Fordham - Lots of fun at Finnegans Wake unravelling universals

Unravelling Universals

FINN FORDHAM

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Finn Fordham 2007

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First published 2007

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ISBN 9780199215867

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For Max, Taddy, Cato, and Jason,
with love

Joyces last novel is often conceived as multi-authored, a tissue of quotations, a social text of sorts, so I am particularly aware of the extensive roles others have played in the long compositional journey of my ownor I should say ourbook. There are too many to thank if these acknowledgements are to be exhaustive: first of all there is the Leverhulme Trust and University College Northampton for generous funding; then my inspiring teachers Maud Ellmann, Steven Connor, and Peter Brooker for having spurred, supervised and supported my doctoral and postdoctoral research; the geneticists Sam Slote, Luca Crispi, Dirk van Hulle, Ingeborg Landuyt, Wim van Mierlo, Geert Lernout, and Daniel Ferrer who help form an exemplary network of mutually supportive scholarsa high five to all of them (simultaneously); the Charles Peake Ulysses reading group in London for its model exegetical practices, especially those of Andrew Gibson and Joe Brooker; the readers and Wakeans Patrick McCarthy, Sheldon Brivic, and Derek Attridge for invaluable suggestions regarding an earlier version of the manuscript; Andrew McNeillie, Rowena Anketell, and Lizzie Robottom at OUP for their grace and energy in publishing my work; Rohan Crowley for in dispensable help with the Index; Kasia Bazarnik and Zenon Fajfer, Carl and Agnieszka Ginko-Humphreys, Jason Cato, Ann, and Milo Fordham, Ruth MacLennan and Robin Banerji for providing pleasure, critical stimulation, and a sense that Joyce can flourish outside academia; Christopher and Mary Warman and Max and Taddy Fordham for always cheerfully helping the homeless at various crucial moments; and last but not least, indeed, above all: Leo, Viola, and especially Caroline, without whom

As Joyce said to those around him with his book almost done: You have all written this book.

Except, of course, any of its mistakes, for which I claim sole authorship.

I have attempted to develop ways of presenting the manuscript text in a transcribed form so as to make the base text and the changes relating to it as transparent as possible. I hope the results speak for themselves. Nonetheless, here are some of the principles and strategies Ive made use of. There are two styles of transcription. The first (and most frequent) involvesI have combined three adjacent levels of revision as one level. This is because the revisions may be scanty and scattered over a lengthy passage, and it is not worth copying out the whole three times when only one or two words are being added.

The devil is in the detail
(popular saying)

God is in the detail
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Mies van der Rohe

Finnegans Wake has been described and describes itself in many ways. Since it fell easily into making lists, here is an easily extendable reel of descriptions. It is

a sleep-story; the dreamlike saga of guilt-stained, evolving humanity; a protracted nightmare; a mighty allegory of the fall and resurrection of mankind; a gigantic epiphany of mankind; an ark to contain all human myths

Finnegans Wake for Fritz Senn is what we do with it. But it is also what it does with us. We produce a wake by the way we steer, but we also steer by the Wake that we produce.

of reproductions.

No first draft was ever allowed to settle in its primary state. Joyce returned to them all, and bombarded his writing with more writing. Most passages underwent copious levels of revision and layering. The text seems to be lacqueredthough this turns out to be an inadequate metaphor, for in a method of supplementation like Joyces we actually get to see most of the material

How might you begin writing a universal history, if you were introducing the story of humanity to an alien? With Adam and Eve, perhaps. But that, paradoxically, is both too well known and too easily discredited. How about using the facts that archaeology unearths concerning the cultivation of grain or the earliest city? Thats more scientific but might lack drama. Couldnt we have something to match the histrionics of Genesis? What about evolution, the discovery of fire, the wheel, or the lever, and the subsequent clash between tribesNeanderthals and Homo sapiens? Stanley Kubrick used these elements in his film 2001, implying a history of the world through technological discoveries and it makes great drama, but it also produces a conflictual view of human nature: that were here to manipulate and fight, and that progress comes through the exercise of ever-improving power tools. One consideration in your choice, therefore, is that the beginning may determine the end and structure the narrative. Once you have started there is no going back. Since you do not know what happened, you might as well just make it up: choose a character and let it roll from there. But that hardly helps to limit your choice. So how would you begin?