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New South Wales ‘Campus Review’

UNSW wakes Finn again

Seumas Phelan writes about the book that launched a thousand and more PhDs.
There are some people who believe James Joyce’s masterpiece Finnegans Wake is the greatest literary work of the modern age. There are some who say it’s a revolutionary achievement that helped to transform the global consciousness. And there are some who scoff that it’s a gigantic intellectual fraud and almost impossible to understand.

All these claims are arguable, but there is one academic fact about the iconic Irish writer’s magnum opus that is indisputable – along with Joyce’s Ulysses, it has spawned more PhDs and doctoral theses than any other book before or since.

This flood of doctorates became so notorious that another great Irish author, Flann O’Brien, once called for the Dublin government to pass a law banning anyone anywhere in the world from doing a degree on Joyce’s work in general, and Finnegans Wake in particular. And he was only half-joking.

Astoundingly, the final and definitive edition of the great work has just been published, nearly 80 years after Joyce began writing it, and now reflecting all of his extraordinary amendments, corrections, updatings and rewritings.

The publication is being launched around the world, including in Sydney last week, when some of Australia’s leading literary and academic figures turned out to celebrate.

“This isn’t just a great book, it’s a great artwork,” said Caitriona Ingoldsby, Ireland’s new consul-general, who helped to organise the event. “The importance of our literary achievements, old and new, are crucial at the current time. Over the past year, the news many of you will have heard about Ireland has been negative, focusing on building busts and banking bailouts.

“While the government and people of Ireland are facing economic challenges head-on, it is vital we remind ourselves and those abroad that Ireland has always been, and will always be, about more than an economy. We have an abundance of riches in culture and imagination. And Irish culture and Irish literature are important because they remind us of who we are and what we can be. The new edition of Finnegans Wake is somewhat similar – taking the brilliance of Joyce as it was, and bringing it to everything that it could be.”

This de-luxe edition of Finnegans Wake is an outstanding feat of publishing (“It would want to be at 1200 yankee dollars a copy,” said one wag). Even the 504-page standard version costs $US410, and both are limited editions, with only 200 copies of the special edition printed and 800 of the standard.

The book is updated with literally thousands of Joyce’s corrections and emendations – a mountain of work to which the editors, Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, have given 30 years of their lives. Rose spoke with passion of the task, saying not a word or a syllable is wasted, and that Joyce, while particular in time and place, is universal in human imagination and understanding.

The driving force behind the book launch in Sydney was the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies at UNSW. Its director, Professor Ronan McDonald, paid particular tribute to the work of Rose and O’Hanlon.

“Cleaning up Joyce’s contaminated masterpiece was a monumental task, the work of 30 years scrupulous editorial scholarship,” he said. “With 9000 small but crucial changes to the originally published edition, this work of loving erudition, incarnated in a beautiful new volume published by Houyhnmhnm Press, allows Joyce’s original intention to shine with immaculate brilliance.”

Leading Australian writer Gail Jones, professor of literature at the University of Western Sydney and prize-winning author of the luminous Five Bells, gave the keynote address honouring Joyce and Finnegans Wake, saying they had strongly influenced her and her work.

She spoke of the many Australian references in the Wake, suggesting they were usually a trope of exile. “As well as figuring what the English do to their criminal classes, Joyce is imagining a kind of radical otherness – as far-fetched, antipodean and exemplary of a certain absurdist destiny.”

The launch was held at the enchanting Hordern House in Potts Point, which contains a treasure trove of fine books and period literature. The walls are covered with drawings and artworks, with one 19th-century cartoon of an English shipping company office showing what the Poms thought of Australia at the time: “Would you like to go to Botany Bay or hell?” asks the ticket clerk.

Noted literary critic and academic Don Anderson of Sydney University, who taught some of those at the event, celebrated Joyce’s life and work. Professor Anderson admitted he hadn’t read all of Finnegans Wake, “although I often lecture on it,” he said cheerfully.

The great work’s title is taken from a Dublin street ballad of the same name from the 1850s, which features a bricklayer called Tim Finnegan with a weakness for the tipple. Unfortunately this leads him to tumble from his ladder, causing his demise. There’s a brawl at his wake, some whiskey spills into the coffin – and up springs the dead man, revived and calling for more. The rest, as they say, is history – or at least a literary masterpiece.

Joyce may have been a genius, but he drove his printers and publishers mad with corrections and rewriting of key passages (“Mr Joyce is an awful man for the changes,” a long-suffering printer is reported to have said). And Joyce complained bitterly that the first version of the book, published in 1939, contained many errors of fact and meaning, so his spirit will surely rest more easily now that finally, 70 years after his death in 1941, the great work has at last appeared in the form he wanted.

The atmosphere at the Sydney launch was not hushed and solemn, as you might expect for a major literary and academic event, but friendly and irreverent – great craic, as the Irish say. During one speech, there was the sound of a ringing phone, and a voice from the audience said: “That’ll be James Joyce.” “Yes,” said another, “and he’ll be calling in with one last correction.”

Joyce would have loved it.

Seumas Phelan is a senior sub-editor with The Australian newspaper, and has won two Walkley awards.

30th May 2011

A recent article from the Boston College Chronicle.

A Weekend of Joyce

By Sean Smith | Chronicle Editor
Published: Apr. 14, 2011

A talk by the co-editor of a controversial new edition of Finnegan’s Wake will highlight a weekend of James Joyce celebrations April 16 and 17 at Boston College, including the University’s annual “Bloomsday-in-April” event that brings to life Joyce’s legendary book Ulysses.

Danis Rose — who collaborated with John O’Hanlon to produce the new Finnegan’s Wake — will speak at BC on April 16 at 2 p.m., as part of the Boston Joyce Forum “Joyce, Gender and History.”

The Rose-O’Hanlon edition generated a debate when it was released last year in Ireland over alterations in spelling, punctuation, syntax, placing of phrases and other aspects to “facilitate a smooth reading of the book’s allusive density and essential fabric,” according to Rose and O’Hanlon. Irish Times reviewer Terence Killeen criticized what he called “the complete absence of any rationale or basis for the choices made.”

Other reviewers, such as Seamus Deane and Bruce Arnold, have praised the book — Arnold called it “the greatest publishing event” in Irish literature since Joyce’s Ulysses first appeared in 1922.

“Given the 9,000 changes Rose has made in his magnificent edition, this promises to be a lively conversation,” said forum co-coordinator Joseph Nugent, an adjunct assistant professor of English who teaches in BC’s Irish Studies Program. “The controversy over some of Danis Rose’s work — such as his ‘reader’s edition’ of Ulysses — speaks to a basic question about the motivations and methodology a scholar uses. We look forward to exploring this matter at the forum.”

Other events at the forum — a collaboration between Boston College and Northeastern University — include lectures by University of Buffalo Professor of English Joseph Valente and Bowdoin University Professor of English Marilyn Reizbaum, and a roundtable discussion. For more information, see http://joycegenderandhistory.wordpress.com.

The program for April 17’s “Bloomsday-in-April” includes “Joycean Moments,” dramatizations and readings from Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and songs from Joyce’s works — with introductions by WGBH-FM host Brian O’Donovan — and a series of workshops on how to read Joyce, and a “relay reading” of Ulysses.

The afternoon ends with a screening of “Faithful Departed,” a documentary on Joyce’s Dublin based on the collection of period photographs by William Lawrence, creating a photographic impression of Dublin on June 16, 1904 — “Bloomsday,” the day on which Ulysses takes place.

For more see the “Bloomsday-in-April” blog.

Both the Joyce Scholars Forum and “Bloomsday-in-April” will take place at Connolly House (300 Hammond Street), the location of Boston College’s Center for Irish Programs.

Sydney Writers’ Festival

Danis Rose to speak at Sydney Writers’ Festival on Friday 20th May.
Full details here.

FW2 Celebration on Fifth Avenue – New York

1

Aedin Maloney, the effervescent Irish stage actress, reads a passage from Finnegans Wake, 1.8, the Anna Livia episode.

2

The new edition as it was displayed in the exquisite premises of the American Irish Historical Society.

3

Sir Christopher Ricks and Danis Rose conversing at the American Launch in the AIHS building Manhattan

4

Danis Rose explains the genesis of the first episode of Finnegans Wake at the AIHS building in Manhattan.

5

Danis Rose outside the fine old building on New York’s Fifth Avenue housing the American Irish Historical Society.

6
Thrice-distinguished professor David Greetham with the editor Danis Rose at the AIHS celebration of the new edition of Finnegans Wake.
7

A festive mood pervades those at the recent celebration of the new edition of Finnegans Wake at the AIHS building on Fifth Street, New York.

8

Nick Laird, the noted poet and novelist from Tyrone, Northern Ireland, reads from Shem episode of Finnegans Wake at the AIHS celebration of the new edition of Joyce’s masterpiece.

“Rose’s talk was fascinating … It was really quite an explication”

Read More Here

Thirty years’ editorial labours produce ‘more comprehensible’ Finnegans Wake

Thirty years of work and 9,000 amendments later, a new edition of James Joyce’s most perplexing novel, Finnegans Wake, is promising to provide readers with a smoother, more comprehensible version of the author’s final work.

On its publication on 4 May 1939, a review of the book in the Guardian despaired of making sense of it. Pointing to a sample from the book – “Margaritomancy! Hyacinthous pervinciveness! Flowers. A cloud” – reviewer B Ifor Evans said that “the work is not written in English, or in any other language, as language is commonly known”. “In 20 years’ time, with sufficient study and with the aid of the commentary that will doubtless arise, one might be ready for an attempt to appraise it,” he wrote. “Compared with this, Ulysses is a first-form primer.”

Seventy years on, scholars Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon have reached the conclusion of 30 years of textual analysis. Poring over the tens of thousands of pages of notes, drafts, typescripts and proofs that make up, in Joyce’s own words, his “litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlwords”, they have made 9,000 “minor yet crucial” amendments and corrections to the book, from misspellings to misplaced phrases, ruptured syntax and punctuation marks.

“I never thought I’d see this day,” said Rose. “The complexity of the texts and the complexity of the social situation meant it was very, very difficult indeed, but we stuck with it and we got there. There were 20,000 pages of manuscript, and beyond that 60 notebooks, and beyond that it extended out into thousands of different volumes. It extends out and out and out – what Joyce was doing was distilling in and in and in. To reach the text we had to follow him back, and it’s a lot harder to go backwards than forwards.”

Joyce himself, reported to have said that he wrote the book “to keep the critics busy for 300 years”, and that “the only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works,” would no doubt have been delighted by their lengthy efforts.

Publisher Houyhnhnm Press said that although the changes were minor, they were “nonetheless crucial in that they facilitate a smooth reading of the book’s allusive density and essential fabric”. Even the opening line of the book is slightly altered. The original reads: “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 and Environs.” Rose and O’Hanlon’s version fiddles slightly with spelling and punctuation, to open the novel with: “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle & Environs.”

Rose said that the new edition means that “Finnegans Wake’s time has come”. “We are finally becoming Joyce’s contemporaries,” he said. “It has taken 90 years since Ulysses for us to learn to begin to read Finnegans Wake. Now Ulysses can step aside. It belonged to the 20th century, and Finnegans Wake belongs to the 21st.” Houyhnhnm will publish a limited edition of the book, priced at £250 for a standard version and £750 for a special version bound in black calfskin, next week, with a paperback edition due from Penguin at a later date. Rose said the new edition’s publication marked the conclusion of his relationship with Joyce. “It’s best to leave while you’re still grateful,” he added.

Guardian 5th March 2010

Finnegans second wake

The impenetrable Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, is about to be reborn and, for Joyceans, the event will stain the white radiance of eternity with its effulgent rays of truth and comprehension.

In terms of Irish literature, it is the greatest publishing event since Joyce’s previous masterpiece, Ulysses, appeared in 1922, [and was reborn in 1984]. In the eyes of some, it may even be a greater event.

Ulysses was the work of a genius, but for many a flawed work. Finnegans Wake is a simpler, more profound thing: a work of genius. Into it James Joyce put all his talent, energy and the genius of his mind from the birth of Ulysses until his own death 19 years later. A third of his life was given to this single book.

We have, of course, had Finnegans Wake for the past 70 years. It was first published on May 4, 1939, by Faber & Faber. Before that, we knew a good deal about it in the version known as Work in Progress.

As early as 1929, in an obscure collection of essays entitled Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, a group of writers who admired Joyce, including Samuel Beckett and Thomas MacGreevy, contributed their thoughts on the work. Finnegans Wake — as it was to become — was already appearing in a Paris literary journal called Transition, readers puzzling over it, losing their way but avid both for more of it and for some kind of key.

There is no key. This is a story of human life and at its heart is the family of Harold or Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, his wife Anna Livia Plurabelle, and their three children, Shem, Shaun and Issy. HCE, the father (Haveth Childers Everywhere), is a publican. Like his creator, Joyce, he hears words and builds with them.

ALP flows through the book, a majestic, all-embracing emblem of womankind. Shem is a writer, Shaun is a postman and Issy — for ‘Isolde’ — is a multiplicity of females, becoming two, then seven, then 28, while her two brothers eventually amalgamate into one person, ShemShaun.

That’s a start. Next thing to say is that the text begins with its own ending, so that it is circular. This is where Vico comes in, one of the figures dealt with by Samuel Beckett in the collection of essays with the endless title. Joyce undoubtedly derived a great deal from Vico’s main argument that the history of mankind develops in cycles and can only be understood by a study of the changing expression of human nature through language, myth and culture. Joyce was a master of all three and deployed this mastery supremely in the composition of Finnegans Wake.

Though the book is our starting point, its presentation to the world has remained corrupt and flawed through many reprintings over the past 70 years: the book was never re-set. The story, even in its pure state, is difficult enough. Added to that, there has been a sea of hazards deriving from mistakes in the compositional process unremedied in Joyce’s own poor proof-correcting and from other editorial mishaps.

The situation with Finnegans Wake has been far worse than what happened with Ulysses. There has been a huge 20-year controversy raging over the text of Ulysses.

This derived from the re-edited version by Hans Walter Gabler. This appeared, first in the three-volume ’synoptic’ edition, in 1984, then in the single-volume Ulysses: The Corrected Text in 1986. Many mistakes were made by the James Joyce estate, by the back-up team of Joyce experts, and even by Hans Walter Gabler himself. But essentially his mechanism for re-editing was correct and it has been followed, in a different way but using the same basic approach, by Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, the two editors of the new Finnegans Wake.

The theory follows, in a simplified form. The text of the book as published, the Finnegans Wake version of May 1939, was seriously corrupt. It contained obvious errors, spotted in part by Joyce himself, though he was a poor proof-reader of his own work.

In the long period of creating the book, which started in 1923 and culminated 16 years later, on the eve of the Second World War, with the edition, the book was re-copied, typed, set and re-set up to 20 times before final publication. This is where the errors crept in.

The manuscript record of the book is vast, including, most importantly of all, the 50-odd notebooks kept by Joyce during composition of Work in Progress. These are the building blocks of Finnegans Wake; they tell the story of the book and of the writing of the book.

Modern editorial theory and practice, followed scrupulously by Gabler in Ulysses, with Danis Rose’s participation in that project and his endorsement of Gabler, is to invoke all this material, get back into the mind of Joyce, and deliver as pure a text as possible.

Danis Rose had proverbial good fortune. At a Dublin conference to which he had not been invited, he chose a seat near the front and found himself beside a New York scholar, Tom Cowan, Professor of Roman Law at Rutgers. This man, on hearing of Rose’s ambitions in Joyce studies, offered him accommodation in New York and help in seeking out the background to Finnegans Wake in the University of Buffalo.

This university, at the end of the Second World War, sought out Nora Joyce in Paris and bought the lion’s share of Joyce papers, outwitting the Joycean bibliographer John Slocum, and bringing to the US a treasure trove.

Its principal asset may have been the notebooks. They were certainly the inspiration to Danis Rose, more than 30 years ago.

He was greatly helped by the head of the manuscript department, Karl Gay, who gave him a free hand in what can only be likened to a literary Fort Knox, stuffed with nuggets of pure gold. In entering the climactic editing zone for Joyceans, Danis Rose found himself embarking on the creation of a pure text of James Joyce’s last and greatest masterpiece, Finnegans Wake.

Danis joined forces with his brother, John O’Hanlon, trained in theoretical physics, and the two men embarked on a 30-year task of restoration, emendation and editorial creativity. Theirs has been a lifelong service to Joyce scholarship and to the creative genius of James Joyce.

It was not an unbroken journey; in addition to working with Hans Walter Gabler, Danis Rose was involved also in the editing of the 62 volumes in James Joyce Archive, one of the most massive literary ventures of the 20th century.

At a personal level, he was of great service to me in the complete revision and preparation of the third, revised edition of The Scandal of Ulysses, my biography of a 20th century masterpiece. We travelled to New York together to work on a film about Ulysses, one of three films about James Joyce that have become the record of many personal statements about the perilous, difficult writing life of Joyce.

The new Finnegans Wake is an object of great beauty. The 504-page book is set in Dante, a typeface designed for the book. It is printed on heavy, off-white paper; its size an impressive 285mm by 200mm. It is lovingly designed and made to measure up to its author’s posthumous expectations.

Described by Seamus Deane, another scholar supportive of what Danis Rose and his brother have achieved, as “astonishing and pleasing beyond measure”, it has been designed and printed under the direction of Europe’s finest private-press printer, Martino Mardersteig, as his last such venture before retiring. He will be coming here for the launch of the new Finnegans Wake in Dublin Castle next week.

For more information, visit www.houyhnhnmpress.com. Email: wakef2@gmail.com

- Bruce Arnold

Irish Independent 6th March 2010

Readers re-Joyce: Finnegan brought right back to life

Difficult novel ‘reborn’ after years of toil

CRITICS agree it is James Joyce’s most difficult book, putting ‘Ulysses’ in the ha’penny place when it comes to leaving a reader perplexed.

Now ‘Finnegans Wake’ is to be republished in a new edition for the first time, more than 70 years after the famous novel first appeared in 1939.

In what will be the literary highlight of the year, the new edition of the book will be launched next Thursday in Dublin Castle by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, a Joyce enthusiast.

The new, corrected edition is the fruit of 30 years’ hard work by two Dubliners, Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, who are textual scholars.

They went back to Joyce’s 50-plus original notebooks which eventually became ‘Finnegans Wake’, to correct thousands of mistakes that had crept into the text.

The mistakes were mainly the result of type-setting errors and Joyce’s poor proof-reading due to failing eyesight.

Spotting them was far from easy, because the novel is full of words Joyce made up himself.

The mistakes made a difficult book even more confusing.

Now this new edition at last presents the novel in the form in which Joyce intended.

But it won’t come cheap — at least initially.

The new edition of the book is being published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies by the Houyhnhnm Press.

Bound

Two-hundred of these will be bound in black calf-skin and will cost €900 each.

The remaining 800 will cost €300 each. But the good news for ordinary readers is that the book will be available next year in a trade edition from Penguin priced at around €20.

Mr Rose and Mr O’Hanlon have spent years verifying, codifying, collating and clarifying the 20,000 pages of notes, typescripts and proofs comprising Joyce’s “litters from aloft”.

The new reading text of ‘Finnegans Wake’, typographically re-set for the first time in its publishing history, incorporates some 9,000 minor, yet crucial, corrections and amendments, covering punctuation marks, font choice, spacing, misspellings, misplaced phrases and ruptured syntax.

Although individually minor, these changes are crucial in facilitating a smooth reading of the book.

Danis Rose said yesterday: “Although it seems like a long time to be editing a single work, in many ways I’m astonished that it only took 30 years when you consider that the typesetting alone took 10.”

Poet Seamus Deane and Joyce expert Bruce Arnold will also speak at the launch in Dublin Castle next week, as will the editors Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon.

Dubliner Rose is the editor of ‘Ulysses: A New Reader’s Edition’ as well as the author of ‘The Textual Diaries of James Joyce’. O’Hanlon, who has collaborated with Rose in most of his Joyce projects, is a mathematician.

Two-page special report on the book in tomorrow’s Irish Independent by Bruce Arnold

- John Spain Books Editor

Irish Independent 5th March 2010

Une nouvelle édition de Finnegans Wake de Joyce publiée prochainement

Sa parution à un tarif abordable n’est pas attendue avant 2011…
Rédigé par Julien Loubière, le vendredi 05 mars 2010 à 15h37
Finnegans Wake va faire l’objet d’une nouvelle édition, pour la première fois depuis plus de 70 ans. Sous la direction de Danis Rose, cette nouvelle copie sera publiée par Houyhnhnm Press, en édition limitée (1000 exemplaires) à 300 €/pièce. Le livre sera disponible en 2011 chez Penguin aux alentours de 20 €.

Les critiques reconnaissent qu’il est le livre le plus ardu de James Joyce, plus hermétique encore qu’Ulysse…

Temps fort littéraire de l’année, un sommet en Irlande, cette nouvelle édition du livre sera présentée au Château de Dublin, jeudi prochain, par le ministre des Finances Brian Lenihan, amateur de James Joyce.

Les corrections apportées résultent de 30 ans de travail de deux Dublinois, Danis Rose et John O’Hanlon. Elles ont pour but de faciliter la lecture de ce monument littéraire.

Danis Rose a déclaré : « Bien que le temps passé à réaliser cette édition paraisse long, à bien des égards, je suis étonné qu’il ait fallu seulement 30 ans si l’on considère que sa génèse seule a duré 10 ans. » M. Rose est l’auteur de Ulysses: A New Reader’s Edition ainsi que The Textual Diaries of James Joyce. John O’Hanlon a collaboré avec Danis Rose dans ces travaux, il est mathématicien.

A partir des carnets originaux de Joyce, ils ont apporté des milliers de rectifications au texte original, mêlant plusieurs langues et des mots inventés par l’auteur. Des erreurs dues à la vue déclinante de James Joyce en fin de vie.

Actualite 5th March 2010

9,000 changes in amended ‘Finnegans Wake’

AN AMENDED edition of James Joyce’s final work, Finnegans Wake , is to be published next week.

The new version of the 1939 work, which has been typographically reset for the first time in its publishing history, incorporates some 9,000 minor corrections and alterations.

These include changes to punctuation marks; fonts; spacing; misspellings, misplaced phrases and ruptured syntax.

The book, written by Joyce over a 17-year period, is renowned as difficult because of its linguistic experiments and abandonment of conventions of plot and character construction.

“Although individually minor, these changes are nonetheless crucial in facilitating a smooth reading of the book,” English publisher Houyhnhnm said.

The new edition is the summation of 30 years of work by textual scholars Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, who have collated and clarified the 30,000 pages of manuscripts, notes, drafts, typescripts and proofs used by Joyce in completing Finnegans Wake . Mr Rose said the book was subjected to a “massive bibliographical and text-critical analysis” which had resulted in “the closest approximation to what you could describe as a definitive edition”.

“Because of the difficulty of the language of ‘ Finnegans Wake ’, the syntax is not immediately apparent and the syntaxical coherence of the book was effectively lost when it was brought into print,” he said.

“This coherence has been fully restored in the new edition and results in what can be called the first definitive edition of Joyce’s final masterpiece. I think that after 90 years of learning to read ‘Ulysses’ we can now learn to read ‘ Finnegans Wake ’ . . . I believe we have finally learned to become Joyce’s contemporaries.”

He said legal requirements needed to publish the book had been met with the Joyce estate. Attempts to contact the Joyce estate were unsuccessful.

Anthony Farrell, a director of Houyhnhnm, said he was delighted to be involved in the project. “I regard it as one of the most important undertakings of my career. It is endorsed by the best authorities and printed by Europe’s finest scholar printer, Martino Mardersteig of Verona.”

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will speak at an event to mark the publication of the book in Dublin Castle next Thursday, before it is launched in London on March 31st.

The book will not be cheap, with the standard edition priced at €300 and the special edition at €900. A paperback edition is to be published by Penguin later this year.

Joycean scholar Senator David Norris said he was delighted the book had come to fruition, but added that he did not know if it would now be more accessible to readers than in the past.

“The text is so dense,” he said. “It’s written in a dream language which is very far from the ordinary written English except for its syntax. ‘ Finnegans Wake ’ is like music. It’s the kind of thing you have to hear.”

Opening Lines: Famous Sentence Shows Changes

2010 VERSION

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle & Environs.

1939 VERSION

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 and Environs.

- Steven Carroll

The Irish Times 5th March 2010