Finnegans Wake

Brief Overview

«Finnegans Wake» is an experimental novel by Irish writer James Joyce, published in 1939. The text is a stream of consciousness written in a distinctive style using neologisms, wordplay, multilingual puns, and allusions. The plot is vast and multilayered, revolving around events in Dublin but encompassing universal themes of life, death, rebirth, and the cyclical nature of history, symbolically reflecting the myth of Finnegan, a builder who fell from scaffolding and supposedly rose from the dead. The structure of the work is intentionally convoluted, with references to numerous cultural and historical sources, making the book challenging to perceive and interpret. The main subtext of the novel touches on questions of identity, language, and cultural transformation.