
Finnegans Wake: the book the web was invented for - Petiver
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/apr/28/finnegans-wake-james-joyce-modern-interpretations
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kens
The article points out that the new versions of Finnegans Wake, the web
annotations, graphic novel, twitter version, and so forth are all possible
because the book has gone out of EU copyright. This is a good example of why
limited-duration copyrights are a good thing, and why arbitrary extensions of
copyright harm society.

Going back to the book, has anyone read it and found it worthwhile? I never
managed to get through more than a few pages and suspect that it's not worth
the time and effort to me. I found Ulysses was worth the effort, but I'm not
so sure about Finnegans Wake - any dissenting views?

~~~
ansible
I gave it a go back in college, but didn't get far, even with the help of a
skeleton key. I tried it because it was reputed to be "hard". But making a
bunch of references to things / people / places I never had a hope of knowing
about makes it more "obscure" than "hard" in my book.

~~~
bdr
Why is "hard" a good thing?

~~~
sanderjd
Sometimes (but not always), "hard" when applied to literature means thought-
provoking and perspective-expanding. Those are good things. Never read this
one though, so I'm not sure whether it's "hard" in that sense.

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mbubb
Yes - took 2 Joyce seminars back in college and never got through more than
excerpts of FW. Funny process - at first you think Ulysses is hard, and it is,
but you get used to that world. FW is dense.

Another work which always seemed made for the Internet is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcades_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcades_Project)

there is even a precursor to the hyperlink in the way that links to other
topics jump around the work and imply multiple connections.

Things like [https://mannahatta2409.org/](https://mannahatta2409.org/) remind
me of what Benjamin did in a way.

~~~
JadeNB
> Another work which always seemed made for the Internet is
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcades_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcades_Project)

If we're throwing out ideas, I'd love to see a web version of Rayuela
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_(Julio_Cortázar_nove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_\(Julio_Cortázar_novel\))
).

~~~
mbubb
I remember reading that. At the time my absolute favorite novel. Its
beautiful. He's a great great writer. The short stories. "A Certain Lucas";
"Around the day in 80 worlds" but nothing quite like Hopscotch.

Jumping to film - I always thought that a lecture/ essay on Blowup Blowout and
) a bit of a stretch) The Conversation

all descended from Cortazar's short story would make a great study.

~~~
JadeNB
I dunno—I was introduced to the short stories first, and none of the novels
compare for me (not even Hopscotch, much as I enjoy it). Cronopios and Famas,
We Love Glenda So Much, House Taken Over—he has hilarious, chilling, and
beautiful short stories.

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christudor
Personally, I think the biggest benefit that the internet can confer to FW is
someone reading it out, rather than providing easier access to annotations.

I suspect FW is best enjoyed when done at pace, letting the poetry of the
thing wash over you, rather than sitting down and assiduously looking up every
single word, which I can only imagine gets incredibly boring very quickly.

What struck me about Joyce's reading of FW is (a) how quickly he makes his way
through it, and (b) how this novel/poem is written for an Irish accent.

Compare Eliot's reading of the Waste Land:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqvhMeZ2PlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqvhMeZ2PlY)

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devindotcom
I dunno, _Moby Dick_ is like a whaling blog by a philosophy major complete
with "links" to such things as the definition of whiteness and lists of whale
types.

Also _Tristram Shandy_ is like the LiveJournal of someone popping dexedrine.

And of course _Inquire Within Upon Everything_ is pretty much literally what
the title describes.

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clay_to_n
This is really cool. I've heard good things about reading David Foster
Wallace's Infinite Jest on tablets, because all of the footnotes are
hyperlinks - easier than using two bookmarks as you read the book. There also
was an internet forum for people who would read it each summer, following
along and discussing to clarify confusion (called Infinite Summer, I think
it's now defunct).

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jl6
See also the web work of Jorn Barger (coiner of the word blog), predating all
of these examples, such as
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130409060532/http://www.robotwi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130409060532/http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/shortwake.html)
(original website seemingly now defunct), and his attempts at linking Joyce
with AI.

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fallinghawks
I managed to get about halfway through FW before calling defeat, even with a
guidebook that explained, paragraph by paragraph, what the heck was going on
:)

~~~
wldcordeiro
I'm still working through Ulysses and it's definitely tough but manageable.
Finnegan's Wake though just seems too difficult right now. I'll need to take a
break from Joyce and return later to attempt it.

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mactitan
It opens with: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of
bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle &
Environs."

and ends:

"A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun,”

and in between: bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnth
unntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!

I’ve been waiting for a good translation. maybe burgess??

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narrator
Pynchon is kind of like this. He layers so much symbolism and allusion layered
into every sentence.

~~~
orbat
My thoughts exactly. Gravity's Rainbow could really benefit from a more, uh,
"hypermedia" approach.

~~~
brightsize
When I was in college there was a course called "Finishing Gravity's Rainbow".
I didn't take it but I did have a (failed) go at the book at one point a very
long time ago. It still seems like something for the bucket list but I
honestly have no idea if the reward would be worth the effort. Some of
Pynchon's other, more approachable books have been interesting but not, for
me, "wow that was truly incredible" interesting.

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AnimalMuppet
I've just got this nagging suspicion that, for a non-English-major type, FW is
not going to repay the enormous investment of time it would take to get
anything out of it. Therefore, I have never bothered, and almost certainly
never will.

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rumcajz
Milorad Pavic's Khazar Dictionary is another book with hypertext-like
structure. You can start reading from any point in the book and it still works
OK.

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metaobject
Reading Finnegan's Wake is like reading an optimized Perl script. It's
extremely dense and I give up after 10-20 minutes.

