and they both were really boring, so I don't know what's up with that.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 05:22

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

elentar posted:

Can never get enough of the Wake � already running a Wake group at my school and attending another in town and writing about the thing for my dissertation and so on and so on, but happy to lurk this thread as well and chip in where I can.

It always makes me laugh when people describe the book as unreadable (or similar) because it's about the most obsessively readable book out there. I know people who have been reading it for 60 years or more.

For a print edition, I really highly recommend the Oxford World Classics one, has a very helpful intro and short breakdown of the most generally accepted postulates about what's going on in different parts.

Also since the whole thing loops around, and was written way out of order anyway, there's no need to start at the beginning, actually a lot of people who try the book run aground early on and never come back. There's easier entryways, such as the section starting on page 104, or the one on 196, or the one on 555.

I would gently caution against overreliance on the Campbell Skeleton Key ��not because all that stuff isn't there, but because it's easy to start thinking that stuff is all that's there, or some sort of root meaning to it all, when it'd be closer to say that it's the sheer proliferation of potential meanings, and the inability to settle on any single one, that is the "key" to the work.

Really that's just all my prejudices though, the Wake is a book every reader ought to try at least once or twice in their own ways, especially if you can join a group to read it out loud while drinking.

edit: also, as resources go, FWEET is pretty great once you learn a little bit about the book and have some ideas about how it works.

You have convinced me (the rest of the thread helped, this post just sent me over the edge) to buy this book.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 02:18

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

I went to buy Finnegans Wake but there were no copies so I got Ulysses instead. I wish there was a thread for that.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 01:00

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 12:36

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

Burning Rain posted:

111 volumes and 26k pages

Jesus

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 19:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Man the Fuck Up and Let's Finnegans Wake