Finnegans Wake

Let’s look at an excerpt of 1939's Finnegans Wake by Joyce. It's easier to engage and enjoy with the book if you dip in and out of it. Read more of the quote below here, and the main site is here. If you like modern illustrations, check out the ones at WakeinProgress.

Here's an excerpt from chapter II:
                                                     [...] Sweet-

	some auburn, cometh up as a selfreizing flower,
	that fragolance of the fraisey beds: the phoenix,
	his pyre, is still flaming away with trueprat-
	tight spirit:

I really like this part, and keep in mind that it's better to read it in a poetic-prosey style. It immediately calls to mind Shakespeare's Sonnet XIX [read them here]--the one with the odd pheonix part. Here's an excerpt:

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood; [...]


Now of course many people have interpreted and analyzed Joyce's book, and that's great, but in terms of just simple enjoyment, I think this passage is a lot of fun. What images of nature, and flowers and the attar of roses, somehow in the same space as fire and blood and death. It recalls the violence of spring, even, the harsh push and pull of life and death.

I think it's a great moment to pause upon.