Penguin-Holt-Penguin

[Tim Strzechowski]

These excerpts address more the composition of the _Wake_ rather than the 
editing thereof, but ...

... continuing from Bishop, _Joyce's Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake_:

"_Finnegans Wake_ itself took gradual form in autosuggestive 
'scribblehobbles' [...] where the odd term is the name Joyce gave to the 
notebook out of which _Work in Progress_ obscurely evolved (see Thomas E. 
Connolly, ed., _Scribblehobble, The Ur-Workbook for Finnegans Wake 
[Evanston, IL: Northwestern U Press, 1961[).  Joyce himself, moreover, was 
quite explicit about the power of 'prescriptions': 'the original genius of a 
man lies in his scibblings: in his casual actions lie his basic talent. 
Later he may develop that talent until he produces a _Hamlet_ or a 'Last 
Supper', but if the minute scribblings which compose the big work are not 
significant, the big work goes for nothing no matter how grandly conceived. 
Which of us can control our scribblings?  They are the script of one's 
personality like your voice or your walk'" (p. 454, note 7).

Also:

"As Peter Timmerman has discovered, [some of the names used in FW] appear 
both in _A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Bognor, etc._ (4th ed., 
1922-23) and on tombstones in the graveyard attached to Sidlesham Church, 
four miles away from Bognor, where Joyce spent part of the summer of 1923 
and began to take notes preparatory to the writing of the _Wake_: 'Sidlesham 
Church,' according to the _Descriptive Guide_, 'is an Early English 
structure worthy of notice, and an examination of the surrounding tombstones 
should not be omitted if any interest is felt in deciphering curious names, 
striking examples being Earwicker, Glue, Gravy, Boniface, Anker, and 
Northeast'" (p. 448-9, note 36).