Top 10--FW

[Donald Theall]

	I believe the story runs that it was Joyce's wife, Nora, who 
commented on Joyce's laughter keeping her awake when she was trying to ge 
to sleep and he was still working on the _Wake_.  I can't remember 
whether she used the word maniacal, but Brenda Maddox reports on it in 
_Nora_.  Maybe a hosuekeeper said this, too, but I haven't heard of it.

				Donald Theall


On Tue, 11 Feb 1997, David Casseres wrote:

> Susan sez
> 
> >To second this, I think the great thing about FW is how much a
> >litmus test of one's own mind it is.   Joyce made a book almost
> >entirely of open-endedness, which is astonishing.  Then some people 
> >started "deciding" what FW was about, one text in particular, and so 
> >the rest followed suit.  I really regret that I learned FW through a 
> >class, because now I'm biased to whatever is there, seeing mainly the 
> >template I was taught.  Really, the way to do FW is to let it glide
> >past you--take it slow at first, and think of it as watching the
> >static on a tv screen ("tuned to a dead channel," heh)...i'll be jealous
> >of the integrity of the hallucinations that will eventually appear
> >for those who do it this way.
> 
> Right you are!
> 
> I seem to remember that on the testimony of Joyce's housekeeper, he 
> laughed maniacally the whole time he was writing Finnegans Wake.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> David
> 
>