James Joyce
1939
Around 630 pages
Well, the dreaded day has arrived, where we have to discuss this...novel? I think a more accurate term would be word prison. Joyce said he could justify every line in the book. What bullshit. Where's the self-loathing? I never read a book more up its own ass.
Here's a sample sentence: The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.
It's hard to believe this word prison can make you feel like Ulysses was readable. I'm planning on banging my head against the keyboard if we have to read anymore Joyce. The results will be the spiritual successor to this self-indulgent ledger of nonsense.
RATING: *----
Interesting Facts:
Written over the course of 17 years.
Joyce invented a unique polyglot-language or idioglossia solely for the purpose of this work.
Nabokov, who actually liked Ulysses, described Finnegan's Wake as "nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity." Yas, queen.
UP NEXT: Native Son by Richard Wright
1 comment:
I read in the news recently that a book club in America finished going through Finnegan's Wake after meeting each week for twenty three years to discuss each new page.
A guy I used to know told me that his class studied as part of some post-16 English literature qualification (I forget what, but the point is they were relatively advanced) at they got through just two pages over the course of an entire year.
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