ABSTRACT
Mr. Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, parts of which have been published as Work in Progress, does not admit of review. In twenty years’ time, with sufficient study and with the aid of the commentary that will doubtless arise, one might be ready for an attempt to appraise it. The work is not written in English, or in any other language, as language is commonly known. I can detect words made up out of some eight or nine languages, but this must be only a part of the equipment employed. This polyglot element is only a minor difficulty, for Mr. Joyce is using language in a new way. A random example will illustrate: [quotes from p. 281]
The easiest way to deal with the book would be to become ‘clever’ and satirical or to write off Mr. Joyce’s latest volume as the work of a charlatan. But the author of Dubliners, A Portrait of an Artist, and Ulysses is obviously not a charlatan, but an artist of very considerable proportions. I prefer to suspend judgment….
