Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

nybooks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#11

Post by barking »

twoodfin wrote: post #9
barking wrote: post #2

I'd recommend John Huston's film 'The Dead' to anyone who would like experience something by Joyce. I did read a bit of 'A portrait of the artist as a young man'. He really got into the head of a small boy who was being bullied in one part. I never finished it though, I can't remember why. I don't think that I could ever read Ulysses, I did listen to a reading of it on the BBC's book at bedtime many years ago and lik…

If you want to try tackling Ulysses again, I have two recommendations: First, Frank Delaney is doing a wonderful podcast, "Re: Joyce"[1], unpacking the novel in short segments. The original episodes cover just a few sentences each; lately the format has expanded to a whole page, in the hope that he'll finish before 2040! Currently, he's just started in on "Scylla and Charybdis", the ninth chapter. His enthusiasm for…

That's an amazing resource. I remember frank delaney from bbc radio years ago, I had no idea he was still around, looks like he's moved to america and reinvented himself. Thanks for the info.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#12

Post by barking »

f_allwein wrote: post #7

Came across this nice quote by Kafka recently, which seems relevant: "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves i…

I don't know how that would apply to books but I can very much relate to it with newspapers. People read papers that agree with their viewpoints, it's unpleasant reading political opinions that go against one's own. It's cognitive dissonance I suppose.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#13

Post by grabcocque »

I like to think that Finnehans Wake was an elaborate practical joke aimed at the literary establishment.

Can imagine Joyce chuckling to himself as he imagined generation of literary critics and bedevilled students trying to make sense from its fractured dreamscape.

I love the book, though. It's words come closest to capturing in words what it is like to dream. Glimpsed fragments of meaning, locations and people and ideas that shift and stir in and out of existence. A lingering sense that there was some kind of narrative there, but there's no way you could ever describe in words what it was.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#14

Post by [deleted] »

barking wrote: post #2

I'd recommend John Huston's film 'The Dead' to anyone who would like experience something by Joyce. I did read a bit of 'A portrait of the artist as a young man'. He really got into the head of a small boy who was being bullied in one part. I never finished it though, I can't remember why. I don't think that I could ever read Ulysses, I did listen to a reading of it on the BBC's book at bedtime many years ago and lik…

[deleted]

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#15

Post by VLM »

barking wrote: post #12
f_allwein wrote: post #7

Came across this nice quote by Kafka recently, which seems relevant: "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves i…

I don't know how that would apply to books but I can very much relate to it with newspapers. People read papers that agree with their viewpoints, it's unpleasant reading political opinions that go against one's own. It's cognitive dissonance I suppose.

Unless you intentionally want to convert yourself, the propaganda user experience is generally pretty unpleasant.

Agreed that cognitive dissonance could be a part of the part of propaganda that is hatefacts.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#16

Post by sago »

barking wrote: post #6
bshimmin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dead is a good film, undeniably, but its basis is the final short story of Dubliners , which is Joyce's most approachable work; everything afterwards was increasingly avant-garde, but Dubliners is at least written according to conventional rules of both English grammar and literature (though there's a lot going on behind the scenes). (I personally very much enjoyed Portrait... and Ulysses - the latter is very dif…

If I try Ulysses again it will probably be an audiobook, I could never make any headway with it in text. I might try getting hold of Dubliners in book form.

James Norton's audio book of Ulysses is superb, he really captures the beauty of the language. I'd recommend it more as an audiobook that written, at least at first, just as I'd recommend listening to Shakespeare rather than reading the text.

genius.com has an annotated Ulysses, [0] and it might be even better to listen and read at the same time.

[0]: http://genius.com/albums/James-joyce/Ulysses

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#17

Post by sago »

Ulysses is one of, if not my absolute, favourite books. And I don't share the post's dislike of Portrait, either.

But Finnegan's Wake, yeah. Too much for me. There are moments in Ulysses that touch that, but then reign back into focus, but Wake is just beyond me.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#18

Post by HenryTheHorse »

sago wrote: post #17

Ulysses is one of, if not my absolute, favourite books. And I don't share the post's dislike of Portrait, either. But Finnegan's Wake, yeah. Too much for me. There are moments in Ulysses that touch that, but then reign back into focus, but Wake is just beyond me.

"Portrait" is a little masterpiece. There are sentences and passages in it that make me want to stand up and applaud the genius that is Joyce.

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#19

Post by lintiness »

f_allwein wrote: post #7

Came across this nice quote by Kafka recently, which seems relevant: "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves i…

i think everyone ought to read whatever books they fucking want. what's with pretentious assholes always telling everybody what they should and shouldn't do?

Re: What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)

#20

Post by keithpeter »

lintiness wrote: post #19
f_allwein wrote: post #7

Came across this nice quote by Kafka recently, which seems relevant: "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves i…

i think everyone ought to read whatever books they fucking want. what's with pretentious assholes always telling everybody what they should and shouldn't do?

Kafka was himself an author. I think authors like to believe that their work changes people, that books and other writing are not simply content to be tailored for specific demographics. His use of 'we' in the quote sort of suggests that he might be speaking mainly for himself. Perhaps he was just trying to explain his particular kind of want.
Post reply on HN