ABSTRACT

If we’re honest, most of us would agree that, unlike his ‘usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles’ (FW 179:26–7), Finnegans Wake is simply unreadable. The whole world says so, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes out of despair, and sometimes with relish. I once overheard a distinguished professor of English concede without a fight, ‘That’s one text I don’t feel embarrassed about not having read’. ‘Life’s too short, anyway’, she might have continued, ‘and people say it’s impossible, so why should I bother? After all, I’ve read his other books. Isn’t that enough dedication to a single author?’ Even the experts can’t agree among themselves about its merit, and Joyce didn’t exactly help his cause when he admitted that the ideal reader of Finnegans Wake was someone ‘suffering from an ideal insomnia’ (FW 120:13–14). The waking day is enough of a struggle, let alone having a book at bedtime that is also a struggle.