A friend asked me for advice on how to approach the Wake. My response was the basis for the following brief notes.

How does one read a torrent of nonsense?

The first tip is to give up on the idea of seeking total comprehension — or even the idea that there is total comprehension to be had.

The second is to redefine what it means to “read.” I’ve come to think about approaching the Wake as a process of “digging.” I try to dig out a new insight each time I pick it up.

In order to do this, you have to approach it like you would no other kind of writing.

What follows is an example of how to approach a paragraph of Finnegans Wake.

Now, it helps to have an idea of what the gist of the paragraph is before you start. That’s where a guidebook like A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake comes in handy. Many readers of the Wake will note that this particular guidebook is somewhat outdated, oversimplifies Joyce’s text in many places, and makes some interpretive errors that have since been corrected by scholars; and while that is true — we would expect any early attempt at exploring the book and presenting it to a general audience to have some flaws — it remains, in my opinion, a useful guide, even if only for providing a jumping-off point for other investigations. Campbell and Robinson in A Skeleton Key specifically recommend slowly reading a given passage for key words, and then reading again, letting all the meanings that the words suggest to you reverberate across the passage.

So you can start by reading a guidebook’s summary (or its guess) of what a particular paragraph means, then read the paragraph in the Wake, read the guidebook one more time if you have to, and then re-read the Wake paragraph with the goal of letting it “speak” to you. It’s hard to describe this process without sounding like a lunatic or hippy. The best way to describe it is poetically: you have to get yourself into a psychological space where you “open” yourself to the book and let whatever your mind happens to notice in the text lead you forward in thinking about it.

I find that it’s useful to rely on the structure of sentences to guide me. The sentences of Finnegans Wake do mostly conform to the structure of English grammar, even if the words don’t make sense.

Let’s take the first paragraph of the text after the two paragraphs of overture that open the book:

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen’s maurer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofarback for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers or Helviticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very water was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!) and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper’s Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso. He addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur. Wither hayre in honds tuck up your part inher. Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed, like Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicables the alltitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin ’twas born, his roundhead staple of other days to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth of a skyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly, erigenating from next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop and with larrons o’toolers clittering up and tombles a’buckets clottering down.

The words are mostly obscure, but the structure is actually quite straightforward. Let’s take the first part:

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen’s maurer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofarback for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers or Helviticus committed deuteronomy

The form of that sentence is roughly “Mister Finnegan, who was such and such, lived in an X kind of way in his Y, back before P and Q.”

We can figure out what X, Y, P, and Q are later, if we want — the sentence is basically saying that Mr. Finnegan lived a long time ago, before a bunch of old stuff. Whether we puzzle out all the references right now isn’t as important as grasping the general gist of the sentence.

I’m struck by the phrase that he lived in the “broadest way immarginable,” which sounds like “broadest way imaginable.” So I’m thinking of what it would mean to live in a broad way…larger than life, maybe. Open and friendly. Freely. “Immarginable” suggests that he can’t be pushed to the margins…he’s at the center of everything.

Tim Finnegan in the old vaudeville song was a hod carrier (a construction worker). “Bygmester” summons the ideas of “Big Mister,” Big Master,” but also “Master Builder,” a stone mason/architect (and a title in freemasonry). [The Master Builder is a play by Ibsen that Joyce references many times in the Wake]

This paragraph takes that simple hod carrier and makes him into a kind of mythic figure who lived long ago — who built civilization itself, practically.

I skip parenthetical asides on a first read.

Next, after the parentheses:

and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper’s Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso.

During his years, he piled building upon building on the banks of rivers. That is, he constructed civilizations.

Hod, Cement, and Edifices. HCE.

The word bil-dung hints at scatological themes the book will later develop. It also suggests bildungsroman, a form of literature associated with the growth of a character. Words like “banks” (which also has a monetary meaning) and “livers” (which can mean “people who live” or the organ damaged by drinking alcohol) might contain the energy of other themes.

He addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur. Wither hayre in honds tuck up your part inher.

Here, it helps to know that the female side of HCE, his wife ALP, is known as Anna [Anna Livia Plurabelle]. “Phifie” is, I guess, wife or filly.

If you say it out loud, it sounds more like “he had a little filly/wifey Annie”

But he was also addled (by liquor). And he loved the little creature, who was also his craythur.

From the Finnegan’s Wake song: “With a love of the liquor poor Tim was born, / To help him on with his work each day, a drop of that craythur every morn” (shot of whiskey).

She’s his partner, and she’s his “part inner” (the anima, the female portion of the self). Also, he puts his “part in her” (sex joke).

Next sentence is a little longer. We’ll take it in pieces:

Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed, like Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicables the alltitude and malltitude until

Wearing a bunch of stuff, he would calculate the altitude (like he’s an architect) until….

until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin ’twas born, his roundhead staple of other days to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth of a skyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly

Until he saw by the liquor a skyscraper rise.

It’s gigantic (“joygrantit”…granted by joy…or by Joyce?). It’s all the tall buildings of civilizations. It’s the tower of babel. It’s…his own erection.

And now describing the building:

erigenating from next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop and with larrons o’toolers clittering up and tombles a’buckets clottering down.

Originating from nothing (or from Erin/Ireland) and going past the skies (himal is German for Heaven), with a burning bush on top and tools going up and buckets going down (construction).

That’s the gist of the passage:

Mr. Finnegan lived a long time ago, before a bunch of old stuff. During his years, he piled building upon building on the banks of rivers. He had a little wife/filly Annie, his inner part, and he loved liquor. Wearing a bunch of stuff, he would calculate the altitude until by the liquor he saw a skyscraper rise, originating from nothing and going past the skies, with a burning bush on top and tools going up and buckets going down.

With that gist, you can now go back and read, not trying to “figure out” what each word means, but letting the meanings and associations speak to you.

For example, you might have noticed a bunch of references to the Old Testament here — the burning bush at the end, if nothing else. This is appropriate for a passage that locates Finnegan in the distant, mythical past. It’s also appropriate for the beginning of Joyce’s massive, epic work that (jokingly?) compares itself to religious scripture at times.

Or you might notice that it reads “caligulate” instead of “calculate.” And you might be reminded of Caligula, the mad emperor. HCE is indeed compared to imperial figures throughout the book.

Or you might notice the names Lawrence O’Tool and Thomas Abeckett hidden at the very end of the passage (the tools and buckets). These are two historical figures who here represents the two brothers (Shaun and Shem) who are the two halves of HCE. So you could, if you want, go off and research those historical figures and figure out what it says about the Wake or about history or about our individual experience to attribute them to Shaun and Shem. That’s a whole other way to “read” the book – picking up things that you can go off and research, and then see how the knowledge of those things affects your understanding of the Wake.

By the way, I did find something new on this read through. I’ve read this paragraph at least a dozen times, and I’m still finding new things in it.

Try this exercise: try reading it once to yourself, preferably out loud — including laughing at how goofy it is — and write down one thing that jumps out to you as interesting. Something you notice, or something that’s curious and weird. Make that one thing an object of reflection: something to be on the lookout for elsewhere in the book, or in your daily experience; or something to research and contemplate.

Nothing you notice is wrong or stupid — nothing could be sillier than this book itself.