Boston's Finnegans Wake & Ulysses Reading Group

We'll be discussing the fifteenth episode of Ulysses informally known as Circe. The chapter is around 172 pages long in most editions. Since most copies of the novel don't clearly show where the chapters begin, here is a breakdown:

Circe begins with "The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown," and ends with "A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket."

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Here are some extra links if you are interested in going deeper:

Facing a work this rich, this enigmatic, a work that has both given careers to academics and baffled readers for generations, it's a rough pitch for a casual and fun reading group.

Why tackle a work as famously complex as Finnegans Wake? Because it is in wrestling with the most challenging texts that we find the greatest rewards. Joyce’s masterpiece is not just a book to be read; it is a riddle to be unraveled, a dream to be deciphered, and a feast of language to be savored. (This paragraph was generated by GPT4o)

How? In order to tackle the chaos, we'll go chapter by chapter. At the meetup we'll collaborate our best attempt at a summary & weave something together. Then we'll go through and unweave and de-pun and take closer looks, etc.

And don't feel like you have to read all or any of the annotations or have a totally firm grip on any of it.

For the sixth meeting we'll be discussing the third episode of Finnegans Wake which has no official name. The chapter is around 29 pages long in most editions. Since it's not always clear where the chapters begin and end, here is a breakdown:

Part I Chapter 7 begins on page 169 with "Shem is as short for Shemus" and ends with "—Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq!" on page 195.

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Here are some extra links if you are interested in going deeper: