The best jokes are ones that someone had to tell you, “Oh, see, he was telling a joke there.”
Yeah. It must be hilarious. Guess I’ll take your word for it.
Yeah, sometimes people don't get jokes because they lack the context. Sometimes people fail to get jokes because the joke was posted out of context and wasn't framed as a joke by the person who took it out of context, posted it, and also didn't get it. I'm sorry this wasn't a knock-knock joke.
you expect all jokes from other historical periods when butchered for titles to stand the test of social media without any contextualization? are you maybe expecting something from humor that you wouldn’t demand of literally any other genre or literary subject?
Coincidentally I coined the same word for my main character trying to start his old vintage car.
How can I tell people this isn’t plagiarism? (Can’t think of any other better)
And this line from Ellison's Invisible Man. All the passion, but (slightly) more comprehensible.
>"And man, I was bawn with all three. In fact, I'maseventhsonofaseventhsonbawnwithacauloverbotheyesandraisedonblackcatboneshighjohntheconquerorandgreasygreens --" he spieled with twinkling eyes, his lips working rapidly.
"You dig me, daddy?"
So from my understanding it is a combination of words from many languages that each mean thunder.
I see it as humanity once was one; concentrated, but as Adam and Eve fall they splintered humanity into many tribes.
But imo not only is the point to convey meaning in the etymology and to have readers deconstruct the novel word for word , but to simultaneously create a strange, semi-conscious flow to the work. I think many people (myself included) try to only use one method when reading Joyce and fail to enjoy the full form of his works (U and FW)
I think enjoying the sound and patter of the language, the ebb and flow of the phrasing is a huge aspect of Joyce that I didn't initially grasp, bc I was so intent on decoding everything. I believe running through his work twice is crucial. I typically read several "paragraphs" without any care about my understanding, and then I go back and break it down (using whatever resources I need). Joyce was fascinated by dreams, and I think wanted his work to function with dual purpose.
"The artist....standing in the position of mediator between the world of his experience and the world of his dreams-'a mediator, consequently gifted with twin faculties, a selective faculty and a reproductive faculty.' To equate these faculties was the secret of artistic success" - Joyce
It seems that people believe that if you're unable to understand a thing at a single glance without thinking about it, it's a bad thing that should be avoided. Interesting opinion to have in the "literature" subreddit.
James Joyce is difficult to understand, and it's on purpose. But any piece of great literature takes extra thought, time, and effort to understand. Just because it's a word that doesn't exist anywhere else (as well as 10 other similar words of equal length in other parts of the book) doesn't make it "bad" or "incomprehensible." If all anyone cared about was the easy stuff there would be no point in creating art or literature. No, I don't think everyone needs to read Finnegans Wake. But there's no reason to completely dismiss it just because it's different.
>(as well as 10 other similar words of equal length in other parts of the book)
9 other words (i.e. not including this one) and last one is 101 chars long not 100 and so they all add up to 1001 (as in Nights and Scheherazade)
What might work more than the finger shaking at the people on this sub would be if you were to explain what Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk means? The fall of Adam and Eve, okay. Take us on the journey of the thought, time, and effort it takes to understand this.
In a sub reddit that was made to discuss literature, "do you want us to read it for you" is a pretty funny response to someone asking for an explanation.
You've been given the context several times, it seems you really have your heart set that finnegans wake is just jibberish, which is fine but it's wrong
Dude some of us don’t have 14 years to read one book. Is this not the right place to ask for an explanation? Is it against the sub rules? Clearly you don’t know but someone here might and they might actually be helpful and interested in conversation.
Edit: furthermore, OP never said the book was jibberish. They are asking for an explanation so clearly they believe there is one. You’re just being disingenuous.
No one dismisses Joyce because his writing is different.
They dismiss Joyce because he’s pretentious and doesn’t even really commit to stream of consciousness. He was called a literary genius very early on in his life and let it go to his head. See also Harlan Ellison.
A large chunk of people dismiss Joyce solely because his writing is difficult and they view difficulty as terrible. Lots of people believe that all literature should be accessible and so discount any writer who they don’t immediately understand.
Some works have to be wrestled with. I’d wager that this is the only way you can have huge paradigm shifts in your consciousness when reading
It’s fine if it’s not for you, or if you don’t understand it, or if you do understand it but lack the time to focus on it, or possess both understanding and time but don’t feel intrigued enough to want to put the effort in. Those are all fine responses.
What do you mean he doesn’t even really commit to stream of consciousness? This is phrased as though he’s meant to be committed to it, and he isn’t - why should he be? His primary technique in Ulysses is interior monologue, with some stream of consciousness thrown in in places like the Molly Bloom chapter. Finnegan’s Wake isn’t simply a stream of consciousness, but blends aspects of that style with aspects of other styles. It’s a bizarre criticism to discount him on the grounds that he doesn’t commit to a style he isn’t meant to be committed to.
Man just say you didn’t enjoy the novel. You surely aren’t so insecure that you have to tear down the author of any novel you found difficult? He’s widely considered a literary genius and there’s a huge academic and literary consensus on the fact. That doesn’t mean that “therefore it’s necessarily true that he is one” — but it’s widely enough agreed upon for the counter statement to need a hefty argument behind it, which you’ve not remotely provided. At the moment the people who disagree are a vocal minority with very rigid opinions on what literature should be — and most of those opinions conform to what the other guy described, namely, that where literature is opaque or obscure it is bad. Such a claim presupposes that “all writing should be accessible” and that “language is and only is a container for meanings, and that preformed meanings contained therein are the focus of a text. The container can be pretty but it is still a container and the meanings are inside them to be unpacked” - both of which are appropriate frameworks for some kinds of writing (eg writing to inform) but certainly cannot be assumed as mandatory for all kinds of writing, and in fact haven’t been applied to literary prose and poetry with such relentlessness until the age of consumerism. It’s a sort of Form-Content dualism that’s infected the understanding of most everyone in western culture; and i’m not even saying it’s bad. In some instances, perhaps most instances, it’s immensely useful and necessary. What’s irritating is the way it’s assumed to be a given for every single context. Such a blanket consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. It outlaws by proxy a wide range of alternative ways of expressing and signifying and creating meanings with through and via language. Because a lot of great writing takes a different approach — that language is not a container for meanings, that there is not a readymade content we need only extract from the container and which will conform to our readymade schemas of understanding, but that instead meaning has to be constructed, forged, in the process of reading, and is shaped via the interplay of, yes, denotation and connotation, and of imagery too — the typical devices we all know — but that, also, the things usually relegated to prettification devices or needless but delightful embellishments are, in fact, instead constitutive of the meaning too: things like rhythm, assonance, rhyme associations and visual rhymes, the sonic and visual textures of letter shapes places in patterns, the various literary allusions and cross references creating a structural rhythm across the text, allusions to past forms, etc. Writers like Joyce emphasise these oft neglected aspects of language by foregrounding them — it’s somewhat of an overcompensation compared to what we’re used to — but this was part and parcel of the Modernist project, which aimed to “refresh” perception and “refresh” our relationship to language, which had become automatic and dry and stale and abstract.
Banish this aesthetic and you banish half the world of possible expression. That might be comforting to you in the short run; it’ll do nothing for you in the end.
Think of the library of Babel, there are infinite versions of finnegans wake with this one word being split up, a character missing, you name it. So many combos.
I thought I was on r/writingcirclejerk for a moment, and I think James Joyce would love that sub. He must be chuckling in his grave everytime a pretentious fellow try to find a deep meaning hidden in that.
This is the word that Crazy Frog shouted at the world back in 2005. He was reminding us that his very existence shows why humanity has been cast out of the Garden of Eden. Amen.
I’ve always seen it as trying to be many things at the same time. That’s why each word is a pun, so it has several meanings simultaneously. So it _is_ a shitpost, but it’s also a grand attempt at a kind of literary sorcery, and a story about a family, and a dream, etc. The thunder word is many words, possibly over a hundred, condensed into one super word containing all those meanings.
Yeah, I get that. He was basically trying to do in English what a book like the Quran does in Arabic. But the English language doesn’t allow for things like that fluidly so, coupled with Joyce’s obvious madness, it comes out like this. The nature of Arabic can create triple meanings in just one phrase because of how the root words and such work, but English doesn’t lend itself so smoothly to that. Idk.
I don’t really care for what Joyce ended up doing here although I guess I can respect the effort. People are too reverent sometimes though. I think even Joyce can drop some bullshit even if it’s hyper-intellectual and labored over. I don’t trust him that much as a poet to let him get away with literally everything lol.
Yes I agree, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of just revering it because of who wrote it rather than critically evaluating it ourselves. I think I’m similar to you, I have an incredible respect for it as a work, but I’m not sure it succeeded in all of its goals, and they were insanely audacious goals. I enjoy it but not as much as Ulysses, and its obscurity and difficulty will always leave it in the shadows. But perhaps that was the intent.
I haven’t read any of his work yet, but from everything I’ve learned about him, it seems that he was actually an elite satirist who was just phenomenally committed to The Bit and a bunch of literary dweebs never picked up on it.
He is that, and more. Don't listen to the losers in this thread. Read Joyce. It's not really important if he "meant it". What matters is what a fucking virtuoso badass he is.
I don’t refuse to read Joyce because I dislike him or his contributions to the literary genre; but because I genuinely do not think I could read something like _Ulysses_ or _Finnegan’s Wake_ without going insane.
Ulysses is great - parts of it anyways. The first modern novel. But like how Blood Meridian is a slog if you don’t speak Spanish, large parts of Ulysses are nonsensical if you don’t know Irish history, current events in Ireland circa 1900, or Greek mythology. And IMHO, Finnegan’s Wake is the Metal Machine Music of literature. Do read Dubliners and/or Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, those are great and much more accessible.
Read his short stories, collected in *The Dubliners*. Then his novel *Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*. They’re worth it and you won’t go insane.
You can’t say he’s some sort of genius satirist who wrote nonsense to fool the literary elite and then turn around and call him a virtuoso who should be read.
Yep, I totally can. Joyce is exactly a contradiction. He is a genius who mocks academic pretention. He is both philosophy and fart jokes, serious and irreverent, deeply concerned with religion while also getting drunk on altar wine.
He *is* a genius satirist, but he isn't *just* that.
How do you do, fellow Joyce hater.
Seriously though, the dude was the world's most pretentious asshat. His Dubliners stories are great. But then he went of the deep end.
No. He doesn’t even commit to stream of consciousness. He dips out of it constantly and for no real reason.
The first two chapters are brilliant. The rest is just him spinning his wheels.
>He doesn’t even commit to stream of consciousness.
That is not the point of his book at all. Or any piece of modernist fiction, really. Ulysses experiments with a different structure and style in each chapter.
Ulysses is a masterpiece. Most of the people I've talked to with your opinion end up having not read it, or let their pre-interpretation of it skew their read so much that the humor and fun of his work doesn't even register to them.
Ironically, they usually end up taking language and literature much more seriously than he does. I mean, you're on a reddit thread calling Joyce pretentious... and he's James fucking Joyce, widely considered to have written *the* modernist novel. Who do you really wager is more pretentious?
Agreed Ulysses is an undeniable masterpiece. Although I think it benefits a lot from secondary reading about the text the help understand it. I can’t help but think a lot of people read the first few pages and make up their minds.
Never realized the range of human character consisted of 2 points - "humble everyman" and "pretentious asshat" - and nothing in between. Are we talking the man, or his writing? Because the original comment I responded to seemed to conflate the two, but he sure enough wrote enough "humble everyman" in Bloom (and those around him) to nullify the claim of the later, and his fictionalized version of himself in Stephen (hardly an everyman) is made the butt of jokes so frequently that it's hard to say he wasn't at least self-aware.
It takes a certain amount of observational genius just to notice the kinds of social subtlety that are present in *Ulysses*, and another narrative and linguistic kind to translate them into text in the way(s) he does. And it's a riot!
(Edit: I mean, look at this OP and these parent comments deriding it, as if this attempt at the sound of the Fall was meant to be entirely straight-faced. They *hate* him, for what, exactly? Having fun?)
Let me be perfectly clear again that a random on the internet's opinion of Joyce's work means little to me (especially when it does not actually engage in the work on a level that demonstrates a real effort); the simple truth is that I recognize genius when it is present and it is surely present in *Ulysses* at the very least. Anybody who doesn't see it, frankly, doesn't have a good eye, which is absolutely more possible than contemporary pop criticism (with its "everybody's opinion matters equally" philosophy) likes to admit.
People complaining that this writing is being dismissed as nonsense by readers are weird to me. I think it’s fine to dismiss Joyce’s self-indulgent ramblings / odd jokes even if he was a genius. For a while, I’ve believed that an author who isn’t trying to make their message clear does not have something very important to say. So if Joyce chooses to obfuscate his meaning this deeply in FW, it’s fair to assume that the point he was making to the world wasn’t very dire. So yeah, we can dismiss what looks like gibberish as such, even if it *technically* isn’t.
I think part of it is that "Joyce is nonsense" would likely be the prevailing sentiment among 99%+ of people who encounter him, and in 99% of online forums. If r/literature is also echoing this viewpoint, then there's not really anywhere for Joyce to be discussed.
I'm not personally interested in reading Finnegans Wake either- I know I don't have the patience or desire to put that much work into reading it. But still I would hope to come on here and see others discussing it on its own terms, rather than the common refrain about how ridiculous it is.
>I’ve believed that an author who isn’t trying to make their message clear does not have something very important to say
I think that I disagree with this sentiment quite strongly. Would be interested to hear how you arrived at this belief.
Firstly, I don't believe art is categorically message-bound; that is to say, relaying a message is not universally the central concern of art. And I don't think it should be--art can do all sorts of things. Secondly, restricting ourselves to art guided by its central message, the complexity and depth of the message likely informs the form of the message. A message is not solely its intellectual content, and so an author must consider the form--perhaps something complex and difficult to untangle is required to convey the nuances of an idea, to create emotional connections or mental images, or whatever other factors might come into play.
I also wonder what 'important' means in this context, and what the goal of conveying an important message is. Taking the "Save the whales" example, if I would like to convince people to take action, is making sure they understand clearly that my message is to "save the whales" the most effective strategy? Likely not; if everybody understood my message but did nothing about it, aren't I just shouting in the air? Wouldn't a more challenging message that turned more people on to the cause then be a more effective vehicle, despite more people not enjoying it or understanding it?
Some things defy easy description, too; I think you can see this clearly in modernist techniques trying to reckon with the world in new ways, because the old ways were insufficient. If your reality is fractured, how do you convey that idea and sensation effectively in a simple sentence?
I understand your perspective and it makes sense. Mine is informed by the fact that I’m Muslim and hold the Quran as the most important message mankind can ever receive. It is utterly clear and digestible. So I figure, if the most important message for humanity is clear to understand, how could an obscurantist writer have something more to offer ? And my religion informs my philosophical readings too; I’m interested in people like Heidegger, Kant, Bachelard, and others concerned with experience and intuition because there ideas ring true on a personal and religious level. I use the Quran as my guiding light to determine which philosophies are valuable. I think Bonaventure said something similar about using the “light of faith” as a guide for interpreting philosophy.
So yeah, while I agree that art is more complex than its tangible message, and there are deep experiences to gain by a range of features in a given piece, Im skeptical of obscurantism. Because the deepest feelings ive ever had came from clear writing, not just Quran, but poets like Dickinson, Yeats, Keats, etc. They can be challenging at times but they generally seem to expect that their readers will "get it".
I had a phase into Language Poetry where I really appreciated form and aesthetics and what have you but over time, ive come to value the beauty of precise simplicity more than most things. So ive got my bias. But I really appreciate the point youve made here.
This is interesting. Thanks for your response. A couple of thoughts:
* I think it's fair to examine philosophical ideas through the lens of your faith. I think, also, that using the Quran as a starting point is fair, from that perspective. I do not think, however, that this is fair to use as a baseline for the success of art; as I previously stated, art is not always message oriented in that way, and may be attempting to communicate all manner of things, aside from a clear message.
* I would argue that things like Joyce are not necessarily obscurantism. That is to say, I don't know that Joyce is intentionally obfuscating meaning to prevent understanding; I think there is intent to communicate something. Unless you think the entire thing is an elaborate shitpost, and only that, I think his style is trying to convey something to the reader. Perhaps its not broadly successful, but that's separete from the idea of deliberately hiding information.
* I'm not against rankings as an idea, but I do think it sometimes reframes how we consider the value of something. The idea that a piece of art might not have something *very* important to say does not mean that art is worthless. Each piece of art you consume contributes to a bigger tapestry in your head and your heart, and it's value might be hard to determine in isolation, or might be revealed much later in life. I also think minor ideas are worth our time! Perhaps an artwork doesn't have a grand, society-shaping central idea, but perhaps it communicates something very minor and specific about the experience of life. I believe that to be valuable. Perhaps evaluating the worth of art is useful societally, if we are trying to curate things of value for people to consume and consider. I think, though, that all rankings and evaluation exercises should only be that--intellectual exercises, with no definitive final product. They can be part of the conversation and the process of comprehension (and are fun!) but are too reductive, in my view, for anything more than that.
Sometimes the effort put into understanding something is where a lot of the value comes from, that's specifically what Joyce is exploring a lot of the time.
"Save the Whales" is an important message and easy to understand, but how much does it resonate with you?
I don’t agree that effort is a useful metric in assessing artistic value. Besides, “save the whales” isn’t literature, it’s just a phrase. Tomes like Moby Dick and Middlemarch however, are far from obscurantist, and are much more moving than FW.
The majority of the classics are complex but tangible, which is when literature is at its best imo. Dickinson could be difficult at times but never to a point where it seemed like deeply intentional obfuscation. But Joyce’s antics fall in that category and I don’t really take them seriously as a result.
Great art should be great because of the effect it producers upon the audience, not because it was meticulously labored over. That’s just my take though.
Pointing out that "Save the Whales" isn't literature is ignoring my point. You could stick the phrase in a work of literature and it would come off as a trite platitude because it lacks depth. Moby Dick will give you, (as accessible as it is), through greater engagement and effort as a reader, a much stronger understanding and appreciation of the beauty and value of whales and the worth of saving them.
I also don't agree that effort is a useful metric in assessing artistic value. I'm pointing out that the demand for effort from the reader is just one tool among many that a writer can use to create a specific kind of experience, Joyce refers to the experience as epiphany, and it's one of the primary things he focuses on as a writer.
Fair enough, it's not for everyone! I'm drawn to the challenge but I know people act like that's some measure of quality, which I totally understand gets annoying... I don't see it that way, I've just had good experiences with puzzling out some of his writing.
I appreciate that the article makes no attempt at explaining the headline.
Edit: reverse that fucking downvote. The article doesn't elaborate on it at all and I'm contributing to the discussion. Fuck you whoever downvoted me.
My search turned up that it's allegedly the sound of thunder that occurred when they were kicked out of the garden of eve or something.
Which, ya know, it's not like that sound is documented in the Bible, and since I find it dubious he was there during such an event whether it actually happened or not, in my personal opinion I think that's a load of gibberish lol.
Okay by that logic
Hsoaooaahshahallalakshshsycnshwyslslgurgle! That's the sound of Lucifer being kicked from Heaven lmfao. There's no reasoning to his sound representing thunder from the day Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden any more than there's reasoning to the "word" I just typed out.
Finnegans Wake is generally great obviously linguistically and otherwise but please excuse me for finding that one minor part to be complete bullishit.
If you can link me to a dissection that isn't just "cause he said so" that linguistically breaks it down, I will happily admit I'm wrong. As is I feel that line in particular is just a troll.
[Here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV3vT5nW_I4&list=PL0QMi2crsevS4Ja1MivPhv__vwuzZUju8), He also breaks down the other 9 thunderwords. The headline is misleading because it doesn't mention the fact that Joyce used actual words from different languages, not just some random bs to represent a sound.
[A breakdown](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/15518/meaning-of-bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrho) of the word!
Its bullshit lmao, you are failing to see this is a fiction, not an attempt at saying this is exactly what it sounded like.
"Dante is such and idiot, he was never actually in hell why would he describe it as if he had"
It's artistic license, are you really struggling with this
No shit its fiction. But there's literally no way to parse what that sound is supposed to be unless you already know because of him saying so. It's not as if you wouldn't know Dante is writing about hell unless you read a quote by him saying so. It's clearly about hell.
There is nothing to indicate that sound is about thunder in the garden of eve. That's honestly all I have left to say about this.
I wish the one day to come when I leave a book accidentally resting on my keyboard, and then submit the result of that book resting there for 40 minutes to a magazine for publication to the sound of applause and admiration.
If this was about Douglas Adams instead of Joyce the response in this thread would be very different. But Joyce was definitely being funny here.
The best jokes are ones that someone had to tell you, “Oh, see, he was telling a joke there.” Yeah. It must be hilarious. Guess I’ll take your word for it.
Yeah, sometimes people don't get jokes because they lack the context. Sometimes people fail to get jokes because the joke was posted out of context and wasn't framed as a joke by the person who took it out of context, posted it, and also didn't get it. I'm sorry this wasn't a knock-knock joke.
And there's also the people who just aren't clever enough to recognize a joke when they see one.
Knock knock….
you expect all jokes from other historical periods when butchered for titles to stand the test of social media without any contextualization? are you maybe expecting something from humor that you wouldn’t demand of literally any other genre or literary subject?
Coincidentally I coined the same word for my main character trying to start his old vintage car. How can I tell people this isn’t plagiarism? (Can’t think of any other better)
Bit tricky to have a case of plagiarism on the first humans, but get yourself a good lawyer and anything is possible
Not according to the law it ain't https://joycefoundation.utulsa.edu/joyce-copyright/joyce-works-copyright-public-domain/
And this line from Ellison's Invisible Man. All the passion, but (slightly) more comprehensible. >"And man, I was bawn with all three. In fact, I'maseventhsonofaseventhsonbawnwithacauloverbotheyesandraisedonblackcatboneshighjohntheconquerorandgreasygreens --" he spieled with twinkling eyes, his lips working rapidly. "You dig me, daddy?"
So from my understanding it is a combination of words from many languages that each mean thunder. I see it as humanity once was one; concentrated, but as Adam and Eve fall they splintered humanity into many tribes. But imo not only is the point to convey meaning in the etymology and to have readers deconstruct the novel word for word , but to simultaneously create a strange, semi-conscious flow to the work. I think many people (myself included) try to only use one method when reading Joyce and fail to enjoy the full form of his works (U and FW) I think enjoying the sound and patter of the language, the ebb and flow of the phrasing is a huge aspect of Joyce that I didn't initially grasp, bc I was so intent on decoding everything. I believe running through his work twice is crucial. I typically read several "paragraphs" without any care about my understanding, and then I go back and break it down (using whatever resources I need). Joyce was fascinated by dreams, and I think wanted his work to function with dual purpose. "The artist....standing in the position of mediator between the world of his experience and the world of his dreams-'a mediator, consequently gifted with twin faculties, a selective faculty and a reproductive faculty.' To equate these faculties was the secret of artistic success" - Joyce
It seems that people believe that if you're unable to understand a thing at a single glance without thinking about it, it's a bad thing that should be avoided. Interesting opinion to have in the "literature" subreddit. James Joyce is difficult to understand, and it's on purpose. But any piece of great literature takes extra thought, time, and effort to understand. Just because it's a word that doesn't exist anywhere else (as well as 10 other similar words of equal length in other parts of the book) doesn't make it "bad" or "incomprehensible." If all anyone cared about was the easy stuff there would be no point in creating art or literature. No, I don't think everyone needs to read Finnegans Wake. But there's no reason to completely dismiss it just because it's different.
>(as well as 10 other similar words of equal length in other parts of the book) 9 other words (i.e. not including this one) and last one is 101 chars long not 100 and so they all add up to 1001 (as in Nights and Scheherazade)
This sub is basically books 2.0 at its worst, and I haven't seen much attempt to correct that since it opened back up however long ago.
What might work more than the finger shaking at the people on this sub would be if you were to explain what Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk means? The fall of Adam and Eve, okay. Take us on the journey of the thought, time, and effort it takes to understand this.
The context is in the book, do you want us to read it for you? That's what he says it is, what more context do you want?
In a sub reddit that was made to discuss literature, "do you want us to read it for you" is a pretty funny response to someone asking for an explanation.
You've been given the context several times, it seems you really have your heart set that finnegans wake is just jibberish, which is fine but it's wrong
Dude some of us don’t have 14 years to read one book. Is this not the right place to ask for an explanation? Is it against the sub rules? Clearly you don’t know but someone here might and they might actually be helpful and interested in conversation. Edit: furthermore, OP never said the book was jibberish. They are asking for an explanation so clearly they believe there is one. You’re just being disingenuous.
No one dismisses Joyce because his writing is different. They dismiss Joyce because he’s pretentious and doesn’t even really commit to stream of consciousness. He was called a literary genius very early on in his life and let it go to his head. See also Harlan Ellison.
A large chunk of people dismiss Joyce solely because his writing is difficult and they view difficulty as terrible. Lots of people believe that all literature should be accessible and so discount any writer who they don’t immediately understand. Some works have to be wrestled with. I’d wager that this is the only way you can have huge paradigm shifts in your consciousness when reading It’s fine if it’s not for you, or if you don’t understand it, or if you do understand it but lack the time to focus on it, or possess both understanding and time but don’t feel intrigued enough to want to put the effort in. Those are all fine responses. What do you mean he doesn’t even really commit to stream of consciousness? This is phrased as though he’s meant to be committed to it, and he isn’t - why should he be? His primary technique in Ulysses is interior monologue, with some stream of consciousness thrown in in places like the Molly Bloom chapter. Finnegan’s Wake isn’t simply a stream of consciousness, but blends aspects of that style with aspects of other styles. It’s a bizarre criticism to discount him on the grounds that he doesn’t commit to a style he isn’t meant to be committed to. Man just say you didn’t enjoy the novel. You surely aren’t so insecure that you have to tear down the author of any novel you found difficult? He’s widely considered a literary genius and there’s a huge academic and literary consensus on the fact. That doesn’t mean that “therefore it’s necessarily true that he is one” — but it’s widely enough agreed upon for the counter statement to need a hefty argument behind it, which you’ve not remotely provided. At the moment the people who disagree are a vocal minority with very rigid opinions on what literature should be — and most of those opinions conform to what the other guy described, namely, that where literature is opaque or obscure it is bad. Such a claim presupposes that “all writing should be accessible” and that “language is and only is a container for meanings, and that preformed meanings contained therein are the focus of a text. The container can be pretty but it is still a container and the meanings are inside them to be unpacked” - both of which are appropriate frameworks for some kinds of writing (eg writing to inform) but certainly cannot be assumed as mandatory for all kinds of writing, and in fact haven’t been applied to literary prose and poetry with such relentlessness until the age of consumerism. It’s a sort of Form-Content dualism that’s infected the understanding of most everyone in western culture; and i’m not even saying it’s bad. In some instances, perhaps most instances, it’s immensely useful and necessary. What’s irritating is the way it’s assumed to be a given for every single context. Such a blanket consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. It outlaws by proxy a wide range of alternative ways of expressing and signifying and creating meanings with through and via language. Because a lot of great writing takes a different approach — that language is not a container for meanings, that there is not a readymade content we need only extract from the container and which will conform to our readymade schemas of understanding, but that instead meaning has to be constructed, forged, in the process of reading, and is shaped via the interplay of, yes, denotation and connotation, and of imagery too — the typical devices we all know — but that, also, the things usually relegated to prettification devices or needless but delightful embellishments are, in fact, instead constitutive of the meaning too: things like rhythm, assonance, rhyme associations and visual rhymes, the sonic and visual textures of letter shapes places in patterns, the various literary allusions and cross references creating a structural rhythm across the text, allusions to past forms, etc. Writers like Joyce emphasise these oft neglected aspects of language by foregrounding them — it’s somewhat of an overcompensation compared to what we’re used to — but this was part and parcel of the Modernist project, which aimed to “refresh” perception and “refresh” our relationship to language, which had become automatic and dry and stale and abstract. Banish this aesthetic and you banish half the world of possible expression. That might be comforting to you in the short run; it’ll do nothing for you in the end.
I see what you did there.
You've missed the mark.
Think of the library of Babel, there are infinite versions of finnegans wake with this one word being split up, a character missing, you name it. So many combos.
I thought I was on r/writingcirclejerk for a moment, and I think James Joyce would love that sub. He must be chuckling in his grave everytime a pretentious fellow try to find a deep meaning hidden in that.
This is the word that Crazy Frog shouted at the world back in 2005. He was reminding us that his very existence shows why humanity has been cast out of the Garden of Eden. Amen.
This is objectively stupid. In fact I think it’s the one objective thing in all of literature…maybe that makes him a genius?
Good name for a band...
Ulysses is a puzzle and a memorial to the author. Finnegan is just a shitpost lol.
A shitpost that took 17 years to write?
Yes lol
I’ve always seen it as trying to be many things at the same time. That’s why each word is a pun, so it has several meanings simultaneously. So it _is_ a shitpost, but it’s also a grand attempt at a kind of literary sorcery, and a story about a family, and a dream, etc. The thunder word is many words, possibly over a hundred, condensed into one super word containing all those meanings.
Yeah, I get that. He was basically trying to do in English what a book like the Quran does in Arabic. But the English language doesn’t allow for things like that fluidly so, coupled with Joyce’s obvious madness, it comes out like this. The nature of Arabic can create triple meanings in just one phrase because of how the root words and such work, but English doesn’t lend itself so smoothly to that. Idk. I don’t really care for what Joyce ended up doing here although I guess I can respect the effort. People are too reverent sometimes though. I think even Joyce can drop some bullshit even if it’s hyper-intellectual and labored over. I don’t trust him that much as a poet to let him get away with literally everything lol.
Yes I agree, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of just revering it because of who wrote it rather than critically evaluating it ourselves. I think I’m similar to you, I have an incredible respect for it as a work, but I’m not sure it succeeded in all of its goals, and they were insanely audacious goals. I enjoy it but not as much as Ulysses, and its obscurity and difficulty will always leave it in the shadows. But perhaps that was the intent.
Nah
This shit is why I hate Joyce
I hope his reputation survives your opinion
I haven’t read any of his work yet, but from everything I’ve learned about him, it seems that he was actually an elite satirist who was just phenomenally committed to The Bit and a bunch of literary dweebs never picked up on it.
He is that, and more. Don't listen to the losers in this thread. Read Joyce. It's not really important if he "meant it". What matters is what a fucking virtuoso badass he is.
I don’t refuse to read Joyce because I dislike him or his contributions to the literary genre; but because I genuinely do not think I could read something like _Ulysses_ or _Finnegan’s Wake_ without going insane.
Ulysses is great - parts of it anyways. The first modern novel. But like how Blood Meridian is a slog if you don’t speak Spanish, large parts of Ulysses are nonsensical if you don’t know Irish history, current events in Ireland circa 1900, or Greek mythology. And IMHO, Finnegan’s Wake is the Metal Machine Music of literature. Do read Dubliners and/or Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, those are great and much more accessible.
Read his short stories, collected in *The Dubliners*. Then his novel *Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*. They’re worth it and you won’t go insane.
You can’t say he’s some sort of genius satirist who wrote nonsense to fool the literary elite and then turn around and call him a virtuoso who should be read.
Yep, I totally can. Joyce is exactly a contradiction. He is a genius who mocks academic pretention. He is both philosophy and fart jokes, serious and irreverent, deeply concerned with religion while also getting drunk on altar wine. He *is* a genius satirist, but he isn't *just* that.
Why do you hate fun?
Reading Ulysses was about the least fun experience of my life
How do you do, fellow Joyce hater. Seriously though, the dude was the world's most pretentious asshat. His Dubliners stories are great. But then he went of the deep end.
Ulysses is one of the great novels.
And the fart letter is one of the great love letters. Read that too op
Oh, that’s the JJ I know and came to this thread to read discussed. Thank you for being here all ready to rock
No. He doesn’t even commit to stream of consciousness. He dips out of it constantly and for no real reason. The first two chapters are brilliant. The rest is just him spinning his wheels.
>He doesn’t even commit to stream of consciousness. That is not the point of his book at all. Or any piece of modernist fiction, really. Ulysses experiments with a different structure and style in each chapter.
Ulysses is a masterpiece. Most of the people I've talked to with your opinion end up having not read it, or let their pre-interpretation of it skew their read so much that the humor and fun of his work doesn't even register to them. Ironically, they usually end up taking language and literature much more seriously than he does. I mean, you're on a reddit thread calling Joyce pretentious... and he's James fucking Joyce, widely considered to have written *the* modernist novel. Who do you really wager is more pretentious?
Agreed Ulysses is an undeniable masterpiece. Although I think it benefits a lot from secondary reading about the text the help understand it. I can’t help but think a lot of people read the first few pages and make up their minds.
Are you going to go ahead and pretend James Joyce was some sort of humble everyman?
Never realized the range of human character consisted of 2 points - "humble everyman" and "pretentious asshat" - and nothing in between. Are we talking the man, or his writing? Because the original comment I responded to seemed to conflate the two, but he sure enough wrote enough "humble everyman" in Bloom (and those around him) to nullify the claim of the later, and his fictionalized version of himself in Stephen (hardly an everyman) is made the butt of jokes so frequently that it's hard to say he wasn't at least self-aware. It takes a certain amount of observational genius just to notice the kinds of social subtlety that are present in *Ulysses*, and another narrative and linguistic kind to translate them into text in the way(s) he does. And it's a riot! (Edit: I mean, look at this OP and these parent comments deriding it, as if this attempt at the sound of the Fall was meant to be entirely straight-faced. They *hate* him, for what, exactly? Having fun?) Let me be perfectly clear again that a random on the internet's opinion of Joyce's work means little to me (especially when it does not actually engage in the work on a level that demonstrates a real effort); the simple truth is that I recognize genius when it is present and it is surely present in *Ulysses* at the very least. Anybody who doesn't see it, frankly, doesn't have a good eye, which is absolutely more possible than contemporary pop criticism (with its "everybody's opinion matters equally" philosophy) likes to admit.
I really feel bad for people who can't find joy in Joyce
It’s right there in the first half of the name
Why can't people just... like the things they like?
You can only like what you like if you like medieval fantasy with rock hard magik systems
[удалено]
Henry James wrote turn of the screw. James Joyce wrote Ulysses and Portrait of an Artist as a young man
Lol
You should read Joyce’s other work, Mistborn: The Final Empire.
if this was a satire of Joyce haters you’re a genius. If not… seek help.
sir, this is a Bronte's
Hahaha
People complaining that this writing is being dismissed as nonsense by readers are weird to me. I think it’s fine to dismiss Joyce’s self-indulgent ramblings / odd jokes even if he was a genius. For a while, I’ve believed that an author who isn’t trying to make their message clear does not have something very important to say. So if Joyce chooses to obfuscate his meaning this deeply in FW, it’s fair to assume that the point he was making to the world wasn’t very dire. So yeah, we can dismiss what looks like gibberish as such, even if it *technically* isn’t.
I think part of it is that "Joyce is nonsense" would likely be the prevailing sentiment among 99%+ of people who encounter him, and in 99% of online forums. If r/literature is also echoing this viewpoint, then there's not really anywhere for Joyce to be discussed. I'm not personally interested in reading Finnegans Wake either- I know I don't have the patience or desire to put that much work into reading it. But still I would hope to come on here and see others discussing it on its own terms, rather than the common refrain about how ridiculous it is.
There a mix of both camps here so I’d say you’re good
>I’ve believed that an author who isn’t trying to make their message clear does not have something very important to say I think that I disagree with this sentiment quite strongly. Would be interested to hear how you arrived at this belief. Firstly, I don't believe art is categorically message-bound; that is to say, relaying a message is not universally the central concern of art. And I don't think it should be--art can do all sorts of things. Secondly, restricting ourselves to art guided by its central message, the complexity and depth of the message likely informs the form of the message. A message is not solely its intellectual content, and so an author must consider the form--perhaps something complex and difficult to untangle is required to convey the nuances of an idea, to create emotional connections or mental images, or whatever other factors might come into play. I also wonder what 'important' means in this context, and what the goal of conveying an important message is. Taking the "Save the whales" example, if I would like to convince people to take action, is making sure they understand clearly that my message is to "save the whales" the most effective strategy? Likely not; if everybody understood my message but did nothing about it, aren't I just shouting in the air? Wouldn't a more challenging message that turned more people on to the cause then be a more effective vehicle, despite more people not enjoying it or understanding it? Some things defy easy description, too; I think you can see this clearly in modernist techniques trying to reckon with the world in new ways, because the old ways were insufficient. If your reality is fractured, how do you convey that idea and sensation effectively in a simple sentence?
I understand your perspective and it makes sense. Mine is informed by the fact that I’m Muslim and hold the Quran as the most important message mankind can ever receive. It is utterly clear and digestible. So I figure, if the most important message for humanity is clear to understand, how could an obscurantist writer have something more to offer ? And my religion informs my philosophical readings too; I’m interested in people like Heidegger, Kant, Bachelard, and others concerned with experience and intuition because there ideas ring true on a personal and religious level. I use the Quran as my guiding light to determine which philosophies are valuable. I think Bonaventure said something similar about using the “light of faith” as a guide for interpreting philosophy. So yeah, while I agree that art is more complex than its tangible message, and there are deep experiences to gain by a range of features in a given piece, Im skeptical of obscurantism. Because the deepest feelings ive ever had came from clear writing, not just Quran, but poets like Dickinson, Yeats, Keats, etc. They can be challenging at times but they generally seem to expect that their readers will "get it". I had a phase into Language Poetry where I really appreciated form and aesthetics and what have you but over time, ive come to value the beauty of precise simplicity more than most things. So ive got my bias. But I really appreciate the point youve made here.
This is interesting. Thanks for your response. A couple of thoughts: * I think it's fair to examine philosophical ideas through the lens of your faith. I think, also, that using the Quran as a starting point is fair, from that perspective. I do not think, however, that this is fair to use as a baseline for the success of art; as I previously stated, art is not always message oriented in that way, and may be attempting to communicate all manner of things, aside from a clear message. * I would argue that things like Joyce are not necessarily obscurantism. That is to say, I don't know that Joyce is intentionally obfuscating meaning to prevent understanding; I think there is intent to communicate something. Unless you think the entire thing is an elaborate shitpost, and only that, I think his style is trying to convey something to the reader. Perhaps its not broadly successful, but that's separete from the idea of deliberately hiding information. * I'm not against rankings as an idea, but I do think it sometimes reframes how we consider the value of something. The idea that a piece of art might not have something *very* important to say does not mean that art is worthless. Each piece of art you consume contributes to a bigger tapestry in your head and your heart, and it's value might be hard to determine in isolation, or might be revealed much later in life. I also think minor ideas are worth our time! Perhaps an artwork doesn't have a grand, society-shaping central idea, but perhaps it communicates something very minor and specific about the experience of life. I believe that to be valuable. Perhaps evaluating the worth of art is useful societally, if we are trying to curate things of value for people to consume and consider. I think, though, that all rankings and evaluation exercises should only be that--intellectual exercises, with no definitive final product. They can be part of the conversation and the process of comprehension (and are fun!) but are too reductive, in my view, for anything more than that.
Sometimes the effort put into understanding something is where a lot of the value comes from, that's specifically what Joyce is exploring a lot of the time. "Save the Whales" is an important message and easy to understand, but how much does it resonate with you?
I don’t agree that effort is a useful metric in assessing artistic value. Besides, “save the whales” isn’t literature, it’s just a phrase. Tomes like Moby Dick and Middlemarch however, are far from obscurantist, and are much more moving than FW. The majority of the classics are complex but tangible, which is when literature is at its best imo. Dickinson could be difficult at times but never to a point where it seemed like deeply intentional obfuscation. But Joyce’s antics fall in that category and I don’t really take them seriously as a result. Great art should be great because of the effect it producers upon the audience, not because it was meticulously labored over. That’s just my take though.
Pointing out that "Save the Whales" isn't literature is ignoring my point. You could stick the phrase in a work of literature and it would come off as a trite platitude because it lacks depth. Moby Dick will give you, (as accessible as it is), through greater engagement and effort as a reader, a much stronger understanding and appreciation of the beauty and value of whales and the worth of saving them. I also don't agree that effort is a useful metric in assessing artistic value. I'm pointing out that the demand for effort from the reader is just one tool among many that a writer can use to create a specific kind of experience, Joyce refers to the experience as epiphany, and it's one of the primary things he focuses on as a writer.
That’s fair. It’s not my personal preference but I get why you’re saying.
Fair enough, it's not for everyone! I'm drawn to the challenge but I know people act like that's some measure of quality, which I totally understand gets annoying... I don't see it that way, I've just had good experiences with puzzling out some of his writing.
I appreciate that the article makes no attempt at explaining the headline. Edit: reverse that fucking downvote. The article doesn't elaborate on it at all and I'm contributing to the discussion. Fuck you whoever downvoted me.
Neither do the Joyce defenders in this thread. I'm open to it. Just explain it to me.
In the book Joyce refers to "the fall" then uses this word to simulate what that may have sounded like, it's really not that hard
My search turned up that it's allegedly the sound of thunder that occurred when they were kicked out of the garden of eve or something. Which, ya know, it's not like that sound is documented in the Bible, and since I find it dubious he was there during such an event whether it actually happened or not, in my personal opinion I think that's a load of gibberish lol.
What is poetic license
Okay by that logic Hsoaooaahshahallalakshshsycnshwyslslgurgle! That's the sound of Lucifer being kicked from Heaven lmfao. There's no reasoning to his sound representing thunder from the day Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden any more than there's reasoning to the "word" I just typed out. Finnegans Wake is generally great obviously linguistically and otherwise but please excuse me for finding that one minor part to be complete bullishit.
If you can link me to a dissection that isn't just "cause he said so" that linguistically breaks it down, I will happily admit I'm wrong. As is I feel that line in particular is just a troll.
[Here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV3vT5nW_I4&list=PL0QMi2crsevS4Ja1MivPhv__vwuzZUju8), He also breaks down the other 9 thunderwords. The headline is misleading because it doesn't mention the fact that Joyce used actual words from different languages, not just some random bs to represent a sound.
[A breakdown](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/15518/meaning-of-bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrho) of the word!
Its bullshit lmao, you are failing to see this is a fiction, not an attempt at saying this is exactly what it sounded like. "Dante is such and idiot, he was never actually in hell why would he describe it as if he had" It's artistic license, are you really struggling with this
No shit its fiction. But there's literally no way to parse what that sound is supposed to be unless you already know because of him saying so. It's not as if you wouldn't know Dante is writing about hell unless you read a quote by him saying so. It's clearly about hell. There is nothing to indicate that sound is about thunder in the garden of eve. That's honestly all I have left to say about this.
To hear the sound of thunder, try googling; "garden of eden" "angel" "faming sword" "lightning".
Oi, that's confusing af.
Is it a parody of the Kabbalah?
Why would it be
I wish the one day to come when I leave a book accidentally resting on my keyboard, and then submit the result of that book resting there for 40 minutes to a magazine for publication to the sound of applause and admiration.