<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: "Nothing will ever make Finnegans Wake not obscure."
Review: The author has tightly focused his attention on the SLEEP aspects of the Wake. While this makes for a rather monochromatic presentation bordering the banal, the clarity and sheer thrust of the presentation are indisputable. (At bottom, one really doesn't like to admit there's so much IN the Wake that such restrained scholarship is required.) [from the text, pp.4-7]: "Suppose we charged ourselves with the task of providing in chronological order a detailed account of everything that occurred to us NOT last night...but in the first half-hour of last night's sleep. The 'hole affair' [535.20], (and a 'hole', unlike a 'whole', has no content), will likely summon up a sustained 'blank memory' [515.33]: 'You wouldn't should as youd remesner, I hypnot' [360.23-24]. What would become equally obscure, even questionable, is the stability of identity...No one remembers the experience of sleep at all as a sequence of events linked chronologically in time by cause and effect." Joyce remarked to his friend William Bird: "'About my new work - do you know, Bird, I confess I can't understand some of my critics, like Pound or Miss Weaver, for instance. They say it's OBSCURE. They compare it, of course, with ULYSSES. But the action of ULYSSES was chiefly in the daytime, and the action of my new work takes place chiefly at night. It's natural things should not be so clear at night, isn't it now?'"
Rating:
Summary: "Nothing will ever make Finnegans Wake not obscure."
Review: The author has tightly focused his attention on the SLEEP aspects of the Wake. While this makes for a rather monochromatic presentation bordering the banal, the clarity and sheer thrust of the presentation are indisputable. (At bottom, one really doesn't like to admit there's so much IN the Wake that such restrained scholarship is required.) [from the text, pp.4-7]: "Suppose we charged ourselves with the task of providing in chronological order a detailed account of everything that occurred to us NOT last night...but in the first half-hour of last night's sleep. The 'hole affair' [535.20], (and a 'hole', unlike a 'whole', has no content), will likely summon up a sustained 'blank memory' [515.33]: 'You wouldn't should as youd remesner, I hypnot' [360.23-24]. What would become equally obscure, even questionable, is the stability of identity...No one remembers the experience of sleep at all as a sequence of events linked chronologically in time by cause and effect." Joyce remarked to his friend William Bird: "'About my new work - do you know, Bird, I confess I can't understand some of my critics, like Pound or Miss Weaver, for instance. They say it's OBSCURE. They compare it, of course, with ULYSSES. But the action of ULYSSES was chiefly in the daytime, and the action of my new work takes place chiefly at night. It's natural things should not be so clear at night, isn't it now?'"
Rating:
Summary: For Joyce fanatics -- so deep it's mindboggling
Review: The ultimate treatment of Joyce's confusing classic,Bishop's comprehensive analysis goes beyond typical literary interpretations. Focusing of such diverse influences as Vico's "New Science" and The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Bishop shows the compexity of Joyce, as well as his almost total command of the English language, and language in general. If you've ever wondered about Vico's historical thesis, and want to understand how Vico permeates Joyce, this is the book to read. In the end, you'll come away with a better appreciation of Joyce's text, and a feeling of amazement at Vico's poorly understood, but far-sighted view of mankind.
Rating:
Summary: One of the top 5 books on "Finnegans Wake"
Review: This guy's read "Finnegans Wake" a thousand times, so it seems, and his knowledge of Joyce and environs is wide. I'd recommend "Joyce's Book of the Dark" for you Wakeans out there who need to dig deeper into the book of the delpth.
<< 1 >>
| 
