"So read we in must book. It tells. He prophets": a reader's approach to "Finnegans Wake"

Abstract

Ever since its publication, the singularity of Finnegans Wake has produced a particularly negative response in both critics and common readers. Its linguistic puzzles and its vocal fragmentation justify, in part, the feeling of contempt demonstrated by a majority of readers who saw Joyce's last work as elitist or decadent, far from the enormous success of Ulysses. This essay intends to show that, by being a metafictional text, Finnegans Wake represents, indeed, hard work. It constantly calls for the participation of the reader as its co-creator, a role that readers are not always ready to play. However, as Wolfgang Iser points out in his definition of "implied reader", all texts contain gaps and readers are invited to fill them in.