Finnegan’s Wake is a book so hard to understand that no one can truly say they “get it”. People can’t even agree on where the book is set or who the characters are.
Gerry Fialka is from Venice, California. He has hosted a book club dedicated (专用的) to Finnegan’s Wake since 1995. Between 10 and 30 people would show up to monthly meetings at a local library to read two pages of the book and discuss their opinions. At last, they slowed down and just read one page per meeting. They spent the next 28 years going through the book just one time. Although some members left and others joined the group over the years, Fialka and some of the members still meet up every month, only now they do it through Zoom.
Interestingly, Fialka’s book group took more to finish Finnegan’s Wake than James Joyce took to write the thing. Sadly, the author died shortly after publishing it, so he never had time to explain his writings, or at least give some clues (提示), so it’s up to the readers to decipher the puzzles of the book.
Gerry Fialka’s reading group read the last page of Joyce’s 628-page book in October, but that only marked the end of their first read-through, not the end of the book club. And they don’t plan on moving on to another book either. “We didn’t end,” Fialka said. “There is no next book. We’re only reading one book. Forever.”
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