I DONT UNDERSTAND SHIT

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>>8628795

I'm hoping to read in in 5 years. (I'm 25 now).

If anyone has recommended pre-reading for this. let me know. (Don't fucking tell me entire western cannon).

Or is the idea of preparing for a read like this just absurd? I hopped on the meme train before and just jumped into GR (read a few Pynchon books beforehand though...) and didn't get much out of it.

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>>8628795

>>8628795
more like finnegans piece of cake lmoa

>>8628958
The western canon is like 20 books why can't you read 20 books in 5 years?

>>8629023
Shakespeare alone wrote over 20 plays lol

You aren't supposed to understand everything in Finnegans Wake. Nobody does. I doubt even Joyce did. The book is like a mirror, you only find yourself in it.

>>8628795
theres actually a translated version online so that people can understand in normal english.

>>8628963
kek'd hard desu

>>8628958
As a 34 year old who was a /lit/ fanatic when younger, I will say I read much more for pleasure than for goals now.

I started reading Ulysses and in some passages I dont understand shit either
Feels bad

Read it out loud.

Is the "this is nonsense" thing a joke? Because I read FW when I was 17 before I read any other Joyce, and I was still only beginning to get into literature, and I could nearly fully understand what was going on in every little vignette. Of course I wasn't getting most of the literary and mythological references but the plot made pretty much full sense to me, even if it's more like a series of disjointed scenes

I'm just good at puns and etymology. Do you guys really not understand the book?

>>8629126
Do reals? Where

>>8629186
Did this, super fun. Also drink a little first.

>>8629213
I feel the same way about quantum mechanics, I don't know linear algebra or group theory but I still understand it. My teacher says I'm very smart.

>>8629186
Absolutely

If you don't have an Irish accent, you will by the time you're done

>he addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur

>>8629249
I was just reading about how people with bipolar supposedly tend to have a much better inherent understanding of the english language and enjoy and understand puns much more, and I do have bipolar. That could have something to do with it.

Brains are just astonishing.

Yeah, I actually read the whole thing because I had to. I was entering a prestigious PhD program and focusing on Joyce because I loved Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses. To my shame, though, I'd never read the Wake. I'd never even tried, as hard as that was to admit. It was this huge blind spot and area of vulnerability for me. Whenever it'd come up with my colleagues I'd just smile and nod, smile and nod, hoping they wouldn't ask me anything specific about it. "The musicality of it," somebody would say, and I'd say, "Oh God, yes, it's like Beethoven." Finally, though, I had to dive into it, and let me tell you it was tough going. Joseph Campbell's guide helped a lot. Reading it out loud helped. I listened to other people read it, read online commentaries. Eventually it started to make some sort of sense. It was like I was learning to read for the first time again, and in a way this was enjoyable. I got better at reading the book. Soon I was reading entire paragraphs without trouble, getting the puns, laughing at the jokes. I could sort of follow the story, it was like a blurry picture resolving into clarity, or like I was drunk and I was sobering up, I could actually understand it. As I became more and more adept at reading the Wake, I began putting myself to the test, initiating conversations with my colleagues about it, but specific passages this time, specific parts of the book. You can probably guess what happened. After a number of these conversations it became blindingly obvious that I understood the book a lot better than they did, they who I thought were the experts. It eventually became sort of embarrassing for them and I stopped trying to talk about it. And at the end of the day I would pack my things, catch the bus home, and settle into my apartment to read the Wake. It had surpassed all of Joyce's other works in my estimation. Ulysses, the book months earlier I would've named as my favorite of all time, the best book ever written, was now #2 to the Wake. So majestic, so ambitious, so wide-ranging, erudite, glorious, incredible was it that I couldn't believe that it was the work of one man. Best of all, the heart of it isn't complicated at all. What did I get from the Wake, what are its lessons? First of all, be yourself. Second of all, put one foot in front of the other. And lastly, just do it for crying out loud, time's a wastin'!

>>8629259
But half of the words are not English words so no. Post the first page and what each sentence means if you aren't lying

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>>8629282
>just b urself

>>8629289
> 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.

This is essentially the equivalent of a panning shot in a movie, out "camera" is following a river past the Adam and Eve church in Dublin, around, and to Howth Castle and the environment around, i.e. Dublin. Also, HCE

>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:

This character is coming back to Ireland from America to fight in the Peninsular War (or a war similar) while also feeling or being isolated

>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:

The rocks and pebbles by the Oconee stream (in Georgia) have not appeared more important or grander to the 'gorgios' (one who gorges his or herself?, also "Georgia") but Lauren County. Doublin is doubling/Dublin

>nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick:

Nor a voice from a fire bellow/bellowed... the rest is nonsense that is fun to say outloud to me, although thwarting Patrick seems to be mentioned

>not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac:

Very soon after his rearrival (also Venison) a rascally child hit an "isaac" (sacrificial person) with the buttend of a stick or gun or fist or bottom.

I can keep going if you'd like, I'm not claiming to be able to fit every single word or sentence into the plot but overall it makes clear sense to me. This is an introduction to a character returning from Georgia, USA to fight an internal or external war in Ireland.

bump, I like this thread

>>8629121
Damn

>>8629282
Ah, a fine copypasta.

>>8629772
voiler d'amours is also bastardized french for rapist

>>8629772
MOAR

>>8630135
not exactly, violer is bastardized french for rapist, d'amores isn't normally there but I guess plays on the kind of viola (instrument) with this name

>>8629772
literally everything here is wrong after the first section

>>8630148
maybe raper of love ie a lecher?

MR FINNEGAN
YOU WILL BE FINED AGAIN
(drunk Irishman dragged off to police station again to atone for misdemeanors against God society)

also oi teenk deh bend of deh river is deh bend of deh woman

>>8630153
Oh?

>>8630140
If you want it, babe
I'm going to skip ahead to one of my favorite paragraphs from the first chapter

>He addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur.

One of my favorite sentences in the whole book. "He had a little wifey and he hugged the little creature." "Annie" is both his wife's name and phonetically acts as "and he" to continue the sentence. I also know "craythur" is an Irish term for whiskey (used in the ballad, Finnegan's Wake) which addresses Finnegan's alcoholism with an image of him holding a bottle

>Wither hayre in honds tuck up your part inher.

"With her hair in hands, tuck up your part in her." Switching to second-person, implying a connection between the reader and Finnegan, it describes him roughly making love to his wife, also making use of the word "wither" to imply something dying or failing. "inher" could be a pun on "inherent."

> Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed,

I believe this is simultaneously talking about her clothing and her breasts or ass under them, and how he "habitucularly" (habitually + particularly) "fondseed" (fancied + fond + seed (semen)) them.

>like Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicab-les the alltitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin 'twas born,

This is more cryptic but after another HCE reference, I believe it's referencing his lewd thoughts about his wife's body which were multiplied by his drinking of liquor.

I'm having fun here so if you want more I'll be happy to supply

>>8628958
You can take it as a sort of tour-guide through other literature instead. Finnegans Wake takes you places you might not know, so instead of always keeping on travelling, you might as well stop and learn about those places.

Dubliners, The Bible, The Divine Comedy, The New Science

>>8630237
Yeah dude, this is really interesting. Of course I've flipped through the Wake in book stores n shit before, and of course I've thought, reading in my head, "this is utter nonsense"; it's really interesting how much the book opens up once you actually read it aloud, and I wouldn't've grasped that without your lil analysis here haha. Who cares if it's ""wrong,"" it makes sense, and I highly doubt Joyce only intended one interpretation.

>>8630598
Thank you! I have a stronger connection to Joyce than any other author and a large part of that is because I feel like his mind worked very similarly to mine, even if mine is far inferior. It feels like I'm meeting with a greater version of myself, reading his later works.

Honestly if you're willing to accept that you'll be spending between 5 and 15 minutes or more on every page, Finnegans Wake is the most fun you can have reading the English language, imo

>>8630645
Only after typing this did I realize how pathetic it sounds

>tfw the nagging worry that Joyce was just fucked up on syphilis and its all nonsense always keeps me from diving into FW fully

>>8628958

>preparing yourself to read a single book by reading multiple other books

Fucking hell this is top tier autism.
I don't think this board is for me.

>>8628958
>25
>Read GR
>Didn't get much out of it
>Implies this book requires prior reading material
This board is fucked.

life is too short to spend any of it decoding the literary riddles of an irish fartsniffer

>>8631569
Do you study Quantum Physics if you dont know Classical Physics?

>>8631752
>Comparing fiction to quantum physics
Holy.... I want more.....

>>8631752
This is one of the dumbest analogies I ever heard.

Are you seriously comparing one of the most difficult branches of science to understanding a work of fiction?

If you need to read 30 books to understand Joyce, then.....here's a wild thought.....maybe Joyce was insane and isn't worth reading?

>>8628795
>don't understand shit
You would, if you understood fart.

>>8628795
Read it right before going to sleep. Great sleeping aid. It'll even start making sense somehow. Sure, you won't remember any of whatever sense it made the previous night but, what of it? Remembering is overrated (and so is sense).

>>8628795
That's understandable.

Read it with annotations considerably larger than the book itself. You need it. It's the book's one flaw; it only works on second readings (realistically, more).
>>8631569
It probably isn't. If it consoles you, that anon is a pseud.
>>8631814
You sound like a pleb, anon. A patrician would know that you don't need to read the Western Canon to understand Joyce, or any good author.
>>8629259
You're a retard desperately trying to spin your retardation into a good thing.

Don't be dismayed; autists do it with autism, too.

>>8631995
phew, sure is pseud in here.

>>8630217
Shore, fear the river is woman, and main a mountin

i like the ending where the descending arch angels are also the swan's wings as zeus fucks leda in noah's ark and she looks up to the rafters

>>8630237
Pretty sure "ugged" is a pun for love and fucked

>>8632133
What a pseud.

nummp

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>>8632143