History Literature / FinnegansWake

* GuideDangIt: [[RunningGag A rare non-video game usage of the trope,]] as the richness of references used in ''Finnegans Wake'' need to be listed and referenced in a seperate volume which will typically be about as massive as the text itself.

''Finnegans Wake''[[note]]The lack of apostophe is deliberate. If you want rigidly accurate grammar and spelling, this is definitely not the book for you.[[/note]] is a 1939 novel written by Creator/JamesJoyce. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read, as it is completely written in an idiosyncratic, made-up language that comprises over 60 world languages, and is made up of an elaborate series of portmanteau puns.

* '''MindScrew''': No shit, Sherlock.

* MindScrew: No shit, Sherlock.

''Finnegans Wake''[[note]]The lack of apostophe is deliberate. If you want rigidly accurate grammar and spelling, this is definitely not the book for you.[[/note]] is a 1939 novel written by Creator/JamesJoyce. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read, as it is completely written in an idiosyncratic, made-up language that vaguely resembles English spoken with a thick Irish brogue.

* AuthorAvatar: To a certain degree, HCE does represent Joyce; but he also represents many other things as well.

* TropeNamer: "Quark" was borrowed from here to name the subatomic particle. JosephCampbell also first saw the word "monomyth" in its pages.

* P[olarOppositeTwins: Shaun and Shem, although to a far lesser degree this is true of most of the main characters.

* DifferentAsNightAndDay: Shaun and Shem, although to a far lesser degree this is true of most of the main characters.

-->-- TheOtherWiki on ''Finnegan's Wake''

''Finnegan's Wake'' is a 1939 novel written by Creator/JamesJoyce. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read, as it is completely written in an idiosyncratic, made-up language that vaguely resembles English spoken with a thick Irish brogue.

!! Finnegans Wake contains examples of these tropes:

* GuideDangIt: [[RunningGag A rare non-video game usage of the trope,]] as the richness of references used in ''Finnegan's Wake'' need to be listed and referenced in a seperate volume which will typically be about as massive as the text itself.

If you would like to read a description written in the same style as the book, see ''SelfDemonstrating/FinnegansWake''.

-->-- TheOtherWiki on ''FinnegansWake''

Finnegans Wake is a 1939 novel written by JamesJoyce. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read, as it is completely written in an idiosyncratic, made-up language that vaguely resembles English spoken with a thick Irish brogue.

If you would like to read a description written in the same style as the book, see SelfDemonstrating.FinnegansWake.

* GuideDangIt: [[RunningGag A rare non-video game usage of the trope,]] as the richness of references used in ''Finnegans Wake'' need to be listed and referenced in a seperate volume which will typically be about as massive as the text itself.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible

* GuideDangIt: [[RunningGag A rare non-video game usage of the trope,]] as the richness of references used in ''Finnegans Wake'' need to be listed and referenced in one book.

* TropeNamer: "Quark" was borrowed from here to name the subatomic particle.

Critics and scholars disagree about a lot about this book, but most agree that it portrays a man's dream, and that it's full of complex, layered allusions and jokes. Arguments still rage as to whether it has a plot. Joyce may well have been compiling an ambitious inventory of literary and historical tropes, sorted into a cyclical fall and rise.

-> Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!

* WordOfDante: See the second quote on this page.
* WordOfGod: And thankfully quite a bit of it; although even this can be [[DeathOfTheAuthor debated among critics]]. One that stands out is Joyce saying he was "writing of the night".

->''riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.''
->-- First sentence of ''FinnegansWake'' by James Joyce

[[quoteright:320:[[http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lze33qECLs1qczxc6o1_400.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:320:[[A more accurate title, many will find]].]]

->''Despite these obstacles, readers and commentators have reached a broad consensus about the book's central cast of characters and, to a lesser degree, its plot.''

* HurricaneOfPuns: Almost '''''every single word of the book''''' is a wordplay of some sort, or part of a wordplay. And Joyce didn't limit the puns to English, either -- you would have to know at least ''nine'' different languages, Latin and Greek included, to get most of the jokes in the book; though Joyce, by some official estimate, used between sixty and seventy languages in his punnery of the book.

* MindScrew: ''Ya think?!''

* {{Portmanteau}}: The WrittenSoundEffect (see below) is made up from the words for "thunder" in ten different languages. And now you know.

* WrittenSoundEffect: The thunderclap:

* DoingItForTheArt: The man spent 17 years writing a novel that's borderline impossible to read. The man had gone ''partially blind'' by the time he finished it.

* {{Portmanteau}}

Finnegans Wake is a novel written by JamesJoyce. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read, as it is completely written in an idiosyncratic, made-up language that vaguely resembles English spoken with a thick Irish brogue.