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From: dlb@stc70.UUCP (David Black)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Request for Finnegan's Wake info
Message-ID: <109@stc70.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Aug-84 13:02:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: stc70.109
Posted: Tue Aug 28 13:02:24 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Sep-84 09:03:06 EDT
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Organization: Storage Technology Corp.  Louisville, CO
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The Skeleton Key will help you make it through Finnegans Wake, page by page,
but I found the following to be even more helpful as well as being entertaining
in their own right:
	- ReJoyce by Anthony Burgess - Finnegans Wake is fun and no one has
		more fun with it than Burgess
	- Our Exagmination round his Factification for Incamination of Work
		in Progress - twelve essays about Finnegans Wake first written
		when it was a work in progress rather than a complete mountain.
		I seem to remember that one of the essayists is Beckett, and
		he's fun to read whenever he writes about writers.  I also
		think that each of the authors were acquainted with Joyce and
		so can be expected to tell about whatever smoke the master was
		blowing on the days when they talked to him.
	- A Census of Finnegans Wake by Adaline Glasheen - a miniature 
		encyclopedia 
	- there's also an article that I have never read with the enchanting
		title "Who's Who When Everyone's Someone Else" about the
		character transformations that occur.
If the complete FW is more than you want to drown in there is also A Shorter
Finnegans Wake.  You don't have to be ashamed, it's not quite a Reader's
Digest Condensed Version (though the idea of such a thing is fun), but it
is more managable since it is a bit (but only a bit) less confusing.
The best thing is to forget all the critical stuff and just read it aloud
to whoever will listen.  The fun is in the language - it's hard to imagine
reading it for plot or ideas.

			David Black