History Literature / FinnegansWake

** The lack of an apostrophe in "Finnegans." Is it indeed meant to mean "The Wake belonging to the individual named Finnegan," in which case the missing apostrophe is likely meant to be just a taste of the nonstop Linguistic Terrorism to come? Or is it meant to imply a ''plurality'' of Finnegans who are undergoing a Wake? Or even in the sense of" in its wake?", the wake of Finnegan(s)? Perhaps as some kind of boast?

** 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 -- by some official estimates, he crammed words from about '''''sixty separate languages''''' into the book, and you would have to know at least ''nine'' different languages other than English (including Latin, Greek, and especially Gaelic) to get half of the jokes.

** The lack of an apostrophe in "Finnegans." Is it indeed meant to mean "The Wake belonging to the individual named Finnegan," in which case the missing apostrophe is likely meant to be just a taste of the nonstop Linguistic Terrorism to come? Or is it meant to imply a ''plurality'' of Finnegans who are undergoing a Wake?

* ArcWords: More like Arc Cadences, really. Many phrases throughout the book -- such as "Buckley shot the Russian general", "hitherandthithering waters off. Night", "Earwicker", and of course "Finnegans wake" itself -- reoccur in highly modified forms, so that often only the broad rhythm survives. The effect is like that of variations in a musical theme.

* ArcWords: more like Arc Cadences, really. Many phrases throughout the book -- such as "Buckley shot the Russian general", "hitherandthithering waters of. Night", "Earwicker", and of course "Finnegans wake" itself -- reoccur in highly modified forms, so that often only the broad rhythm survives. The effect is like that of variations in a musical theme.

* PatterSong: ''The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly''[[note]] from ''perce-oreille'', French for "earwig" [[/note]] has elements of this and WordSaladLyrics.

''Finnegans Wake''[[note]]The lack of apostrophe is deliberate. If you want rigidly accurate grammar and spelling, this is definitely not the book for you.[[/note]] is a sack of miscellaneous words that might generously be called a novel, written by Creator/JamesJoyce in 1939. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read. The novel is written in English but an idiosyncratic version of the language specifically created for this book. It is an English adapted and inflected with several multilingual and multilayered puns in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll's ''Jabberwocky'' albeit on a far bigger scale. It contains elements, usually obscure puns, from over 60 world languages. The title is a reference to a 1850s Irish ballad called "Finnegan's Wake"[[note]]It has the apostrophe as you may notice[[/note]], a drinking song that tells the story of a man resurrected at his funeral when whiskey is spilled on his corpse.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: [[http://peterchrisp.blogspot.in/2015/03/television-in-finnegans-wake.html One section that is surprising to modern readers]] concerns characters watching a discussion on television. The technology of the television had already been unveiled and demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1925, but had certainly not become a popular mass medium. In other words, this section of the book is technically science-fiction, and accurate in how it anticipates TV watching at pubs in the future.

* GenreBusting: To the point where Wiki/TheOtherWiki, which is usually very good at finagling a book into a particular genre, simply gives its genre as ''sui generis''.[[note]]That's "one of a kind" for those unfamiliar with the expression.[[/note]]

-->-- Wiki/TheOtherWiki on ''Finnegans Wake''

* InheritedIlliteracyTitle: The lack of an apostrophe is deliberate.

** The lack of an apostrophe in "Finnigans." Is it indeed meant to mean "The Wake belonging to the individual named Finnigan," in which case the missing apostrophe is likely meant to be just a taste of the nonstop Linguistic Terrorism to come? Or is it meant to imply a ''plurality'' of Finnigans who are undergoing a Wake?
** Is the titular "Wake" supposed to be Finnigan(s) waking up from sleep, or is the word being used in the sense of an Irish funeral?

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: More like loads and loads of ''names.'' There are hundreds of name changes throughout the book, although a popular interpretation is that there is a set number of abstract characters that these names are supposed to represent.

''Finnegans Wake''[[note]]The lack of apostrophe 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. The novel is written in English but an idiosyncratic version of the language specifically created for this book. It is an English adapted and inflected with several multilingual and multilayered puns in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll's ''Jabberwocky'' albeit on a far bigger scale. It contains elements, usually obscure puns, from over 60 world languages. The title is a reference to a 1850s Irish ballad called "Finnegan's Wake"[[note]]It has the apostrophe as you may notice[[/note]], a drinking song that tells the story of a man resurrected at his funeral when whiskey is spilled on his corpse.

''Finnegans Wake''[[note]]The lack of apostrophe 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 that makes about as much sense read ''backwards'' as forwards, and that's not even hyperbole. It took him 17 years to write, and may take nearly as long to read. The novel is written in English but an idiosyncratic version of the language specifically created for this book. It is an English adapted and inflected with several multilingual and multilayered puns in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll's ''Jabberwocky'' albeit on a far bigger scale. It contains elements, usually obscure puns, from over 60 world languages. The title is a reference to a 1850s Irish ballad called "Finnegan's Wake"[[note]]It has the apostrophe as you may notice[[/note]], a drinking song that tells the story of a man resurrected at his funeral when whiskey is spilled on his corpse.

Seriously, even ''WesternAnimation/XavierRenegadeAngel'' makes more sense than this book.

* TomeOfEldritchLore: ''Finnegans Wake'' itself might as well be this, as it's about as difficult as one for mortals to comprehend, and it takes roughly the same toll on your sanity.

* TomeOfEldritchLore: ''Finnegans Wake'' itself might as well be this, as it's about as difficult to understand as one, and it takes roughly the same toll on your sanity.