This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Looney Toons: Whew. I think that's the first time I've spent more than a week writing a wiki entry. And despite that it's not even a very good pastiche of Finnegans Wake. Of course I was restrained by the need to leave it at least marginally comprehensible to a determined reader, so I went the route of simply playing pseudoJoycean word games rather than fully dipping deeply into the metamorphic dream-language that so permeates and defines the Wake. (If I had done that, well, I probably would have spent a month or more working on this. There's a reason it took James Joyce seventeen freaking years to write the book — it's hard to write like that! Even a poor imitation takes a lot of effort!)
I do hope that everyone reading the entry realizes just what I was trying to do. It would be a terrible shame if some ignorant Grammar Nazi "corrects" the whole thing back to standard English under the mistaken assumption that it was written by an illiterate. That said, I have no objection to anyone seeking to correct or expand on this text, so long as they make an honest attempt to replicate at least the general look and feel of the Wake's narrative style. Otherwise, I might be forced to "revise" it into proper incomprehensibility. <grin>
This isn't the first time I've tried my hand at a Finnegan pastiche, by the way. Since Fast Eddie so casually blew my cover over on the Fan Fic Recommendations page, I don't have any reservations about linking directly to my own website now; there you can find a short-short piece I wrote in July 1998 — the first episode/chapter of Ranma 1/2 as told by James Joyce: Finnegans Half
. To be honest, I think that it's a better attempt than the wiki entry, because a) I didn't have to try to communicate substantial amounts of information in it, and b) because I was in essence retelling something familiar to the vast majority of the readership who saw it when it was first released, and so could focus more on the style than the content.
Tanto: Brilliant. I was just coming over here to ask how long this had taken you.
Lull The Conqueror: Yeah, I don't have anything to add, except that this is ridiculously awesome. Made Of Win!
- Heh, it was already there when I went to add it.
Captain Timesink: Outstanding. You deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Anonymous: Could someone make an alternate, plain English version of this page? It's almost completely incomprehensible in its current form; although that's arguably the whole point of the book, it doesn't really work for a wiki page.
Looney Toons: Quite frankly, anonymous, if it's really incomprehensible, you're not reading closely enough. Most of it is simple wordgames and punning, with the occasional portmanteau and in-line digression. Try reading it out loud and see if it makes more sense to you that way. If you really want a plain-English "explanation" of Finnegans Wake, Wikipedia has an article on it that is far superior to just "translating" this one.
Count Spatula: Still, it might be a good idea to put a translated version into the Darth Wiki or something.
Goliathus: It's readable, but is possibly my least favourite page to read on the entire wiki. It really ought not attempt to be a Self-Demonstrating Article. Also, not everyone on here speaks English as a first language, or for that matter, well.
Rutee: I could kiss all the contributors to this article.
Looney Toons: That would be me, me, me, and, um, gnk.
Rutee: ...GNK?
Looney Toons: The only thing on that page not written by me (as of this date) is a single edit credited to someone with the handle "gnk".
Vijeno: I took the liberty of adding one sentence in plain english, for readers who really want to find something they will understand. ;-) ... Yeah, it spoils the fun a bit for the Joyceans, but it might gain the Wake a few more readers, thereby producing more Joyceans in the end.
Daithí Veðrafjǫrðr: I thought this was beautiful, to be honest. Bar maybe an initial expository paragraph, I say: leave it be.
