Link to the Show / Show Notes
This reading is part of a larger (proposed) 14 year study that Dr S.E. Gontarski has been running on James Joyce's momumental 20th century work: Finnegans Wake. This group, in its various premutations has featured a large number of MA and PhD students, a few faculty and visiting scholars, as well as a group of ambitious undergraduates. While critical discussion plays a considerable role in this group, it also provides us with what we want to present you with here: a chance to hear the language - formed music in Joyce's novel.
In his seminal work, ReJoyce, Anthony Burgess warns against over - explaining Finnegans Wake: "Let us not be too much tempted to drag the big dream up towards the light: shadowiness, confusion, the melting
of one personage into another, of youth into age, friend into enemy--these are the essence of the dream."
However, against that advice, it might be helpful to know a bit about what is going on in this reading, we are starting about halfway through the 13th chapter (or Book III, chapter I) on page 414. Here we begin with the fable of the Ondt and Gracehopper (or the Ant and the Grasshopper), move through an arguement between brothers Shem and Shaun over their respective writing abilities, the trip of Shaun downstream in a Guinness barrel, and end with a fond farewell from a sister (Issy) to her brother Shaun on page 428.
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