Finnegans Wake general

>>8602752
There is literally nothing you could read about this book to prepare you. This book wasn't meant to be interpreted, but experienced.

>>8602752
the correct answer is "everything joyce read" because he basically drew on everything he had. outside of, maybe, vico, there's no single one thing that's meaningfully more important than anythign else. everything that you do read aids a smidgen with understanding more of fw, but there's really no one text (besides, as mentioned, vico) that will give you a big boost.

>>8602758
>>8602764
Cool, thanks for the hot Vico tip. FW is sort of an asymptotic goal of mine since I only started reading seriously about a year ago. So good to know that I wasn't far off in terms of not interpreting/"getting" everything.

When you read it, read it out loud in an Irish accent. It will be more clear.

>>8602797
Or just listen to Jimmy J himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtOQi7xspRc

read the damn book
read the damn criticism
read the damn book again

File: jj.jpg (177KB, 1280x853px) Image search: [Google]

177KB, 1280x853px

I think really

all of joyce
vico's new science
freud's on the interpretation of dreams
KJV

but if you just read it first (out loud) without trying too hard you'll understand parts, because some parts are not very hard to parse and you'll get some references from what you've already read. Then you can look up on FWEET parts of the text for more specific interpretation, or look at one of the guides ('joyce's book of the dead' for example)

There's lots of latin parts, and note that italian was joyce's favourite language. But if you're desperate to get the meaning of a specific part look it up

That all said I've only read half of it so far - just like beethoven

Time's a'wasting!