successors (fwd)

[Paul Mackin]

Saw this mention of TP on the Finnegans Wake list.

Is "our own nightime" and its "deep dorfy doubtlings" the ultimate Zone?

					P.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 18:40:50 -0600
From: Jeff Howard <jhoward at IPA.NET>
To: Multiple recipients of list FWAKE-L <FWAKE-L at IRLEARN.UCD.IE>
Subject: successors

        I was recently talking to a friend about possible successors to Joyce.
This friend mentioned Thomas Pynchon as one successor, partly because
"naughtiness" and "irreverence" are a part of Pynchon's work.  However,
these are side issues to me.  The appeal of the Wake to me is primarily its
careful architecture (ex: the balance of books I and III, II and IV
discussed in McHugh's Sigla; the idea that I and III are "two symmetrical
half-arches supporting" book II, "a keystone of greater complexity")
Another aspect that appeals to me is the fundamental reverence for the
mysteries of the written word shown in the wake (ex: the long rhapsodies on
Anna's letter, its comparison to "the tenebrous tunc page of the Book of
Kells" and the Egyptian Book of the Dead)
        Does Joyce have a successor(s) in these respects?  Any help would
be greatly appreciated.