Is Finnegans Wake the hardest book to read?

Is Finnegans Wake the hardest book to read?

It is considered by many to be the most difficult work of literature ever published in the English language. Reading this thing took me almost seven months of unswerving dedication from early September in 2015 to today.

What did James Joyce say about Finnegans Wake?

James Joyce once famously said that if it took him seventeen years to write Finnegans Wake, then a reader should take seventeen years to read it. In his usual prophetic way, he turned out to be exactly right.

Is it possible to understand Finnegans Wake?

James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake doesn’t work like other novels. It has lines like, “What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods!” In some ways, this makes the book almost impossible to read.

Is Finnegans Wake harder to read than Ulysses?

Ulysses – James Joyce Saying Ulysses is slightly easier to digest than Finnegan’s Wake is a bit like saying joining MENSA is easier than becoming a rocket scientist; they’re both ridiculously difficult. Spanning 800 pages, Ulysees follows a day in the life of three Dubliners.

Do you need to read Ulysses before Finnegans Wake?

Start Anywhere You Want To This is especially helpful when one is considering joining a Finnegans Wake Reading Group, such as the one I run at Modernist Studies Ireland. Because the book doesn’t have a plot or characters in the strictest sense, it doesn’t have to be read from start to finish.

What does Commodius Vicus mean?

(5) “Brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs”: “commodius vicus” basically means comfortable or quaint village esp. a medieval European township, which Dublin resembles and in which the book mostly takes place. “Recirculation” connotes back to the river idea.

What is the hardest book to read in the English language?

Finnegans Wake
1. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce: Internet searches on “most difficult” and “hard to read” novels unfailingly recognize Finnegan’s Wake as the most difficult work of fiction in the English language. Written partially in a made-up language of mindbendingly convoluted puns, this novel is often considered unreadable. 2.

What’s the longest book ever?

Remembrance of Things Past
A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust contains an estimated 9,609,000 characters (each letter counts as one character. Spaces are also counted, as one character each). The title translates to “Remembrance of Things Past”.

How long will it take to read Ulysses?

The average reader will spend 13 hours and 3 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).