Finnegans Wake: What was thaas?

Facing a work this rich, this enigmatic, a work that has both given careers to academics and baffled readers for generations, it's a rough pitch for a casual and fun reading group. **Why tackle a work as famously complex as Finnegans Wake?** Because it is in wrestling with the most challenging texts that we find the greatest rewards. Joyce’s masterpiece is not just a book to be read; it is a riddle to be unraveled, a dream to be deciphered, and a feast of language to be savored. **How?** In order to tackle the chaos, we'll go chapter by chapter. At the meetup we'll collaborate our best attempt at a summary & weave something together. Then we'll go through and unweave and de-pun and take closer looks, etc. And don't feel like you have to read all or any of the annotations or have a totally firm grip on any of it. For this meeting we'll be discussing the final episode of Finnegans Wake which has no official name. The chapter is around 35 pages long in most editions. Since it's not always clear where the chapters begin and end, here is a breakdown: **Part III Episode 4** begins on page 555 with "What was thaas?" and ends on page 590 with "Tiers, tiers and tiers. Rounds." • • • • • • • Here are some extra links if you are interested in going deeper: **Finnegans Wake Extensible Elucidation Treasury** (a searchable collection of 97,063 notes on FW): [http://fweet.org/pages/fw_smap.php](http://fweet.org/pages/fw_smap.php) ☼ **riverrun.org.uk** (has archives of **A Wake Newslitter** (ACN) + **A Finnegans Wake Circular** (AFWC) + much more): [https://www.riverrun.org.uk/joycetools.html](https://www.riverrun.org.uk/joycetools.html) This **fweet** page has a list of interesting AWN + AFWC articles you can find at **riverrun:** [http://fweet.org/pages/fw_clst.php](http://fweet.org/pages/fw_clst.php) ☼ **The James Joyce Digital Archive** (Drafts—May be useful for getting a better understanding) [https://jjda.ie/f/fwhome.htm](https://jjda.ie/f/fwhome.htm) ☼ **Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom** (only exists on an archive of his old blog site—there is no better resource for Joyce): [https://web.archive.org/web/20080924064902/http://robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/](https://web.archive.org/web/20080924064902/http://robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/) **General Joyce Portal**: [https://web.archive.org/web/20110606054055/http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/index.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20110606054055/http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/index.html) ☼ **Green’s Dictionary of Slang** (the largest historical dictionary of English slang): [https://greensdictofslang.com/browse/](https://greensdictofslang.com/browse/) ☼ Some **books** that might be helpful: **Third Census of Finnegans Wake** **\- Adaline Glasheen** \- pdf is downloadable here: [https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AXDQ4VQC3DV5T28D](https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AXDQ4VQC3DV5T28D) **Annotations to Finnegans Wake - Roland McHugh** \- Keyed to most editions\. Only the Wordsworth appears to be out of sync\. **A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake - Joseph Campbell & Henry Morton Robinson** \- Very early attempt at summarizing and glossing\.