an American tourist of the most typical variety leaned over my shoulder and sighed: "So many books! What is the definitive one? Is there any?" It was an extremely small book shop, a news agency. I almost replied, "Yes, there are two of them, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. [244] :265 Part III concerns itself almost exclusively with Shaun, in his role as postman, having to deliver ALP's letter, which was referred to in Part I but never seen. [74] [75] I teksten er der 10 ord, som kaldes "tordenord". De ni af dem har 100 bogstaver og det tiende 101, i alt 1.001 bogstaver. Drew, Ronnie (3 September 2009). Ronnie. New York: Penguin Books Limited. p.79. ISBN 978-0-14-193003-9.

The hundredlettered name again, last word of perfect language. But you could come near it, we do suppose, strong Shaun O', we foresupposed. How? [224] Literary significance and criticism [ edit ]One of the sources Joyce drew from is the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, [205] and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a collection of spells and invocations. Bishop asserts that "it is impossible to overlook the vital presence of the Book of the Dead in Finnegans Wake, which refers to ancient Egypt in countless tags and allusions." [206] Joyce uses the Book of the Dead in Finnegans Wake, "because it is a collection of the incantations for the resurrection and rebirth of the dead on the burial". [207] At one of their final meetings, Joyce suggested to Frank Budgen that he write an article about Finnegans Wake, entitling it "James Joyce's Book of the Dead". Budgen followed Joyce's advice with his paper "Joyce's Chapters of Going Forth by Day", highlighting many of the allusions to Egyptian mythology in the book. [208]

While Joyce’s Ulysses has a reputation as a difficult novel, Slote said, Finnegans Wake is “a whole different level”, with ongoing debate over basic points such as where and when the novel is set, or who the characters are. It is written in a mishmash of reinvented words, puns and allusions, with references to roughly 80 different languages. Fialka said he once saw a list of at least 52 active Finnegans Wake reading groups, though Slote, the Joyce scholar, said he thinks there are even more. A Wake group in Zurich, founded in 1984, has read the book three times in nearly 40 years, and is currently well into its fourth cycle. Their first reading took 11 years. Joyce is also reported as having told Arthur Power that "what is clear and concise can't deal with reality, for to be real is to be surrounded by mystery." [193] On the subject of the vast number of puns employed in the work Joyce argued to Frank Budgen that "after all, the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church was built on a pun. It ought to be good enough for me", [192] and to the objection of triviality he replied "Yes. Some of the means I use are trivial – and some are quadrivial." [192] A great many of the book's puns are etymological in nature. Sources tell us that Joyce relished delving into the history and the changing meanings of words, his primary source being An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press; 1879). For example, one of the first entries in Skeat is for the letter A, which begins: "...(1) adown; (2) afoot; (3) along; (4) arise; (5) achieve; (6) avert; (7) amend; (8) alas; (9) abyss..." Further in the entry, Skeat writes: "These prefixes are discussed at greater length under the headings Of, On, Along, Arise...Alas, Aware, Avast..." It seems likely that these strings of words prompted Joyce to finish the Wake with a sentence fragment that included the words: "...a way a lone a last a loved a long..." [194] :272ff. Sequences of sentence lengths (as measured by number of words) in four books, representative of various degrees of cascading character. Photograph: IFJ PAN Seed, David (9 June 2008). A Companion to Science Fiction. John Wiley & Sons. p.235. ISBN 978-0-470-79701-3.II.1 opens with a pantomime programme, which outlines, in relatively clear language, the identities and attributes of the book's main characters. The chapter then concerns a guessing game among the children, in which Shem is challenged three times to guess by "gazework" the colour which the girls have chosen. [51] Unable to answer due to his poor eyesight, Shem goes into exile in disgrace, and Shaun wins the affection of the girls. Finally, HCE emerges from the pub and in a thunder-like voice calls the children inside. [52] The ( klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrottygraddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot!). [217]