‘It has been said that there are only two types of Irish male: the hard man and the desperate chancer. In life, Joyce was a desperate chancer. But in his work he was a hard man. Tell a dream and lose a reader, said Henry James. And we all know that the pun is the lowest form of wit. Joyce spent seventeen years punning on dreams. The result, 'Finnegans Wake', reads like a 600-page crossword clue. But it took a hard man to write it.’ Martin Amis.
The author, himself, thought that because it took him seventeen years to write 'Finnegans Wake', his ideal reader would spend the same time reading it. Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon doubled down on the author's claim, spent thirty years in the 'Finnegans Wake universe of documents and texts' and have come back with the 'critically emended edition' here, incorporating some 9,000 minor yet crucial corrections 'to facilitate a smooth reading'.
It brings to an end the interminable problem of establishing a definitive printed text, made difficult by the idiosyncratic English and publication history as 'Work in Progress' by installments in 'Transition', 'Transatlantic Review' and 'Two Worlds'.
An elegant, stand alone volume of that text, a second volume containing preface and afterword by the two ideal readers, foreword by Hans Walter Gabler, introduction by David Greetham, aka an account of their journey, and acknowledgments of those encountered in the universe and production of this edition.
