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.
