Jack Foley played me a recording of James Joyce reading Finnegans Wake. I had no expectation, as I had never read the book nor heard Joyce read. The voice came on, gentle, musical, drawling and at times whimsical. Joyce was impersonating two women washing by the river bank. I found myself nodding at the rhythm of the words without understanding, laughing at a vague impression of women talk while shlepping clothes into the water, or on a rock, or a washer board. I fell in love with Joyce.
That was a timely opening, and I’m more convinced than ever that things don’t happen as isolated incidents. A week later I found out about a Finnegans Wake reading group from Sydney Clemens. The group has been meeting once a month. Last night I joined them. They were up to page 79 after two years. Someone read a paragraph. We then freely associate and wildly interpreted with the help of two books of analyses/commentaries. After two hours we stopped on the top of page 81, before an extra long paragraph that would carry on and on for pages.
Thursday nights? Where!!!??? I’ve made it through the first book of Finnegans (there are four) a number of times. When I move onto the second book, Shem and Shaun, I lose it completely. That said, JJ is the greatest writer that ever lived. I hero worship the guy more than Shakespeare or Yeats (Joyce thought Yeats the great Irish writer because he thought Yeats could write anything – poetry, prose fiction, drama, criticism. Ya touch a writer nerve Clara. Thanks!