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So far, I've finished the intro to Bishop's book on The Wake, which was very interesting and provided a revelation or two, though I'd sooner discuss all that after I've dug deeper into the thing.

I'd hoped to have more read, but, ya know, there's papers to grade and all that, so, it being a very busy week, I'm behind on my self-imposed schedule. 

But I want to post with something like regularity, so here's a Wake related item:

I admit much of my interest in the tome comes from my love of the band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum who took a piece of Fiinegans Wake and wrote a metal song around it.  'Tis rockin'.  Watch it here.

See if you can keep your head from banging.

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Congrats to Alice Munro who I have not been able to read much of.  A good friend described her prose as "pedestrian."  Sums it up, but what do I know? 

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Today in the mail: Joyce's Book of the Dark by John Bishop, the first book on Finnegans Wake I will tackle.  Bishop's book looks like a good place to start.

Some reviewers claim this book is good but ignores important aspects of The Wake.  Others say it is quite accessible and indeed a good door into the famously inscrutable tome.  I'll be posting thoughts soon.

For the record, I am indeed reading about The Wake before actually reading The Wake.  Baby steps...

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Begin at the start, right?  No… Joyce didn’t always do so.  The Wake itself has no real beginning or end, despite most readers beginning on page one.

I first read Joyce in college.  A teacher assigned A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  I had heard tell of its importance.   I wasn't very impressed, but I was a young man with stubborn ideas about literature and in no mood for this particular book. 

It didn't help that the teacher was new to the school and not aware of the quarter system.  She, being used to semesters, assigned more books than one could logically get through in ten weeks, unless of course, one were to tear through them with little discussion or digestion of their ideas.  Which is what we did.  So, lacking the discourse one assumes will accompany a higher ed lit course, I didn't connect with the book or its author.

Then I read Dubliners.  I preferred it, though I didn't see what all the fuss was about.  Some good tales, to be sure, but I wasn't awed.  Chalk it up to another case of being too young to understand.

My uneasy relationship with Ulysses has been discussed at various points here.  Suffice it to say: I am ambivalent about this book, though I have not finished it and am, in fact, still making my way from "Stately" to "yes" having just purchased a pocket edition to carry with me at all times.  And when I am not engaged with the events of June 16, 1904, I will investigate this long assumed unassailable literary clusterfuck called Finnegans Wake. 

Thus this blog. 

All my attempts shall be documented here, as will any other somewhat relevant thoughts.  I started this page as a form of motivation.  If I have a blog, I have responsibilities, or at least imagined ones.  It is possible (probable) that no one will read it, but it will exist, and if it exists it has to be fed.  So I'll fed it what I can when I can. 

My first post (aside from this intro) will come this week.  It will be less meandering.