I am late getting around to posting this, but wanted to mark the occasion of our second whirl with the Wake. We met on August 8th to start off. It was the usual cast of characters, minus one who will join us later, but plus one who had taken up the adventure rather late in the story our last go round.
We realized that it's been almost a year since we left off, as we finished our first experience with the Wake on September 9, 2017. We didn't think it would take us this long to get going again, but in fact, it seems about right. At any rate, everyone seemed enthusiastic and happy to be at the Poet and Patriot once again, and we were welcomed back by one of the employees who I think is a sort of a bouncer, although, if so, he is the nicest bouncer I've ever met. Not that I've met many.
Tom brought a page of quotations of various people's efforts to describe Finnegans Wake, which was a great way to start. Many of them, if not all, were from a book that several of us have been working our way through over the summer--Riverrun to Livvy: Lots of Fun Reading the First Page of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, by Bill Cole Cliett . We had enjoyed his shorter Finnegans Wake in Fifteen Minutes a while back, and find him very approachable and readable.
Ann is also enthusiastic about a multi-volume work on the Wake called Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah, by John P. Anderson, a work I had dabbled in our last time around, but which she has made a larger commitment to by beginning at the beginning.
For our first outing, though, we focused on the title and reading the first sentence--which of course also meant reading the last sentence. I think we've had some idea of reading at a little faster pace than the eight years it took us before, but if our beginning is any indication that doesn't look likely. On the other hand, we've already read the Wake-- and Ed has read it multiple times-- and no longer have anything to prove to ourselves. We can go as slow or as fast as we want.
We realized that it's been almost a year since we left off, as we finished our first experience with the Wake on September 9, 2017. We didn't think it would take us this long to get going again, but in fact, it seems about right. At any rate, everyone seemed enthusiastic and happy to be at the Poet and Patriot once again, and we were welcomed back by one of the employees who I think is a sort of a bouncer, although, if so, he is the nicest bouncer I've ever met. Not that I've met many.
Tom brought a page of quotations of various people's efforts to describe Finnegans Wake, which was a great way to start. Many of them, if not all, were from a book that several of us have been working our way through over the summer--Riverrun to Livvy: Lots of Fun Reading the First Page of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, by Bill Cole Cliett . We had enjoyed his shorter Finnegans Wake in Fifteen Minutes a while back, and find him very approachable and readable.
Ann is also enthusiastic about a multi-volume work on the Wake called Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah, by John P. Anderson, a work I had dabbled in our last time around, but which she has made a larger commitment to by beginning at the beginning.
For our first outing, though, we focused on the title and reading the first sentence--which of course also meant reading the last sentence. I think we've had some idea of reading at a little faster pace than the eight years it took us before, but if our beginning is any indication that doesn't look likely. On the other hand, we've already read the Wake-- and Ed has read it multiple times-- and no longer have anything to prove to ourselves. We can go as slow or as fast as we want.
 |
| taken by member Leslie Karst on our last go round |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment