Why I cannot (and will not) persist in my attempt to read FINNEGAN’S WAKE
Posted on June 26th, 2010
Here is a typical “sentence” from James Joyce”s Finnegan’s Wake:
“It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the herreraism of a cabotinesque exploser?”
(Note: I borrow the foregoing excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal article by the superb critic Terry Teachout; the article focuses on modernism in the arts, especially music; the article–as included at Frank Wilson’s blog [Books, Inq.]–coincides with my recent attempt to give Finnegan’s Wake another chance.)
The so-called sentence from Joyce’s novel stands as succinct, unimpeachable evidence in support of my claim that Finnegan’s Wake remains unworthy of any sensible reader’s extended expenditure of time. There are too many books, and life is too short. So, sorry Joyce, I have no more time for your bizarre linguistic contortions.
Now, with Finnegan’s Wake tossed upon the out-the-door rummage pile, it is on to more worthy authors’ works: Flannery O’Connor, William Shakespeare, William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Kazuo Ishiguro, A. S. Byatt, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Salman Rushdie, and Eudora Welty (to name only a select few of my favorites from my eclectic shelves) offer plenty to keep me busy for a lifetime. Therefore, goodbye, Finnegan’s Wake.
Tags: Byatt, Contortions, Eudora Welty, Finnegan S Wake, Flannery O Connor, Frank Wilson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hopkins Virginia, Inq, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Shakespeare William, Street Journal Article, Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal, William Blake, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, Worthy Authors
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