Talk:Finnegans Wake

.

Find sources: "Finnegans Wake" – news · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images

GA Review

I have started a review of this article to see if it fits the criteria for a WP:Good article. The criteria and my comments can be found here. SilkTork *^YES! 23:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

The GA Review is on hold until the end of January 2009 to allow suggested improvements to take place. More details can be found here. SilkTork *^YES! 20:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed unreferenced content

The whole references in other literature was (somewhat ironically) unreferenced, so I prefer the method of moving it all here to the Talk Page, and reintroducing it piecemeal as appropriate, and as references can be found. It's relevant to show how the book has been incorporated into the cultural landscape, but a huge chunk of unreferenced material is not helpful to anyone.

here is the removed section; please only reintroduce if you have a cite to go along with it:

Finnegans Wake is referenced in other works of fiction as an example of a difficult or unreadable text.^{[citation needed]} Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar features the protagonist Esther Greenwood contending with the book's difficult opening page, presaging her emotional deterioration.^{[citation needed]} In Charles Willeford's High Priest of California, the central character Russell Haxby mentions unwinding after a day of mischief by rewriting passages of Finnegan's Wake (and Ulysses) in plain and simple language.^{[citation needed]} American political comedian Jon Stewart's America (The Book) lists Finnegans Wake as a sign that Europe is in decline, with the explanatory caption "More unreadable by the hour."^{[citation needed]}

The book is referenced in film and television as a synonym for "difficult" or "unreadable".^{[citation needed]} In the movieEnough Jennifer Lopez's character mentions that Finnegans Wake "is the hardest book to read in the English language",^{[citation needed]} and in the Jonathan Creek TV series, Jonathan refers to the book as "virtually unreadable". In Manhattan Murder Mystery, Woody Allen's character, Larry Lipton, a book editor, tells a writer worried that her book is "too transparent" that she need not worry, as her manuscript "makes Finnegans Wake look like airplane reading."

Finnegans Wake is also evoked in literature as an intertextual means of opening a discourse on language itself,^{[citation needed]} such as in Tom Robbins's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, in which the protagonist Switters "reads and rereads Finnegans Wake, and obsessively ponders the fate of language in the cybernetic future that is rapidly taking shape around us." The book is similarly referenced in Salman Rushdie's Fury,^{[citation needed]} Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl, ^{[citation needed]} Raymond Queneau's We Always Treat Women Too Well, ^{[citation needed]} and Robert Anton Wilson's "Prometheus Rising". ^{[citation needed]} Although Vladmir Nabokov had a low opinion of the book (referring to it as "Punnigans Wake"),^{[citation needed]} Finnegans Wake is referenced in passing in his Lolita, in the scene when H.H. and Lolita watch a play by Quilty. Argentinian major writer and Princeton professor of Latin American literature Ricardo Piglia includes a Joycean short story called "La Isla" in his book "Cuentos Morales". The story also appears as a chapter of his postmodern fiction "Ciudad Ausente" under the title "La Isla de Finnegan".^{[citation needed]}

Finnegans Wake has also been referenced in a number of science fiction texts, such as Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion, in which the character Herb Asher declares James Joyce to have the ability to see the future, and uses various sections from Finnegans Wake to prove his point.^{[citation needed]} Marshall McLuhan also argued for a divinity in the Wake's strange language, arguing that Finnegans Wake itself is a cryptogram narrating the whole of human history.^{[citation needed]} Similar works to reference Joyce's Wake include Philip José Farmer's science fiction novella Riders of the Purple Wage, ^{[citation needed]} Samuel R. Delany's science fiction novella Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, ,^{[citation needed]} James Blish's science fiction novel A Case of Conscience ^{[citation needed]} and Blish's Star Trek novel Spock Must Die!.^{[citation needed]} The latter offers a name for Joyce's artificial language, "Eurish"; an allusion to the European source of many of the languages from which it was culled.^{[citation needed]}

thanks for your help in improving the article. peace Warchef (talk) 09:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

For those interested, this site lists cultural references to Joyce, though there's not much in the way of reliable sourcing. SilkTork *^YES! 14:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

Passed. SilkTork *^YES! 16:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

This is just to say

I'm really glad we've removed the PhD thesis saying that FW was Joyce's confession to the world that he'd boned his daughter. If you find some University to approve your insane ideas, congratulations, Doctor. But an encyclopedia is no place for every stupid idea we can come up with while on acid for the fifteenth day in a row. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.14.189.78 (talk) 23:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

suggestion to remove ref to stephen king work

since joyce used a pre-existing song/story about finnegans wake in his novel, the comment about stephen kings use of same at end of article should probably not be there. he was just as likely to be referencing the song. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

of course you're right, that one managed to slip past me somehow. I've removed it, thanks :) Warchef (talk) 03:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Translations

A section on translations (complete or partial) or attempts thereat would be good. -- Schneelocke (talk) 11:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The German article has a section de:Finnegans Wake#Übersetzungen jnestorius^(talk) 00:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Adaptations

Has anyone else seen the movie version done, if memory serves, by students at UC Berkeley in the 1960s? JoshNarins (talk) 07:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

colonial allusions good faith addition

I removed this paragraph until it can be backed up wth references. As soon as you have some cites for it, please feel free to reintroduce it into the article thanks :)

There are also wide ranging alllusions to colonial areas, languages and cultures. Joyce identified Ireland with the West Indies and other colonised areas and areas of slavery. There are numerous references to African peoples and languages, in Africa and in the diaspora caused by slavery. Included are references to popular culture and protest history in the United States, creole languages, and several areas of plantation slavery thoughout the world.. Among his sources are C.K. Meek, Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria; F. W. Taylor's 1. A Grammar of the Adamawa Dialect of the Fulani Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. and 2. A Fulani-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932. Also a number of books mentioned by Hugo Schuchardt in his Die Sprache der Saramakkaneger von Suriname, 1912, including: Henry G. Murray, Tom Kittle's Wake: Manners and Customs in the Country a Generation Ago, Kingston, Jamaica 1877 and Allen, William Francis; Ware, Charles Pickard; Garrison, Lucy McKim, Slave Songs of the United States, N.Y., A. Simpson and Co 1867. Other little noted books include Demoticus Philalethes, Yankee Travels Through the Island of Cuba. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1856, and Charles Etienne Boniface, "Kaatje Kekklebek" South Africa, 1839. This list gives an indication of the wide range of Joyce's reading.^{[citation needed]}

Warchef (talk) 14:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC) In the 1980s, I believe according to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, a Scottish university published a journal called "The Wake Newsletter" which was entirely about Finnegans Wake. If any one has a source for this and can remember the university in question, it would make a good additional touch to the article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[1] — goethean ॐ 18:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Plot summary numbering

Why do the Arabic numerals and Roman numerals change almost at will? Shouldn't they be more consistent? Would change myself, but Joyce, and Joyce scholars for that matter, has really weird habits and am unfamiliar with this scholarship. Sadads (talk) 05:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• different contributors, I guess, but most usually critics refer to the wake's book in Roman numerals, and the chapter of that book in Arabic (e.g. III.3 and so on). Such a mixture is one of those weird habits, and I'm not sure if there's a Wikipedia policy on that, but I'll change them to the Wakean critics' standard for now. cheers :) Warchef (talk) 17:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• • done. Warchef (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hugh Childers

Hugh Childers linked as the source for HCE.86.46.230.96 (talk) 07:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree with that, and I've added some more info on that. Both the Childers Report (1894) and his cousin's book (1911) were widely discussed in Irish newspapers, and a literate Dubliner like Joyce must have read about them at some point. Both works were controversial in their day.Red Hurley (talk) 13:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Quick question

I've read that The House by the Churchyard by Sheridan Le Fanu was a key source of inspiration for this book or at least was referenced implicitly in it. I'm not an expert so I could be wrong here's a few scattered sources I've found:[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] I didn't see that mentioned here. I might have just missed it I dunno. AaronY (talk) 11:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Norwegian influence?

I readily believe that, but I think there is no reason to highlight the allusions to Norwegian, because the text alludes to numerous other languages, including Irish, Dutch, and German. That's the great thing about the book: it means something different to everyone, depending on one's frame of reference. I think it would be wise to alter that specific paragraph to deal with influences of all languages other than English. Steinbach (talk) 18:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Good to see something

Good to see that Wikipedia has got something correct - there really is no apostrophe in the title of this book! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)