James Joyce.Duel in Phoenix Park.

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 07 Nov 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

AmounrA	07 Nov 2002
I have recently bought a book by the great Irish writer James Joyce. Its called 'Finnegans Wake' . It is a very bizzare book, and I find myself compelled to read it, yet I often don't have a clue what it is I am reading. Has anyone else read this book and knows any advice or site tips where I can get more information about the strange 'coded' language contained in it?. I would be very much obliged.

Diana	09 Nov 2002
Oh AmounrA. This is a book that I will read when I am old and retired and I have about a year to spend reading just one book! Good luck! Tell us when you've finished it and your take on it. The problems start right in the title: Where is that darned apostrophe? :D

Kaz	09 Nov 2002
this seems to be a great book, but i had trouble reading it in highschool, i started in numerous times and didnt get far in it, i gave up........ i might try again this life though :-) you should ask all is one about this book, she majored in english literature. kaz

Laurel	09 Nov 2002
Here are some decent links on Finnegan's Wake. I plan to read it when I'm 40 :) http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Bistro/9161/wake.html http://fusionanomaly.net/surfingonfinneganswake.html http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/index.html http://www.finneganswake.org/ Laurel

AmounrA	09 Nov 2002
Thanks Laurel, thats just the ticket ! The amount of times I have to read and re-read each sentance, let alone paragraph, I may be 40 before I get to page 100 :-)

Laurel	11 Nov 2002
LOL! I feel that way about one of the books I'm currently reading "Ideas and Ideologies" which is a copious history of Western thought and social constructs. I took a break from it to do some lighter reading because I'd read it right before bed... and fall asleep with the lights still on, face pressed against the pages.

ihcoyc	11 Nov 2002
I'm something of a fan of Finnegans Wake, myself. To read the book requires that you have a smattering of Latin, Gaelic, Swedish, and half a dozen languages besides. Still, the whole thing is like a half-heard conversation. To get the best effect from it, reading it on the page is not really the way to go. It should be read aloud. I would like to have a laminated edition of the book so that I could read it aloud in the shower. Finnegans Wake is the best book in the world for bibliomancy, divination by opening a book at random and choosing a random text from it. Use the Bible, and you may come up with genealogies or ritual sacrifice instructions. Use Homer, and you may end up in the Catalogue of Ships. But use Finnegans Wake, and ever passage is guaranteed to be oracular.

Cerulean	11 Nov 2002
Sounds like Finnegan's Wake is more a prose poem conversation--any good audiotape versions? I've heard more than a few humanities teachers use James Joyce as an example of stream-of-conscious toiling and many students in the evening classes mutter, "If I were rich and older and had time..." Some of them look well over 40, so I guess it's not a high priority. Mari H.

zander770	11 Nov 2002
[quotethe problems start right in the title: where is that darned apostrophe? :d [/b][/quote] ". . .four books/"chapters"; vico's recourso of "fours"; four syllibles in the title . . ."fin-e-gans wake". the title's "lack" of apostrophe--great of you to notice, diane! most do not--suggusts many MANY things; first being that the book isn't "about" tim finnegan, nor any other "finnegan" who happened to "fall of a ladder!" it "might be" a call to the finean's to "WAKE!"; a "call to battle," in a way! i suggest using roland mchughs _annotation's in _fw__ and actually having That Book UNDER and OPEN w/_fw_ On Top of it while reading _fw_, for mchugh's book is a "page-by-page" reference tool. also, it'd help to begin w/all of the "sigla's" (e.g., H=HCE (humphrey chimpdon earwicker); W=HCE "on his back"; A=ALP (anna livia plurabella); S=Shem ("the penman", shaun's brother & jj's alter-ego), et. al. i've been studying _fw_ for over ten-yrs and . . . it's just a WEALTH of knowledge; the word "quark" first appeared in _fw_, "four quarks for master mark!" as did the double-helix of DNA! much as tarot is (e.g., levi's old quote about the "prisoner remaking the world"), so is _fw_! i cannot say enough about it! reading _fw_ makes _ulysses_ look like a "promanade through the park..." there are also a lot of cd's out (i'll give anyone the ref's, if interested), including one i contributed to: _a wake newslitter_ from split pea press, c 2000), and it's quite helpful to "hear" the text being read, esp w/an irish brough (hell, try reading it "drunk," too! try "singing" it), plus the famous audio of joyce himself reading from the "ALP 'washer women' section." here's a Great site, for starters: http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/index.html there's also several online reading groups, which can be helpfull and supportive. the world is only but Beginning to Scratch the Surface of this...this Book! The "_fw_ notebooks" have only just become available--to the General Public and/or to us w/out $10,000 to before-to purchase them!--through SUNY at buffalo: www.brepols.net, et. al., et. al., et cetera, et cetera!!! slan leat! ~Z~770

Pollux	11 Nov 2002
Seems like many of us share a very definite proposal for middle age... *LOL* I must admit that I relegated to my elderdoom also Ulysses... I HAVE tried to read it a couple of times though - and in English, not even my mothertongue, but what's the use of reading translations when I speak it? I find it rather daunting as a... sequential reading. And I have got some background info on it that should help me - the teacher at school was mad about Joyce, and I was too, so I studied a bit - but all the same I enjoyed it more when I opened a random page, and started reading the chapter. And some pages. I think that both are among the greatest books ever written. The Divine Comedy of the 20th century. :P

zander770	12 Nov 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Mari_Hoshizaki any good audiotape versions? chk out the 2-cd set: _finnegans wake_ by patrick bell! email: celestial@compuserve.com www.harmonies.com c 1997 celestial harmonies po box #30122 tucson, az., 85751 several others, too, but--alas!--i don't have them "handy," currently . . . ~Z~770 (also: "emailia" first appeared in _fw_!!!)

zander770	15 Nov 2002
Phoenix Park (in dublin, "environs) is also bigger than Central Park, if you can believe that! it is HUGE! pope joh paul spoke there--several yrs ago--and they kept the HUGE white cross there. the president of erie lives there, as well. great park! wild deer run freely! hey, AmounrA? he..he...hello? geuss he took a mini-vacation; mayhap just a beer-run! ~Z~770 :smoker:

The James Joyce.Duel in Phoenix Park. thread was originally posted on 07 Nov 2002 in the Spirituality board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Spirituality, or read more archived threads.