Oh, why am I even bothering? This is the third time I almost quit, and I nearly continued again. However, given that I didn't decipher a single sentence in ten in the last chapter, and this one looks no better, I refer you to the previous question.

So, I made it to the start of the second chapter in the second section, basically 50%. I was reading a version without notes. I would not normally recommend such a thing, but if I'm to try this again someday, I will be reading "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" by Joseph Campbell and maybe also "The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake" by Eric McLuhan.

In context, I have a pretty broad reading range now, with hundreds of books read from before "Finnegans Wake" was published. I'm also Irish and from Dublin, and I have read Joyce's other three works. I not only highly enjoyed "Ulysses" but didn't find it particularly difficult (except for one chapter). I've also read "Jerusalem" by Alan Moore, which has a chapter similar to some of the writing here (the Galley-Wag from "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" also talks like some of this but in a much easier to understand way).

My point is that unless you basically have the exact same knowledge base as Joyce (speaking Latin and several other languages would also help), you are really going to struggle here. And that's before considering the way in which it's written. When you add this extra layer of encryption to the slang, obtuse wordage, etc., it literally becomes a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Half the time, you don't even know what the subject under discussion is. I think there was one chapter which I was able to mostly follow, but when you have page after page of closely written, dense text, none of which has barely any discernible meaning, it becomes a true waste of time.

Finnegans Wake is an extremely challenging book to read, and the author Joyce made it so through a deliberate process.

If we examine the notebooks and drafts he left behind, we can observe that he continuously added more and more layers of complexity to what initially started as a relatively comprehensible piece of writing. This intentional act of obfuscation made his initial narrative increasingly difficult to understand. Moreover, he actively placed more and more obstacles in the way of his readers. Just imagine attempting to untangle this book without the assistance of the internet!

No wonder Finnegans Wake has had very few readers.

I suspect that the reason people read this dense block of blatant obfuscation is somewhat similar to what drives scholars to attempt to decipher ancient languages. However, unlike cracking the meaning of hieroglyphs, reading Finnegans Wake remains a private pleasure that lacks broader significance.

I suppose that for those who enjoy cryptograms and testing their cultural knowledge and intellectual stamina, this might not be a bad way to pass the time. It's like a non-scientist's Sudoku, if you will. For me personally, I would rather spend my mental energy on something more rewarding than trying to untangle the mind-spirals of a 1930s Irish male. If you enjoy reading richly textured writing from which you can learn a thing or two, read Proust, read Musil, read Mann - but stay away from Finnegans Wake.

Halfing a farthing, Martin spent two hours spinning on a Sunday morn. Forchoon found it braggable to babble joyously with the Hibbing communal eppunions ever sous O Finn and other revelers eager to earwicken four disburse and digestion of this fine fantasmagorical pheast. The eauvinliesse crossmess parzel effrr to eggspore these reddy Finn waters of Liffe, with every sin doubling eire saisonales.

Twixt reverences tous sous many tomes dix and eirees of littery affliction - marcs, swiffs und laurences, grade wide caterpillars, the will-o-the-wisp and ol’ cocoricococorico himself (thankyous! thankyous! thankyous!), the impudent little cad, and nada forget the oft reverence to that tomba Master Giddyman, creeping all over with its ribberrobbers, abblesteelers, riggenbrowspiers, and babelbuilders. Eau course ol veni vidi Vico, mssrs Browne et Nolan, and all the other figlessophizers und sinnthesizers of this fine stewry - these earwake a Bugmester Finnegan (kate the insectuous portmanteau, so halfin willsin) profits to be a reed mosest taxing, a thousand and one times over.

But nubile the lass most sanctifying two, truth be tall, less not forguinness this mosest impertinent pint. By gad, zeus here’s no cupboard offal mutter hooper! Eats butter-end, O, so fool! - mick no bones a bodice! Stumpt a the gills with her joycest marcels, ever on plumpish and purple! Reilly ornate, regally overindulgent, yes, yes, gorse, genuinelyso, but it's vibrant, and beautifool inuits versitality! This ear’s a fine eggsporation and rumination on the civilization of every homen nation, eggspatriation, an eggsitation for the senses, a conflation and inundation of wormeds bug and small, a grand celebration, a titalation, verbal intoxication, musical inebriation, a literary sensation that promises no lingual constipation, but perhaps for sensitive constitutions an overstimulation unfit for digestion, and to some a depiction of degradation unworthy of publication for alla the fornication, urination, defecation, flatulation and all the other bodily sensations unfit here to mention quintsealed within the pagination of this highestmost elaborate creation.

Deviled quilt? O, note Howeth! - weaved sous by its eautheuer, just like Liffe itself - but still a sterling for the Pepys all, oft rise and fall, and rise and fall again, a sterling forty Everyman. Everyone here comes and passes through these pages, a laughly parable of liffe itself, liffe today and liffe fornever after, one thousand times over and one. The potatoes are reap, Father Piking! Passaroun' now! Peatrick pesstheporterpease! Sticks and stones may breakes bones, but nunshell effr eatem! Aye, hearse a thing to worm yew from humptyhillhead down to tumptytumtoes – Uisge beatha! Aha!, O, aha!, lots ove Finn to be had at Finnegans Wake! A lone a long alas at such a time in my life.

♥ˏˋ°•*⁀➷