The Misadventures of Quinxy von Besiex truths, lies, and everything in between

The Madness of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

That James Joyce wrote a book called Finnegans Wake was not new information to me, that knowledge seeped into my brain by happenstance years ago, but it was only just now that I learned it is a charmingly unreadable mess.  A friend suggested we read it together, hinting at its peculiar nature, and that seemed a lovely idea to me, so in preparation I downloaded a copy to my Kindle so we could do just that.  Getting beyond the first few pages has proven more difficult than ever I could have imagined.  If you can understand (unaided) even 5% of what he's saying you are a better man or woman than I will ever be.

I'm a bit puzzled about what to think of Mr. Joyce's tome.  Were it a small fraction of its length I would declare it the clever work of a genius exploring the beautiful landscape of all available ideas, but its considerable  length and the considerable time it required to create suggests it the work of a genius (always or in latter years) gone mad.  I wish I was the sort who could slog his way through such a book, but the need to look up every third word presents quite an obstacle to ready enjoyment.  Perhaps it will take me the next seventeen years to read what it took him a similar seventeen years to write.  I marvel and applaud his effort, I just wish my attraction and appreciation was on a less theoretical plane.

Here's how the book opens, in case you think I'm lying about its degree of obfuscation...

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

Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.

Finnegans Wake (w/ mouse-over annotations)