/lit/ - Literature

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;P

After reading 3 study guides, it might make sense to you.

>>1919128

Oh my.

>>1919128
Sort of maybe. Step up your German, French, and Irish game first

I borrowed 3 guides from a friend, im sure you can borrow a couple from the library.

I made it to page 20ish or so, every 3 pages took me an hour of notes and annotations in my copy, but it was all starting to come together. It was just exhausting, really, but when you make sense of it all, it really is rewarding. Good luck

It's actually not as hard to read as most people would have you believe.
Now, inb4 people rage at me: The book is readable without speaking 15 languages and having read and retained every major book ever. There may or may not be some factors that are not interpretable due to lack of such, but the general concepts behind the book are understandable to mostly anyone if they have listened to an explanation of the style in which it is written.

> mfw I riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs

The concept behind The Wake is universality; namely, that all people can understand it in their own little way. Ulysses was of that ilk too, but it did it with characters. Joyce was taking an extra, nigh on impossible step with making it accessible in moments to all who read it. A wunderwurk.

>>1919140
Additional help: try reading a brief synopsis of what the novel is based on. Then, begin the book on the second-to-last page and continue from the beginning once you've reached the end.

>>1919138
>>1919140

So, is there any tips or anything to take into account when I go back to reread? I feel like this book has something to offer, yeah, I just don't know HOW to piece it together.

I'll see if there is any guides around but any other tips?

>>1919140
true fax. The biggest hurdle is understanding it's written phonetically in different Irish dialects of English. Once you've got it down, you can read it pretty fluidly. It's still balls-out though and reading guides will open your eyes to stuff you would have missed. The multilingual puns are great when you catch them, but you'll miss most of them and won't really lose anything.

>>1919147

Oh thanks, okay.

>>1919149
First off, you can see what I just posted.
There are lots of helpful guides all over the internet, but if you Amazon "Joysprick", there is a book about the language of James Joyce that I have heard is extremely useful. The only problem is that the book is out of print and you will have to purchase it used.
Portions of the book are interpreted differently by different people, so radically so, that new interpretations are still being conceived.

>>1919150
That's something that I forgot to say, about the puns
To OP: he's right when he says you won't miss much with the puns. Half of them are completely irrelevant to anything and Joyce is just being a dick. Such as "penisolate" --> "peninsulate" ---> peninsular

Straight up, fuck puns!

>>1919174
>"And she is coming. Swimming in my hindmoist. Diveltaking on me tail. Just a whisk brisk sly spry spink spank sprint of a thing theresomere, saultering."

bubbly farts

Let it wash over you. Feel it, don't analyze it. Looking for meaning ruins it. After you've finished it go back and read it again and pick out all the stuff you missed.

I'm a retard

>>1919199
I'm not sure that exactly makes sense. The way I interpreted that was the way someone would explain New Age music. Is there a better way to describe what you mean?

I don't understand why the fuck people read bullshit like this. I read to be entertained, not confused.

It's just a random collection of words. Don't let the hipsters try and persuade you otherwise.

>>1919212

I mean, that's just it, I'm literally entertained from this jumble of words.

I just want to know what the fuck it all really is, because I strongly feel like what I'm reading is not what is actually being put across.

>>1919212
It's not to "be confused". It's enjoyable so long as you know what you're doing.
>mfw the ying apparently can't read this book

>>1919211

If you try to look for meaning in every story Joyce presents, if you try to analyze each pun, you will get bogged down. It's better to just stare at each page and let your mind go free until you have its outline and what Joyce was trying to convey.

Of course if you want to read into it it's up to you. I derived more pleasure from reading it this way, however.

>>1919222

This is natural. I experienced the exact same sensation when reading it. Don't worry about it. It doesn't ever end; you can always just go back and read it again.

, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.

don't read more than 5-10 pages at a time... you'll enjoy it much more that way

there is meaning in every twisted sentence;
telling you to not look for meaning, letting it wash over you or whatever the fuck this >>1919199 idiot is trying say wont help you at all.

read a paragraph, stop, think, keep going...no more than 10 pages in a sitting.

>>1919269
>there is meaning in every twisted sentence;

okay overanalyze it all you want

or you could just read the fucking book and not worry about whether you're doing it right

>>1919289

despite what /lit/ normally does... both ways of reading it are ok.

>>1919269
> thinks FW is meant to be analyzed and scrutinized

It's my favorite book.

>>1919289

if you can't understand it, why bother reading it at all?

>>1919141
Hearasay in paradox lust

>>1919307

Because complete comprehension is necessary to enjoy anything.

>>1919301

>too stupid for analysis

>>1919312

that is a nice strawman.

>>1919317

Okay, then, because comprehension at all is necessary to enjoy anything.

>>1919313

Christ, you're right. You've analyzed a book that is completely open to interpretation. You are very smart.

>>1919327

>open to interpretation

yeah man...fuck authorial intent. I'll just be an incompetent idiot and plug my pathetic self into it

>>1919340

the author is dead.

Read it while drunk OP

>>1919344

lol at how far this thread has degraded.
sorry, OP
you actually got more than a usual amount of actual help when it comes to Joyce on /lit/

>>1919358

pretty much.

I haven't read Ulysses, but I looked up Oxen of the Sun, just to see what the fuss is about. I don't know where to begin, nor why I would want to read that, but some of the other parts of Ulysses that I read were actually really beautifully written. I'm just not sure it's worth the headache of the impenetrable parts.

I'll save it for when I'm older and wiser (being only 18 at the moment, I'm not sure there's much point in me attempting).

>>1919340
Can't the work being open to interpretation be an intent of the author?

>>1919385
Yes, but it's a moot point, it's going to be open to interpretation regardless, author's intent does not have primacy, at best it's a side-issue of analysis and it's generally accepted to be of no importance at all.

>>1919359

It's okay.

I've decided to go with any guides I can find, read a synopsis, and just take the book at a slower pace.

This novel wasn't really written regularly, so it won't be necessarily read regularly.

I've read some literary critics who have said something along the lines of "I've read Finnegans Wake and greatly enjoyed, despite having no idea what was going on."

Are they pretentious assholes or am I a pretentious asshole?

>>1919366
Oxen of the Sun sacrifices the warmth and humanity of a lot of the book. I'd say it's one of the worst chapters, if the most complex.

>>1919469

They are pretentious assholes. Most literary critics are.

>>1919469

You're the pretentious asshole. Like most of /lit/, you're too hung up on the authority you imagine you possess from having read about thirty books. Read more, get humble, get playful, become as a little child, enter the kingdom of Joyce.