Skipping ahead a bit – to the publication of Finnegans Wake<\/i>. I have read it out loud to myself. It is meant <\/i>to be read out loud, it makes much more sense that way. But … “sense”?? It really makes no sense anyway – and whatever sense you can make of it appears to come from the SOUND, rather than the actual words.<\/p>\n
James Joyce worked on Finnegans Wake<\/i> for 17 years.<\/p>\n
Nora, looking at the gibberish pages, the ciphers, the codes, said, “Why don’t you write books people can read?”<\/p>\n
Ha!<\/p>\n
However: Nora always thought that Finnegans Wake<\/i> – which pretty much the entire world thought was incomprehensible – was his best book. She understood it. She understood the language.<\/p>\n
Years after his death, she was still pestererd by reporters about James Joyce. And nobody ever asked about Finnegans Wake<\/i> – which confused her. It was always Ulysses, Ulysses, Ulysses<\/i>.<\/p>\n
She commented once, “What’s all this talk about Ulysses<\/i>? Finnegans Wake <\/i>is the important book.”<\/p>\n
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