rayeula, you are a postmodernist huckster. but i like that about you! of course 'meaning' (is there meaning?) ultimately does not reside in the text but in us. but that is like saying that the 'fault lies not in the stars...etc.' but you could have said the same thing about any randomly gathered group of words that we then called finnegans wake. i give joyce credit enough to think his words were not random but precise.
i was simply whining because, in fact, i love joyce and was unable to make heads or tails of fw.

ah gregen9... you have missed the point of this "book". it is not a "book" to be "read", but rather a book that "we" are currently "reading" and "writing"... FW is a momentary kaleidescopic fragment of the BOOK that has always been written (and read) or what some have called the WORD or LOGOS...
in short, we have all read FW and we are all currently writing it - so you can cross it off your list of books to be read with a good conscience.
or just read the reviews at amazon.com for further rants on this.
word.

No one has read Finnegans Wake outside a classroom. Anyone who claims they have is a liar. Reading requires some level of understanding. I could look at the figures on a thousand pages of Chinese text and claim to have read it- but in what sense would I have done so?
Finnegans Wake is so arcane that it requires scholars (not singular, well, maybe a half dozen or so exist that could do it on their own) to decipher. Persons steeped not only in Joyce's sources but in his life and the way he used them. So... who is it that has actually read Finnegans Wake?

Seriously the ladies should read the twilight series if you havent already

so many books, so little time...

I love stephen colbert, hes great. Havent read the book yet tho for some reason. I hope hes as ridiculously funny as Al franken when it comes to political satire. Havent read the gore book yet, either. Dont really like him much, although i have to show some respect for reelin in the peace prize. An author that is too fun to read is Charles Bukowski, he keeps it simple and is hilarious, one of my favorite beats , period.