[jhedwards]

My favorite way to read Finnegan's Wake is to get some friends and perhaps some drinks, have everyone pick a random spot from the book and read it out loud.

The book is a circle so it doesn't really have a proper beginning, and the way the narratives are intermeshed to the point that they are incomprehensible means that the narrative is secondary, so concepts such as beginning and middle don't really matter anyway.

It is the language and wordplay of the book that is the enjoyable part. If you sit there by yourself and read it silently, it's mostly a boring academic exercise. When you read it out loud the playfulness and humor of the book comes through. There is one part that is written such that if you read it aloud you sound like a drunken irishman, and one part which is simultaneously a description of a pantry (or perhaps a grocery) and an erotic scene. The main thing I think people miss about the book is how funny it is!

[QuinnWilton]

Finnegan's Wake absolutely exists to be read, or even sung, out loud. If you've never gotten the appeal, just try listening to the start of an audiobook version. There's a Youtube series that covers the first few chapters that I adore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HgCjtd2iPU

[tkgally]

A commercial unabridged version has just been released. The excerpts I heard sounded very skillfully done: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/james-joyc...

[barrkel]

I just want to say the title of the book is "Finnegans Wake", not "Finnegan's Wake".

[leephillips]

You may have inspired me to try harder next time.