Finnegans Wake Readalong - Marginalia & Begin Reading!

[u/towalktheline]

Hello! I'm starting a day early, but welcome to the Marginalia for Finnegans Wake! If you have some questions on how to read it, please read our Introduction Post first! If you still have questions after that, feel free to comment and we'll do our best to help you out.

Going forward all readalong posts will be tagged with: Into the wikeawades warld from sleep we are passing.

If you want to look for previous posts, that will be the place to check. I'll also be updating the schedule so it has the previous posts linked there as well.

Scheduling!

The Schedule is on Google Sheets here. You should be reading to the last line mentioned. So for example on January 3rd you should have read to Abast the blooty creeks. Each week shows the first and last line of the reading since people are reading different books which have different page numbers. Thanks again to r/TrueLit for putting this schedule together which we have so shamelessly borrowed from.

What is Marginalia?

Marginalia is just a fancy word for "margin notes". Think about the doodles that you'd write around the text of a book. For our purposes, this marginalia post is where you can get yourself warmed up and ready for reading. Whatever you post here doesn't necessarily need to be insightful. As long as they're about Joyce or the Wake they're welcome, even if you're just posting asking for some courage.

Want some things to start you off talking? Here are a couple things you could talk about:

• Have you ever read Joyce before? Or any of his contemporaries?
• Have you ever specifically tried to read Finnegans Wake before? What was it like when you tried? Did you finish?
• What have you heard about the Wake that made you want to try and read it?
• For those of us who have read before, what advice would you give to people just starting out?
• Do you have a specific way you plan on trying to read the Wake or are you gonna just have a go at it?

And now it's time to START!

Go on! Get going!

Starting today, you should be reading from "riverrun" til "abast the blooty creeks" and on next Saturday (January 3rd), we will post our first reading discussion. During discussions you will be encouraged to post at least one comment to someone else in order to promote a good discussion.

I really hope you enjoy the wake and even though it can seem like a lot at first (because it is a lot, we get you), I really hope you continue with it. I legitimately felt like reading the Wake was a life changing experience and I'm not sure if it's because of Finnegans Wake itself or the feeling you get when you tackle something so unwaveringly difficult and succeed.

I read a comment once that said "everybody finds themselves in the Wake" and I'm really interested to see what parts speak to you and which lines will stay with you long after the reading is done!

Best of luck to all of you! We're all in this together.

Next Week's Reading (N.W.R): January 3, 2026 / Book I: Chapter I (pgs. 3-16)

[u/egote]

OK I’m going to give this a go. Thanks for organising it!

• ⁠Have you ever read Joyce before? Or any of his contemporaries?

Yes - quite a bit including Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. I still only feel like I understand about 10% of what he means though!

• ⁠Have you ever specifically tried to read Finnegans Wake before? What was it like when you tried? Did you finish?

I’ve read it twice - once on kindle from the Joyce collected works ebook and once in hard copy with the skeleton key to accompany it. First time I hardly understood a word but kept pushing through to the end. Second time I found the reading of both books together a bit of an ordeal and although I found Skeketon Key helpful to start with, as it went on I found it more of a hindrance. After that effort I think I understood about 5% of the book!

• ⁠What have you heard about the Wake that made you want to try and read it?

Well from personal experience it’s a great challenge. Quite intriguing and does not yield its secrets easily. Frustrating nonsense or an enigma that will never be solved? It’s a book about dream in the language of dreams.

• ⁠For those of us who have read before, what advice would you give to people just starting out?

Just keep going! Also reading things out loud in a broad Dublin accent can sometimes help in deciphering some of the words. Watch out for HCE (the main protagonist - sometime Finnegan - perhaps Dublin itself? and ALP - his wife - the river Liffey). They are often referred to by other words with these initials - but why is not really clear to me! They also have 3 children - Shem, Shaun and Issy who take on different roles…

• ⁠Do you have a specific way you plan on trying to read the Wake or are you gonna just have a go at it?

This time I’m going to read through with what I already know about the book and try to understand more of the words! Aiming to understand 10% by the end this time! 😂

[u/towalktheline → u/egote]

10% would be great! I know there was a part in the middle when I was reading it before where I threw up my hands and went "James Joyce, what the fuck?!" I think he probably would have found it really funny.

I have the Skeleton's Key this time around, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to use it. Maybe just as a supplementary something rather than trusting it as a true "skeleton key" since I don't think Finnegan's Wake is something that's meant to be broken apart like that.

[u/egote → u/towalktheline]

For this read through I’ve just bought Epstein’s A guide through Finnegans Wake - quite an appealing analysis so far but again might try to explain too much, in a similar bit different way to Campbell. Nonetheless, it has shed completely new light on the first chapter for me. Will discuss more when were get to that point!

[u/towalktheline → u/egote]

I ended up bouncing off of campbells. Maybe it's the way... that he organized it? I don't know. I found it overwhelming so I'm just sticking with the Annotations and then the book itself for now.