Finnegans Wake

by James Joyce

Overview

Joyce's masterpiece. . . . If aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon Finnegans Wake would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante." --Harold Bloom, in The Western Canon

Having done the longest day in literature with his monumental Ulysses (1922), James Joyce set himself an even greater challenge for his next book--the night. "A nocturnal state. . . . That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." The work, which would exhaust two decades of his life and the odd resources of some sixty languages, culminated with the 1939 publication of Joyce's final and most revolutionary work, Finnegans Wake.

A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantastic dream-language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most hilarious characters: the Irish barkeep Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Anna Livia Plurabelle. Sixty years after its publication, it remains in Anthony Burgess's words, "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789356569195
Publisher:	Double 9 Booksllp
Publication date:	04/22/2022
Pages:	506
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was a Irish novelist, poet, and learned critic. James Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland on 2 February 1882. He was the eldest son of John Stanislaus Joyce and Marry Murray Joyce. From the age of six, Joyce was educated by Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College, at Clane, and then at Belvedere College in Dublin (1893-97). In 1898, he admitted in the University College, Dublin. Joyce's first printing was an essay on Ibsen's play When We Dead Awaken. After graduation Joyce went to Paris, where he worked as a journalist, teacher and in other jobs under tough financial conditions. He left Dublin in 1904 with Nora Barnacle, a maidservant who he married in 1931. One of the most powerful and innovative writers of the 20th century, James Joyce was the author of the short story compilation Dubliners (1914) and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). His compilations of poetry include Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927). His landmark book, Ulysses, is often renowned as one of the finest novels ever written. His investigation of language and new literary forms showed not only his genius as a writer but generate a fresh approach for novelists. He expired at the age of 59 on 13 January 1941, at the Schwesternhause von Roten Kreuz Hospital.

Date of Birth:

February 2, 1882

Date of Death:

January 13, 1941

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Zurich, Switzerland

Education:

B.A., University College, Dublin, 1902

Website:

http://www.jamesjoyce.ie

What People are Saying About This

Anthony Burgess

The age between the wars comes to an end with Joyce's Finnegans Wake, in which the author's interest in the deeper regions of the human mind leads him to the kingdom of sleep. The book is a dream of world history and it is couched in a new language, a comic mixture of all the tongues of Europe. Fictional experimentation could not well go further. To many readers Finnegans Wake mirrored the European chaos to come, but others saw a secret blueprint for rebuilding a civilization that was on the brink of destroying itself. (Anthony Burgess, from One Man's Chorus)

Editorial Reviews

The Wake” is one of the most incomprehensible of classic novels, so not even a bravura performance like this one can clarify the language and story. The very useful companion booklet by Naxos provides some orientation, but the listener really needs a working knowledge of French, Italian, German, Latin, various pidgins, Irish history, the geography of Dublin, and Roman Catholicism, for a start, to follow along easily. Having a copy of the book open while listening would help. But Barry McGovern, who narrates most of the audiobook, and Marcella Riordan deploy a marvelous repertoire of voices and accents, including some singing, so that the experience of listening does not require any (or very much) understanding. You can think of it as an opera in a language with which you are not familiar. Moments of clarity come and go, but, in general, you are merely submerged in a world of great accomplishment and beauty. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JULY 2021 - AudioFile

The Wake” is one of the most incomprehensible of classic novels, so not even a bravura performance like this one can clarify the language and story. The very useful companion booklet by Naxos provides some orientation, but the listener really needs a working knowledge of French, Italian, German, Latin, various pidgins, Irish history, the geography of Dublin, and Roman Catholicism, for a start, to follow along easily. Having a copy of the book open while listening would help. But Barry McGovern, who narrates most of the audiobook, and Marcella Riordan deploy a marvelous repertoire of voices and accents, including some singing, so that the experience of listening does not require any (or very much) understanding. You can think of it as an opera in a language with which you are not familiar. Moments of clarity come and go, but, in general, you are merely submerged in a world of great accomplishment and beauty. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JULY 2021 - AudioFile