<p>Hey, I started reading Finnegans Wake, and it’s blowing my mind away. I’ve read War and Peace and other classic novels, but nothing like this. I’m really not sure if I can make it through this book, but needless to say it will take some time and I may not understand the novel as I would other books.</p>
<p>Has anyone else here read it or tried reading it? What was your experience reading it and how did you feel about the novel?</p>
<p>An ambitious undertaking! Struggled through it myself in college - can’t say I enjoyed it much save for certain sections. I’d recommend you get some kind of a reader’s guide to help you along. After Finnegans, Ulysses will seem like a breeze :)</p>
<p>Was part of a group reading of it organized by a colleague. We each read sections, a sort of 24 hour read in. Actually, I can’t remember how long it took.</p>
<p>One thing I learned from that (and the audio version of Ulysses) is that Joyce is a very aural writer. If you read it out loud (with an Irish accent if you can) you will hear the music and what Joyce was attempting.</p>
<p>I’m not sure it’s worth the effort; that’s for you to decide.</p>
<p>It’s at the margin of language as a signifier and at times it becomes sound, music and linguistic play with no set meaning behind the language. But only at times.</p>
<p>The central plot point is quite disturbing, buried some way in the world salad.</p>
<p>I do think the last/first line circle very beautiful.</p>
<p>It’s Bloomsday soon and Symphony Space in NYC always does a complete reading of Ulysses.</p>
<p>I read it in grad school as part of a seminar on Joyce. (It makes more sense if you’ve read Ulysses.) When DS was in 5th grade and started really becoming interested in puns and language, I pulled it out–he loved the parts he read.</p>
<p>I hated it. My dad was a big Joyce fan, had an edition of Ulysses that showed the progression and expansion from first, short typescript to massive novel. I think he loved the intellectualism.</p>
<p>I found FW to be interesting in the sense that he out-LawrenceSterned Lawrence Sterne by making every piece a digression on a digression on a digression on something else and so on. But my feeble mind wants character and emotion, not allusions and dream states.</p>