New post: Reading Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce.

I read the words, and that’s a start. I read them out loud in my best Irish accent, and there is one thing I can tell you with certainty: if you want to get into it, do that. Really. And I am in: I did that this weekend, too. I got into it. I don’t know how to advice reading it for the first time, but I can tell you that I managed it through a burst of bloody minded determination. I battled my way in, I launched myself in by sheer force, a brutal thirty six hours or so of grim fighting. I have entered into the circle, yes, I did break into it. But, actually, that is all I have done. And I feel like a criminal. I ought not to be here, I didn’t sit each day, reading a page and thinking about it, jotting down notes. I am the pretender, I conned my way into this circle, and I don’t belong here. I didn’t earn my way in, and I don’t know how to advise anyone to earn there way in. I got in through violence. No gentle reads, I staked each and every page to conquer it, but it back-fired and I have been caught.[more]