FINNEGANS Wake by James Joyce has many seven-league sentences. In one of these come the words “... as different as York and Leeds...”
Is there any record of this towering Irish writer (1882-1941) having visited the city?
In his introduction to the Wake, Seamus Deane, Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Indiana, says: “The first thing to be said about the Wake is that it is, in an important sense, unreadable...”
One of my obsessions is apostrophes.
The title FW never carries an apostrophe, yet there is at least one instance in the text of an apostrophe inserted. Is this a textual error?
I’ve struggled through two or three pages a day over several months; and this missive, in part, is a celebration of having reached the end.
Ron Willis, First Avenue, Mount Lawley, Western Australia.
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