ABSTRACT
Mr. James Joyce’s new work, Finnegans Wake, has had a bad reception in the English Press, judging by the reviews I have seen. It has been attacked as meaningless, drivelling, the work of a madman, ‘a colossal leg-pull,’ and so on; even his most sympathetic critic has described Mr. Joyce as ‘a writer without a theme,’ This is the more curious since, during the past sixteen years, most of the work has already appeared in serial form, and has been accompanied by a great deal of comment and explanation. In the circumstances, perhaps no apology is needed for drawing attention to what is already known about this extraordinary book…. [discusses the Viconian structure, manipulations of language, purpose and technique, and method, pp. 73-78]
The obscurities of Finnegans Wake are partly due to its enormous range. No single reader could possibly recognise all the implications which have been worked into it. To grasp even the greater part of them his knowledge would have to include mythology in general, Irish history, papal history, the religious significance of numbers and colours, Dublin street-names, the Book of the Dead, the philosophies of Bruno and Vico, the careers of Swift, Duke Humphrey, Fin MacCool and Mr. Joyce, the names of most of the rivers and cities of the world, some fifty languages, and a great deal more.
