ABSTRACT
For it is obvious that ‘that ideal reader suffering from an ideal onsomnia’ (120) to whom Finnegans Wake is addressed exists all too exclusively in Joyce’s mind. He is either Joyce or nobody. Upon that nightmare-to which the reader, the writer, and the book are consubstantial-you and I are merely intruders. How shall we justify our intrusion? Let us cold-bloodedly concede that this one book is of,
by, and for its author alone. The only person for whom all the nuances click, for whom all the implications unravel, for whom the ultra-violet allusions shine brightly, is Joyce. But if this fact deprives us of an expectation, it also relieves us of a responsibility. If we cannot plumb the most absolute depths of the book,—and one of Joyce’s clearest intentions was evidently to produce a work so rich and recessive that it could never be completely fathomed-we can take greater pleasure in its surfaces. If it withholds its darkest mysteries from everyone but its author, it is lavish with small rewards, unexpected confidences, and delightful souvenirs, which it scatters among the most casual passers-by. In spite of its proclaimed privacy, there is something for everybody in Finnegans Wake. It is, in Joyce’s apt coinage, a funferal.
