This book guides readers through the complex, pun-based, and dreamlike narrative of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Defying conventions of plot and continuity, Finnegans Wake has been challenging readers since its first publication in 1939. The novel is so famously difficult that it is widely agreed that only the brave or foolhardy attempt to unravel this well-known but relatively little-read classic.

Since its publication in 1939, countless would-be readers of "Finnegans Wake" - James Joyce's masterwork, which consumed a third of his life - have given up after a few pages, dismissing it as a "perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first "key" or guide to entering the fascinating, disturbing, marvelously rich world of "Finnegans Wake." The authors break down Joyce's "unintelligible" book page by page, stripping the text of much of its obscurity and serving up thoughtful interpretations via footnotes and bracketed commentary. They outline the book's basic action, and then simplify -- and clarify -- its complex web of images and allusions. "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" is the latest addition to the "Collected Works of Joseph Campbell" series.

The biggest stumbling block facing any prospective reader of "Finnegans Wake" is the book itself, with its thousands of words of Joyce's inventions, derived from nearly every foreign language imaginable and from a host of other sources. Now extensively revised, expanded, and corrected, Roland McHugh's "Annotations" is a unique one-volume guidebook designed to be read side by side with the "Wake" itself.

Publisher description

“Joyce’s Book of the Dark gives us such a blend of exciting intelligence and impressive erudition that it will surely become established as one of the most fascinating and readable Finnegans Wake studies now available.”—Margot Norris, James Joyce Literary Supplement

Commentary on Joyce for the average reader.

James Joyce's Ulysses, once regarded as obscure and obscene, is now viewed as one of the masterpieces of world literature. Yet Joyce's final novel, Finnegans Wake, to which he devoted seventeen years, remains virtually unread, except by scholarly specialists. Joyce's Kaleidoscope attempts to dissolve the darkness and to invite lovers of literature to engage with Finnegans Wake. This engaging guide will aid readers not just to make sense of the novel, but to relish the remarkable accomplishment of Joyce's least appreciated work.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Finnegans Wake’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of James Joyce’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Joyce includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘Finnegans Wake’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Joyce’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

This is the only full-length study of Finnegans Wake to outline and catalog the immense amount of naturalistic detail from which Joyce built the book. The opening chapters describe the physical setting, time, and main characters out of which the book is constructed. John Gordon argues that behind this detail is an essentially autobiographical story involving Joyce's history and, in particular, his feelings toward his father, wife, daughter and the older brother who died in infancy. Many of the author's findings are new and likely to be controversial because recent criticism has tended to the belief that what he attempts to do cannot be done. This new study of Finnegans Wake represents a radically conservative approach and is intended to function both as a guide to the newcomer seeking a chapter-by-chapter plot summary and as an original contribution to Joyce criticism.