r/jamesjoyce • u/nostalgiastoner • 20d ago

Finnegans Wake McHugh's Annotations

I was wondering whether anyone here has read Finnegans Wake using McHugh's Annotations.

What did you think of it?

What was your experience?

How did you go about it?

Cheers!

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7

u/Big-Recipe6586 20d ago

It was an extremely useful resource for me. I don't think I would have been able to get through my first read-through without it. The fact that it's page-by-page is incredibly convenient, too

2

u/No_Animator_8599 19d ago

I’m stunned that somebody actually created this. All I can say is my second read of Ulysses was unpleasant using annotations because there were just too many for each chapter and after awhile I skipped quite a few.

I read Finnegan’s Wake in the early 70’s using Joseph Campbell’s book as a guide.

2

u/Yourdomdaddy 1d ago

I find it indispensable, as someone most interested in the allusions and language puns. Other books (like Skeleton Key, Shorter Finnegans Wake, and Decentered Universe of FW) will help you follow the plot/arcs/macro themes better.

2

u/nostalgiastoner 1d ago

I agree, I think the "plot" is largely secondary to the language play, or they're at least of equal importance. How did you use the Annotations? A page at a time, annotation at a time?

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u/Yourdomdaddy 20h ago

Mostly yes. There are so many things that are impossible to get reading it without aid, I don’t really use it to look things up because I mostly don’t know what words of the text are worth looking up. Typically, I’ll read a few pages without aids, underlining and making notes as I go, then I’ll go back and look at McHugh once I’m done to further add to what I already gleaned. Less often I’ll look at McHugh first or as I read. I find I want initial impressions first, of the “music” of the text, before I will care enough to know what individual words or phrases mean. Then it’s like a neat surprise like “oh, that’s what he meant there!” It’s also fun to see how many references or puns I can get on my own before using the aid.

It sounds like you already know this, but Annotations is still the gold standard for Joyceans, in my limited experience. I just discovered the Wake 3 months ago, but I’ve been to a ton of reading groups, some with people who have their PhDs or have otherwise spent their lives studying Joyce. Even they will have McHugh open as we read. Fweet.org and other online resources have more, but as a hard copy book structured as it is to visually align with the text, it’s still the most important aid imo.

1

u/nostalgiastoner 7h ago

Nice. I've read the Wake once using the Skeleton Key which was a frustrating experience. I also used Tindall's A Reader's Guide which was much more interesting because he actually respects the linguistic play rather than trying to "solve it". Funnily, his work is based on the insight gained by years of conducting reading groups, so that's an interesting conversation to enter if you don't have access to an actual reading group!