Day 13.

Ran out of time today. Too busy writing a new game. Sorry. Back at it tomorrow, though Wednesdays are my busiest days.

Day 12.

After I read page 14, I was looking forward to more. But after page 15, I feared I would never find a tempo/rhythm to this book, nor the desire to continue on. But after turning to 16, I saw that real dialogue was coming (pages 16 to 180. Though, in a less than standard format. Though, if I want standard formatting, this is not the book for it.

Jute. - Yutah!
Mutt. - Mukk's pleasurad.
Jute. - Are you jeff?
Mutt. - Somehards.
Jute. - But you are not jeffmute?
Mutt. - Noho. Only an utterer.
Jute. - Whoa? Whoat is the mutter with you?
Mutt. - I became a stun a stummer.

astonished?

Jute. - What a hauhauhauhaudibble thing, to be cause! How,
Mutt?

horrible?

Mutt. - Aput the buttle, surd.
Jute. - Whose poddle? Wherein?

they brought a drink to make a toast?

Mutt. - The Inns of Dungtarf where Used awe to be he.
Jute. - You that side your voise are almost inedible to me.
Become a bitskin more wiseable, as if I were
you.
Mutt. - Has? Has at? Hasatency? Urp, Boohooru! Booru
Usurp! I trumple from rath in mine mines when I
rimimirim !

remember him?

Jute. - One eyegonblack. Bisons is bisons. Let me fore all
your hasitancy cross your qualm with trink gilt. Here
have sylvan coyne, a piece of oak. Ghinees hies good
for you.

Guiness?

My gut reaction eyegoneblack is a pun on Oregon, but I can't explain why I feel that way.

Mutt. - Louee, louee! How wooden I not know it, the intel-
lible greytcloak of Cedric Silkyshag! Cead mealy
faulty rices for one dabblin bar. Old grilsy growlsy!
He was poached on in that eggtentical spot. Here             where the liveries, Monomark. There where the mis-             sers moony, Minnikin passe.

Jute. - Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstory-
shortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubba-
ges on to soil here.
Mutt. - Just how a puddinstone inat the brookcells by a
riverpool.
Jute. - Load Allmarshy! Wid wad for a norse like?
Mutt. - Somular with a bull on a clompturf. Rooks roarum
rex roome! I could snore to him of the spumy horn,
with his woolseley side in, by the neck I am sutton
on, did Brian d' of Linn.
Jute. - Boildoyle and rawhoney on me when I can beuraly
forsstand a weird from sturk to finnic in such a pat-
what as your rutterdamrotter. Onheard of and um-
scene! Gut aftermeal! See you doomed.

Jute is saying he can't understand a word from start to finish, because of someone's patoise. Ironic.

Mutt. - Quite agreem. Bussave a sec. Walk a dun blink
roundward this albutisle and you skull see how olde
ye plaine of my Elters, hunfree and ours, where wone
to wail whimbrel to peewee o'er the saltings, where
wilby citie by law of isthmon, where by a droit of
signory, icefloe was from his Inn the Byggning to
whose Finishthere Punct. Let erehim ruhmuhrmuhr.

Let erehim ruhmuhrmuhr? Let them remember?

Mearmerge two races, swete and brack. Morthering
rue. Hither, craching eastuards, they are in surgence:
hence, cool at ebb, they requiesce. Countlessness of
livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as
flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of
whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges
to isges, erde from erde. Pride, O pride, thy prize!

This is the second mention of snowflakes, which I assume in the 30s people thought were unique.

Jute. - 'Stench!
Mutt. - Fiatfuit! Hereinunder lyethey. Llarge by the smal an'
everynight life olso th'estrange, babylone the great-
grandhotelled with tit tit tittlehouse, alp on earwig,
drukn on ild, likeas equal to anequal in this sound
seemetery which iz leebez luv.

Jute. - 'Zmorde!
Mutt. - Meldundleize! By the fearse wave behoughted. Des-
pond's sung. And thanacestross mound have swollup
them all. This ourth of years is not save brickdust
and being humus the same roturns. He who runes
may rede it on all fours. O'c'stle, n'wc'stle, tr'c'stle,
crumbling! Sell me sooth the fare for Humblin! Hum-
blady Fair. But speak it allsosiftly, moulder! Be in
your whisht!
Jute. - Whysht?
Mutt. - The gyant Forficules with Amni the fay.

Forficules? Finn McCool again?

Amni they fay? Anna?

Jute. - Howe?
Mutt. - Here is viceking's graab.
Jute. - Hwaad !
Mutt. - Ore you astoneaged, jute you?
Jute. - Oye am thonthorstrok, thing mud.

My gut is telling me Jute and Mutt (mutt and jeff) are Finnegan's sons. They are actually probably very dumb, and in Finnegan's concussive state, he's making them sound smart, projecting his desire for intelligent children.

I'm not sure if anyone should be able to understand/decode this on first read.

Day 11.

Page 15 opens with more poetic license, misspellings, and nonsense. Another paragraph that is style over substance. Tone instead of information. Just descriptions of the Irish countryside. For nerds, there is a mention of the Formoreans, but just a mention. Like someone reciting from a book of long names. Or a long book of names.

Paragraph two is mocking gossipers, I suppose, but what could have been a single sentence is 167 words of nothing. We are back at the pub, and everyone is talking at once. Someone is flirting with someone else. Some mention of an upcoming wedding. Someone is playing the drums.

Then comes a single-word paragraph, "Hop!" Do not ask me to explain it. I can't. It's just a mood shift as we introduce a new character…

The last paragraph introduces a clubfoot thug name Carl or Joe Bigger, I think. There's an anagram for Name and Amen that hints at something. But it's clear that Carl/Joe is hunchback and big. Pigmaid is the insult used to describe him. His chest is so big, he has man boobs.

The page ends with the mentioning of months, all misspelled, with pouriose for May, which I happen to know is French slang for pussy, but also a word for the rainy fifth month of the revolution's calendar. Talk about a joke that doesn't pay off.

I think this is my shortest review yet. The page took too long to read and I don't have a lot to say about it.

Day 10.

Today's read starts at the bottom of page 13 and runs to the top of 14, which includes the text:

1132 A.D. Men like to ants or emmets wondern upon a groot hwide Whallfisk which lay in a Runnel. Blubby wares upat Ublanium.

566 A.D. On Baalfire's night of this year after deluge a crone that hadde a wickered Kish for to hale dead turves from the bog look-it under the blay of her Kish as she ran for to sothisfeige her cowrieosity and be me sawl but she found hersell sackvulle of swart goody quickenshoon and small illigant brogues, so rich in sweat.

Blurry works at Hurdlesford.
(Silent.)

566 A.D. At this time it fell out that a brazenlockt damsel grieved (sobralasolas!) because that Puppette her minion was ravisht of her by the ogre Puropeus Pious. Bloody wars in Ballyaughacleeagh-bally.

1132 A.D. Two sons at an hour were born until a goodman and his hag. These sons called themselves Caddy and Primas. Primas was a santryman and drilled all decent people. Caddy went to Winehouse and wrote o peace a farce. Blotty words for Dublin.

How is anyone supposed to decode this you ask? Not easily. You're not meant to decipher every phrase. A lot of this is nursery rhyme sing-song.

Emmets are ants

Groot = great

Ublanium is a childish spelling of Dublin, the presumed location of this fever dream.

The rest is just purposeful misspellings.

1132 is present throughout the book and is 283 x 4, four being the number of old men at the pub and 283 being the year Finn MacCool died. There's no payoff here. It's Irish pride. Virgil writing of Aeneas. It's also the year the year St. Laurence O'Toole was born. More Irish pride.

566 is 1132 cut in half. Baalfire's night is bonfire night or Beltane. "A crone that hadde a wickered Kish." An old woman with a wickered basket (or a wicked wish) collecting peat from the bog. More chaos we're supposed to find whimsical and intelligent. It's like reading a code book from beginning to end and claiming there's a story in that cryptography lesson.

Note: There is no proof of all this number-coding. I am just sitting here doing the math and looking up what happens in those years for real.

Ballyaughacleeagh-bally is a misspelling of a famous place in Ireland, so even the Irish reading this book won't be able to decipher it. Functionally, “this is a place-name” is enough. It's like reading a Drizzt novel. Ice-T? You with me?

The second time 1132 is mentioned, it's more myth making. Bringing up new name in the typical metaphysical approach of two sons. It's always two sons. One is a solider and aggressive. One is a writer and reflective.

There's a clever pun late in the page. Somewhere, parently, in the ginnandgo gap between antediluvious and annadominant the copyist must have fled with his scroll. Scribicide could just mean the death of words, here. The two sons are young and old, antediluvious and annadominant.

Later in the page, the younger of the two (who is a writer) runs off with a scroll (breaking history) before killing himself. Or someone kills him. There's also another thunder reference in the middle of a sentence in there.

At the end, a foreign priest or clergyman reads from a book (Liber Lividus, envious book, tome of darkness), perhaps to say where Finnegan's soul is going. It's unclear.

Someone named pricket (lower case, so it's also a young deer, implying pricket is the younger brother; prick is another dick joke) is mentioned and his sister goes chaste. Pricket’s sister is literally a maid, lower-class, shamming modesty. The lush green imagery hints at her withdrawal from the social/sexual world. Joyce is echoing Guinevere’s final turn to the convent in the Arthurian myth, blending local Dublin characters with legendary archetypes. My guess? She was fucking Finnegan and now no one will want her. So she has to go retreats from social life and stops dating. Fits the Arthur Myth a little. More ties to Myth-making. Finnegans wake is turning into a monomyth.

This paragraph is the best part of the page. Maybe the best in the book so far. Let's see if it pays off later.

“Blotty words for Dublin.”

Day 9.

Page 12. Am I wrong or is everyone cheering a toast to old dead Finnegan now?

Page 13. More revelry as the drinkers in the pub cheer in unison to Finnegan. There's an interesting word "funferall" half way down the page. It's fun for all, funeral, and fall all in one word. If it wasn't for all the Irish nonsense in this book and the words no one could ever read, this might be a fun book.

There's also a term W. K. O. O. which looks like code or might just be a noise, but the numbers do add up to something. More on that tomorrow.

There's a chorus of four men, one of whom is Jewish, singing and playing musical instruments at the wake/in the pub. It's still not clear if Finnegan's body is there. I don't know yet why he's Jewish, or why that's relevant. But the entire paragraph has a klezmer-like rhythm to it. That's a lot of work to write like that.

The page ends with some dates that I'll loop into page 14. It'll make more sense there.

Day 8.

Page 11. Joyce refers to a she many times on this page. But there's no antecedent. She appears to be some motherly force or external figure watching over Finnegan. Joyce is pulling another Gertrude Stein here, where none of these words matter. It's like a nursery rhyme. Meant to console and make you feel safe, as though you've crossed over another page successfully, but feeling no more secure in the story.

Here is my least favorite kind of passage in the book so far, and these are everywhere

with a naperon for her mask and her sabboes kickin arias (so sair! so solly!)

…made up words meant to confound instead of educate.

With an apron for her mask (acting like a housewife) and shoes for kicking songs. Whatever that means.

My reviews are getting shorter.

Or as Joyce would say

Mi revues our getty snorter.

Day 7.

Page 9. More of the same. Still touring the museum.

Page 10. More museum touring until half way down the page. My guess? Finnegan hates the museum and all the remembrances of the war, as Joyce was well known to hate WW1. I read somewhere that the museum is a metaphor for the outhouse behind the pub. Maybe I'm imagining that.

Near the end of the page there's another reference to the Tales of Arabian Nights. If this another jab at Islam, Mr. Joyce? So far, I can't take anything in the book seriously. Should this drive-by jokes also be shrugged at?

There's reference to something called a gnarlybird and I don't know what that is.

And the Seven Rothchild children are mentioned as part of a field of ravens and blackbirds. That might make sense later, or it's just some anti-banking jab at the end of the page.

Page 10 end mid-thought.

Day 6.

While I did not come to this conclusion on my own, apparently this is what has happened on page 1 through 8

• a man has fallen
• people are talking about it in a noisy, pub-like environment near Dublin landmark
• a female passerby observes
• identities are fluid
• the text presents fragmented social gossip and aftermath

I am reading too deeply into this, trying to understand every fucking pun. And it's not about that yet. He's setting a mood. A dickish mood, but a mood.

A woman named Kathe has been introduced, I think she's a janitor with a passkey.Joyce calls her a mistress. She can come and go at the museum, which has a Prussian gun. There's a french tip pun and an indication that you should tip the tour guide at the (Arthur) Wellington Museum.

The rest of the page is just the guide pointing out stuff you see in the room. Some cockney rhymes. Annoying. A waste of time, if you ask me. Just Joyce showing off. There's a sex joke about a sword.

Joyce wants you to feel drunk or concussed while reading this. Not sure this book needed to be 600+ pages. T. S. Elliott's the Wasteland does the same gimmick in a shorter poem.

Day 5

Page 7 opens midstream of a thought from the previous page. My best guess is that there was a lot of drinking the night before, toasting to all kinds of a nonsense. Lots of Ale, and whiskeys with heritage. Joyce really gets off on this paragraph.

The next paragraph opens with talk of dinosaurs, and I'm still not sure what that's about. There's a museum nearby, but it's unclear yet of its relevance.

Then  the cops come into the bar where he was drinking. There's a free-woman named Anna Rayiny, but she dresses like a beggar. Not sure where this is going yet. but he has introduced another character. She has an umbrella and goes prancing past the bar, but she might also be pretending to sleep. It is unclear.

He makes another dinosaur pun, this time in reference to some pants?!???

The page ends midstream, so I peaked ahead and it reads as though some prostitutes came into the bar on Hill 60, an important place during WW1.

Someone is pushing a pram passed the museum and the children cannot afford to go in. I think I'm missing something.

Acccording to notes I've found, the dream state that Finnegan is in shifts locations and languages often. Why this character would know 80 lanaguages is anyone's guess. Today was the first day I wanted to abandon this project.

But I shall tarry on.

Day 4

The page is a continuation of the last, with more of the nonsense wordplay, this time describing the walls and roads of the streets, and the street where lady Godiva was first spotted by Tom. Not sure I would have ever decoded that without help.

It's clear from this paragraph that Finnegan is horny and dumb. His erection is mentioned again, and there's a masturbation misspelling three times. We are once again told it's thursday. I'm guessing Finnegan hit his head so hard on the tub, it sounded like thunder.

There is reference on the page to Agog and Magog, and the 12 tables of roman law, hinting at an apocalypse, which I infer to mean Finnegan is going to die from this head wound.

From the page: "Tee the tootal of the fluid hang the twoddle of the fuddled, O." My best guess? Finnegan is going to die from his drinking. The narrator is passing judgement.

Should I be copy/pasting all the text from the book so you can read along with me?

The final paragraph has Finnegan turning his face to the audience and we can see him for the first time. There's a misspelled recitation of "there is but one true god," which I'm not sure if it's a cry for god to save him, or Joyce making another remark about Islam. But he misspells Babel Tower, which suggests to me that Finnegan is speaking nonsense from the head wound now, which explains all the crazy writing.

The page ends with my least favorite thing that Joyce is doing throughout.

"From Shopalist to Bailywick or from ashtun to baronoath
or from Buythebanks to Roundthehead or from the foot of the
bill to ireglint's eye he calmly extensolies."

I don't know these words and these places. And I can no longer be arsed to research what they are. More Gertrude Stein-style nonsense that's preying upon my patience.

Joyce you aren't that good. I don't watch the last 20 minutes of 2001, either. Kubrick isn't THAT good that I have to suffer all of his self-inulgences.

Day 3

Page 5 now. From the previous page, Joyce continues to describe the building of the Woolworth skyscraper. And then midstream starts talking about the heirarchy of the church, comparing workers as going up and pontiff-types tumbling down.

Finnegan is visited (perhaps in a dream) by Saint Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Cantebury. Is this an allusion to the divine comedy, but without the Catholic overtones?

Joyce goes on to describe some goat heraldry, and a scrotum.

He make a horrible pun about Finnegan's name and reincarnation (you named the fucking character, Joyce. I don't think you get to use this tone to pun his name).

Yep. It's the divine comedy. Oh jesus. This puzzle he's created.

It's a monday, but it jumps to thursday. Thor is mentioned for a third time in three page, each time a little differently. Page 3 has reference to a litany of different words for thunder from all over the world. My guess? Thunder is Finnegans Wake's version of fire from Dante's Inferno.

Also note. there is not apostrophe in Finnegans. Did I mention this before?

Oh good. Some racist remarks about Muslims in London.

There is a reference to nabir which is from the Illiad, a reference to Zeus. Another god of thunder. My o' my. Just tell your fucking story, pal.

Near the end of the page. "Otherways wesways like that provost scoffing bedoueen the jebel and the jpysian sea." Devil and the deep blue sea. A jebel is also a mountain and the Jypsian sea is also the Sea of Japan. Rock and a hard place. What a complicated pun. I hate it.

The page ends with a bunch of nonsense words that sound like cockney slang for lazy people. He also throws in a jewish reference. Not sure if it's a slight, or a nod. The rambling runs off into the next page, which I'll explore on Day 4.

Too many of these phrases are lost to time and geography. How am I supposed to know Merlinburrow Burrocks is a reference to specific army barracks in Dublin. There are about 20 words here at the end to describe how the modern world with all its stone buildings is too much for Finnegan. Peaking ahead onto the next page, yes. Finnegan fell and there are two more dick jokes coming.

Am I left with a question from page 3. Does Finnegan see himself as Tristan from King Arthur? Or does he love a woman name Isolde?

Day 2

Oh boy. More nonsense on this page. What have I gotten myself into?

I am by no means a stupid person, but this book makes me feel like an imposter trying to dissect an alien language.

This first pargraph is more lore.

Once you get passed all the misspelling, it gets easier to read.

Another dick joke in the first paragraph. Page 3 talks about people in blackface, and page 4 talks about whiteboys fighting the haves and have nots with boomerangs. I have lots of theories here.

Is Joyce racist or reflecting the racism of the time? The story is set in a mystical Dublin so far. Why bring race into this? Curious. I'm not judging it yet. But I'm trying to make sense of it.

This page reminds me of the Lake of Innisfree by Yeats. The mood is right there. You can smell the moors.

We have now learned that Finnegan is a freemason and he is mentioned as a mason three ways in the paragraph, before the bible is brought up. I'm sure the two things are connected.

Books 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the bible are mentioned, though Leviticus is called Helviticus, either as a pun about Hell, or reference to a Gaelic tribe. Or both.

I am proud of myself for spotting this.

Ah. Finnegan is an alcoholic. "Pentschanjeuchy." Penchant for juice. And he hit his head in the tub. My guess? The entire book is going to be a fever dream from Finnegan's concussion.

He brings up the Woolworth building in New York City, which isn't the first reference to America. Is Finnegan from Dublin and now living in America, the same way Ulysses is set in London, but feels like Hell's Kitchen?

This page was an easier read, actually. But it starts poorly. I probably have a few more pages to go before it starts to make sense.

Day 1

My edition of the book opens on page 3. Day 1. Page 3. That's going to get annoying fast.

JFC. I already hate this book. I love a pretentious title. But man, do I hate pretentious writing. Over 30 words I had to look up, in numerous languages. And the internet keeps telling me what things mean before I've ever gotten to them.

Vaneesy is a refernce to Jonathan Swift's romantic life. Why?

Is Finnegan Swift in disguise? I don't know yet.

We already know the book is a cycle opening with the words from the end of the book. So I can't even review the first paragraph. But the next two paragraphs are filled with so many nonsense words. I feel like anyone with 17 years on their hands, could have written this autistic fever dream. This is worse than TS Elliot or Ezra Pound.

This third paragraph reminds me of Gertrude Stein. You just read it to get an intuitive sense of the work, not absorb every phrase. When I read it that way (and I read it five times) I enjoyed it more. So, I couldn't tell you anything other than someone's downfall is alluded to and compared to humpty dumpty (tumptytumtoes).

"On this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor" I knew immediately that Ireland was Europe Minor. I expect a lot of allusions throughout to places, real and mythical. Lord. I feel like a safecracker, trying to unlock a story.

Turns out North Amorica is not North America, but another pun, this time an ancient Greek word for the land of the Gauls. I suspect before they were pushed to the Isles.

"Ringsome on the aquaface?"

Go fuck yourself.

Jesus shit. I used to love the modernists. 999 more days of this?

I doubt even Joyce could explain every pun in this book. Venisoon. Eat a dick, old man.

Speaking of dicks. Already two dick jokes on the page. From what I read on reddit, people missed the second dickjoke. I'm no Joyce scholar, but does that make me smarter than people who've been reading this for twelve years? 

My guess about the final paragraph of page 1 is that we are finally seeing a story form. Finnegan's fall is tied to the religious tension of the time between protestants and catholics (orange and green). I'll know more on page 2, I guess.

People call this book and experiment. Experiments are meant to test things, to see if it's possible. But I would argue this is an exercise in patience, not an experiment. Anyone with a brain would know not to write this way. I will try not to get so flummoxed with every page. Peaking at page 4, I don't think that's possible.

Day 0

I have never read Finnegans Wake before. I know it's a whale of a book and I know there is much to unpack. I will be reading one page a day and doing my best to write about it and decipher it. My edition in by Penguin Publishing. It has 648 pages, but 648 days of finnegans wake is a bad title for a page.

Of Note: It took James Joyce 17 years to write this book.

Also Note: If you're not familiar, Finnegans Wake does not have an apostrophe. I'm sure that will make sense eventually. Right now, neither of us knows anything about what I'm about to read.