III

Sense, or the Lack of It

i) Learning to Read FW; Ross Noble; Swallowing Pride


Lets face it, about 10 pages in, Finnegans Wake feels like being punched in the head with puns (shit, that should've been "pun-ched"). I'm about 125 pages in now, and am starting to regain some feeling in my face. Because the thing that actually makes FW problematic is not the book itself, but the aura of evil impenetrability that other people have surrounded it with. Sure, it's different, but fuck, man, it's funny! Once you understand this all the dread disappears and you start to get it. The same way you get "The Jabberwocky" or Ross Noble's verbal meanderings. Why is something that is both nonsensical and understandable at the same time so funny? Hell knows, but the point is always to flow with it, allow yourself to drift with it and pick up its internal logic. But even so, if you want to tackle FW, you may as well do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Campbell and Robinson's A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. Initially it felt like cheating, but it's good to have around at that page 10 panic. I mostly just read the short summaries of each chapter at the beginning of the Skeleton Key, just as I would read the Argument of Paradise Lost or the Iliad. Anyway, just stop worrying and learn to love the pun-bomb.

ii)

I love the barefacedness of this trailer. I'm a big fan of trash of all types, but especially when it so ridiculously disregards any kind of sense in order to mash as much awesomeness into a single film. My only fear is that it may try to make some sense, and that would be a tragedy.