catalog

Well-known member
I've not had a magical moment with it, but I'm hoping there's one around the corner. There's this one really good list in it somewhere, that I thought would be good spoken out loud or sung. But Ive not made any more notes for a while.

I don't find it a massive chore to read. It's definitely better if you can get into it for 20/30 pages at a time, but I wouldn't be able to articulate why exactly.

I didn't really expect to enjoy it, but I'm intrigued to find out more about it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Not really. There's sections in Finnegans Wake that are very reminiscent of bits of ulysses. But it's taken alot further. In some ways it's more enjoyable, cos you're less constricted by a plot. It's like listening to a decent noise set.

He seems to be wanting you to not understand. Where in ulysses there would be a lot of thick and difficult description, say, but you would then get some real poetry, or someone would say something that made you think, in fw its like he could do that, easily, but he's not wanting to do it. So, to a certain extent, for me, it's something you can project a lot into. I find myself daydreaming a big with it sometimes.

Perhoas this is not what's meant, and of course there's a lot of scholarship on what it does mean, but it's quite enjoyable just for that aspect.
 

catalog

Well-known member
There's a little bit of overlap, in some of the names and places. There was a guy a few pages ago who sounded like someone out of Ulysses. Dublin and places around it keep getting mentioned. But there's no main characters as such in this. The acronyms HCE and ALP keep turning up, but so many times and in so many different configurations, it doesn't feel like they are characters in the normal sense of the word.

Cain and Abel also keep popping up, in fact there's a page from that section where there's left and right marginalia, plus footnotes, where he just has this long list of Greek and Biblical references, which I was gonna post, cos it seems to be a good reading list.
 

version

Well-known member
Nah, I meant which one have you found watches you more closely, which one throws the most things at you that seem to connect to things happening in real life.
 

catalog

Well-known member
It was definitely happening with fw in the early stages, but I've not got that same thing I had with ulysses, where it was literally talking to me at one point, in a sustained way, for pages and pages.

I think that was a one off probably, and I'm now expecting it from every book I read. Probabky not gonna happen.

There's more potential in fw though, cos more made up words, more unique words in general. And no story to get in the way.
 

version

Well-known member
I'm just reading it to read it though really, turning the pages for a log of it as luke would say
I often find these big, 'difficult' books outlast my enthusiasm for them. I'll get all excited to read one, tear through the first half or third then grind to a halt and take months to finish it.
 

luka

Well-known member
You managed to get much out of it beyond enjoying some of the sounds and puns? Is it actually enjoyable on any level?
what you get out of it works sublimally more often than not. theres a kind of mythic pattern, eg
with brother vs brother, or with the colonised and coloniser and how the influence works in both
directions at once, there is a whole lot of things that sink in without you even noticing
until you do, you grasp the thing, though the experience of reading line by line can be
exhausting/frustrating/dispiriting
 

catalog

Well-known member
You have to be in the right mood for them. Lockdown really helped cos there wasn't a lot else to do. And I just go for the chipping away method, 10 pages a day, every day. Then occasionally get swept up. Writing about them on here and having a place to discuss them also helps a lot.
 

version

Well-known member
what you get out of it works sublimally more often than not. theres a kind of mythic pattern, eg
with brother vs brother, or with the colonised and coloniser and how the influence works in both
directions at once, there is a whole lot of things that sink in without you even noticing
until you do, you grasp the thing, though the experience of reading line by line can be
exhausting/frustrating/dispiriting
Welcome back!
 

luka

Well-known member
also sufi rang me yesterday and said no one here said they missed me he said theyve all forgotten you
 

version

Well-known member
also sufi rang me yesterday and said no one here said they missed me he said theyve all forgotten you
It's true. We all burned our big, yellow Prynne books and couldn't remember who recommended them in the first place.
 

version

Well-known member
this is the man becomes bicycle thing form flann o brian
That's the main thing I remember about that book. The bit where he says something like "I've even found crumbs at the wheel of a particularly hungry gentleman," and says something about noticing bicycles creeping closer to the fire for warmth.
 
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