Finnegan's Introduction

Something struck me in the introduction to Finnegan’s Wake…the mention on page ix, that any reader can “find something to absorb him—as long as he or she doesn’t expect to find it all in one place”. And later that “any reader can go into Finnegan’s Wake and discover everywhere within it whatever he or she wants to or already knows” (pg. xi).

This brought to my mind questions about the author’s authority, or intentional fallacy (to demonstrate a little something from lit. 300). How much is the author intending for us to discover within the text, what meanings is he trying to get across? Or did he intend for the readers to roam free and write it for ourselves?

When you write a book that no one can understand, it is not done unintentionally. That’s exactly the sort of thing that makes a text great, that makes it last—the constant evolution of readings. If a person rereads something actually comprehensible and derives from it a totally different meaning than previously, what then of their interpretation(s) of something incomprehensible as Finnegan’s Wake? Nothing stable, similar, or comfortable may remain. The reader will find themselves lost in a maze their own interpretations.

Even further into the introduction, it is said that “ ’Reading’ turns out to be as pluralistically malleable a procedure in Finnegan’s Wake as are interpretation and discovery of the meaning” (pg. xiii)—a comment that almost makes me feel better about delving into this text. That it is impossible to ascribe conventional practices of reading or understanding to this material initially seems intimidating, but to me what it really means is that I will be engaging in a “reading” that is unique to me, that cannot be done ‘correctly’ or ‘incorrectly’, and that will make me ponder the act of “reading” altogether.

Now I just need to “start” the book and begin experiencing it for myself!