László Moholy-Nagy’s visual representation of Finnegans Wake - (37signals)
37 Signals links to László Moholy-Nagy’s beautiful representation of the intricate structure of Finnegans Wake. It’s fair to say that Joyce’s own model of the book was at least as complicated as this.
There’s a row across the middle for Linguistic, but I’m not sure what the significance of it is. Joyce’s linguistic experiments in Finnegans Wake are the most obvious experiment Joyce undertakes, and the greatest deterrent the book poses to the casual reader. Or the at least moderately intent - I’ve tried to read Finnegans Wake any number of times, and never gone more than a hundred or so pages in before stopping.
There’s no apostrophe in the title, by design - it’s supposed to convey ambiguities of number and noun case. Is it the Wake of one Finnegan, or many Finnegans? Or is it about the awakening of many Finnegans?
You have to read every sentence they way you have to read the title. Joyce had at least a passing familiarity with dozens of languages, and writes them into the English he invents for this book.
Link to László Moholy-Nagy’s visual representation of Finnegan’s Wake - (37signals)
They got it from Richard Kostelanetz, in a blog I’m definitely going to start reading.
