About us
Let's weave & unweave Joyce's masterpieces one chapter at a time. It's a casual discussion group in Boston meeting monthly.
Upcoming events
1
Finnegans Wake: 3 Quarks
Abigail's Tea Room, 306 Congress Street, Boston, MA, USFacing a work this rich, this enigmatic, a work that has both given careers to academics and baffled readers for generations, it's a rough pitch for a casual and fun reading group.
Why tackle a work as famously complex as Finnegans Wake? Because it is in wrestling with the most challenging texts that we find the greatest rewards. Joyce’s masterpiece is not just a book to be read; it is a riddle to be unraveled, a dream to be deciphered, and a feast of language to be savored.
How? In order to tackle the chaos, we'll go chapter by chapter. At the meetup we'll collaborate our best attempt at a summary & weave something together. Then we'll go through and unweave and de-pun and take closer looks, etc.
And don't feel like you have to read all or any of the annotations or have a totally firm grip on any of it.
For this meeting we'll be discussing the eleventh episode of Finnegans Wake which has no official name. The chapter is around 74 pages long in most editions. Since it's not always clear where the chapters begin and end, here is a breakdown:
Part II Episode 4 begins on page 383 with "—Three quarks for Muster Mark!" and ends with "So, to john for a john, johnajeams, led it be!" on page 399.
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Here are some extra links if you are interested in going deeper:
Finnegans Wake Extensible Elucidation Treasury (a searchable collection of 97,063 notes on FW):
http://fweet.org/pages/fw_smap.php☼
riverrun.org.uk (has archives of A Wake Newslitter (ACN) + A Finnegans Wake Circular (AFWC) + much more):
https://www.riverrun.org.uk/joycetools.htmlThis fweet page has a list of interesting AWN + AFWC articles you can find at riverrun: http://fweet.org/pages/fw_clst.php
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The James Joyce Digital Archive (Drafts—May be useful for getting a better understanding)
https://jjda.ie/f/fwhome.htm☼
Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom (only exists on an archive of his old blog site—there is no better resource for Joyce): https://web.archive.org/web/20080924064902/http://robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/
General Joyce Portal: https://web.archive.org/web/20110606054055/http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/index.html
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Green’s Dictionary of Slang (the largest historical dictionary of English slang):
https://greensdictofslang.com/browse/☼
Some books that might be helpful:
A Guide Through Finnegans Wake by Edmund L Epstein, PH.D.:
https://files.catbox.moe/2mocpg.pdfThird Census of Finnegans Wake - Adaline Glasheen - pdf is downloadable here: https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AXDQ4VQC3DV5T28D
Annotations to Finnegans Wake - Roland McHugh - Keyed to most editions. Only the Wordsworth appears to be out of sync.
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake - Joseph Campbell & Henry Morton Robinson - Very early attempt at summarizing and glossing.
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Past events
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