Finnegans Wake (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Joyce, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014118311X ISBN 13: 9780141183114

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2000

Synopsis

A daring work of experimental, Modernist genius, James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the greatest literary achievements of the twentieth century, and the crowning glory of Joyce's life. The Penguin Modern Classics edition of includes an introduction by Seamus Deane

'riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs'

Joyce's final work, Finnegan's Wake is his masterpiece of the night as Ulysses is of the day. Supreme linguistic virtuosity conjures up the dark underground worlds of sexuality and dream. Joyce undermines traditional storytelling and all official forms of English and confronts the different kinds of betrayal - cultural, political and sexual - that he saw at the heart of Irish history. Dazzlingly inventive, with passages of great lyrical beauty and humour, Finnegans Wake remains one of the most remarkable works of the twentieth century.

James Joyce (1882-1941), the eldest of ten children, was born in Dublin, but exiled himself to Paris at twenty as a rebellion against his upbringing. He only returned to Ireland briefly from the continent but Dublin was at heart of his greatest works, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. He lived in poverty until the last ten years of his life and was plagued by near blindness and the grief of his daughter's mental illness.

If you enjoyed Finnegans Wake, you might like Virginia Woolf's The Waves, also available in Penguin Classics.

'An extraordinary performance, a transcription into a miniaturized form of the whole western literary tradition'
Seamus Deane

About this title

Review:

'Listening to Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan is a lot easier than trying to read the book.' --The Guardian

It's estimated that a complete recording of this eccentric masterpiece would run to about 20 CDs, but Naxos has made an attractive abridgement in four, recorded with wit and clarity by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan. I've never met anyone who has actually managed to read every page of this extraordinary book...and there can be little doubt that Joyce intended his work to be listened to as much as read. This brilliant recording is the perfect short cut for slackers, poseurs and insomniacs. --Robert McCrum, The Observer

Book Description:

Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, is one of the central texts of twentieth-century literature, now in an edition incorporating Joyce's own alterations and corrections to the first printing in 1939.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 014118311X
• ISBN 13: 9780141183114
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688