Неда М. Мандић

STUDIJSKO ISTRAŽIVAČKI RAD NA DOKTORSKIM AKADEMSKIM STUDIJAMA,

MENTOR: PROF. DR. ZORAN PAUNOVIĆ

Objvavljeno u časopisu:

Речи,

часопис за лингвистику, литературологију и културологију, бр. 6, 2014.)

AN IDEAL INSOMNIA: THE STRUCTURE AND TEXTURE ASPECTS OF FINNEGANS

WAKE

The paper deals with several aspects of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: the alchemical texture, network structure and semiotic nature. The book is compared to Great Work of an alchemical adept and the main alchemical symbols are explained. The structure of Finnegans Wake resembles great network structures such as information technology networks and digital media. The main features of the network structure such as repetitions and variations are taken into account. Joyce extracted the essence of many books and formed carefully integrated universe by coining the puns and phrases which are analyzed here from the semiotics’ point of view.

Key words: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, alchemy, network, puns, semiotics.

I n t r o d u c t i o n. Anyone who unintentionally enters the linguistic arena of Finnegans

Wake will suddenly find himself in a chaotic system of references, a network of constantly

changing code names and symbols, in which everything can always mean everything else, and in

which even specialists and scholars provide few clues.

This kind of profusion of diffuse concepts always required simplifying measures. These

might be said to include the influential attempts at interpretation by the scholars such as Umberto

Eco, Anthony Burgess or Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson who were solely

interested in the specific nature of the hybrid form of this book. We should admit at this point that

all these sources are just their authors’ perspectives on this highly cryptic and obscure book,

whose readers need absolutely every perspective they can get. This inevitably leads to the vision

Joyce himself had about his reader: “sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and

a night till his noodle sink or swim by that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia” [Joyce,

2000:120].

The concept of an ideal reader implies either a person with a precious and rare mind,

making efforts to accomplish the spiritual awakening, or just an eccentric with a lot of time. The

ideal insomnia may also be decrypted within the ambiguity between the absolute awareness and

absolute leisure. However, the double meaning of the qualifier ‘ideal’ still does not change the

expectation of the writer. Joyce probably thought that he was in a position to expect from his

reader to be ideal and to have all the time of the world. He himself dedicated more that sixteen

years to writing Finnegans Wake. He abandoned the paths he established in his previous works

which can be recognized as modern novels and indulged himself obsessively in postmodern code

by creating the intertextual web full of symbolism, hermetic passages and pure alchemy.

To complete the equation, just include more than sixty world languages Joyce used to

form the words, puns and phrases, and then add the innumerous references to the whole western

literary tradition, the segments and details of Irish history, the spell of dreams in the superb

storytelling interwoven with word-play, approximations and homophonies. I sympathize with any

reader who just surrenders. On the other hand, I encourage and strongly support each individual

wrestling in this arena. Anyone who attempts more than the literal understanding of Joyce’s

writing will not lose himself in the twists and turns of a labyrinth and he will find the way out.

The Wake presents immense initial cognitive and imaginative difficulties, but it does so

for everyone. It gives a rare equal footing to those unskilled with professionals. In a book about

everything, everyone plays a part. Each new angle provides an increase in the resolution of the

overall picture. It is not easy to circumvent all the roadblocks on an enigmatic journey through

the pictorial world of the Wake, but it is worth trying.

T h e A l c h e m i c a l T e x t u r e. In reference to the divine work of creation and the

plan of salvation within it, the alchemistic process was called the ‘Great Work’ (Opus Magnum).

In it, a mysterious chaotic source material called materia prima containing opposites still

incompatible and in the most violent conflict, is gradually guided towards a redeemed state of

perfect harmony, the healing ‘Philosophers’ Stone’ or lapis philosophorum1. The alchemists

1 Jung, C. G. Psychology and Alchemy. 2nd. ed. (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull). "The Collected Works of Jung" Vol. 12. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press. 1970. (pp. 228-241)

constructed the seven stages of the alchemical transformation from the secret knowledge of the

Emerald Tablet. As they were scientists as well as spiritual adepts, they believed it was essential

to perform the Seven Stages in both the physical and spiritual realms simultaneously. These

stages are known as Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation

and Coagulation2. We can compare the Great Work of an alchemistic adept with the Work in

Progress, as Joyce initially called the Wake. All the phases of transformation3 the adept has to

pass through can be recognized in Joyce’s collecting, arranging and creating the material for this

book. The processes of transformation can be identified with the activities Joyce had undertaken

through his Notebooks in order to establish the system within the Wake.

Joyce’s cryptically infinite work starts with the death and resurrection of a mason, Tim

Finnegan, referred to also as “Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand” [Joyce, 2000:4]. An

association to Ibsen’s The Master Builder gives rise to an implication that we are dealing with the

appearance of the Great Master, the creator of the Great Work. He died when he got drunk and

fell from the scaffolding and was put in his coffin. Thus he was thrown into the darkness of

materia prima chaos. We will follow his transformation from “freemen’s maurer”, “man of hod,

cement and edifices” to HCE (Haroun Childeric Eggeberth) [Ibid.,4]. Actually, his fall

foreshadows the fall of HCE early in Book I.

Finnegan’s resurrection is the final result of numerous transformations like Mister Finn,

Mister Finnagain and Mister Funn. One of the interpretations of the hidden meaning of Joyce’s

invented verb ‘caligulate’ conveys the sense of Coagulation4 in alchemy: “he would caligulate by

multiplicables the altitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin

‘twas born” [Ibid.,4].

Physiologically, this stage is marked by the release of the Elixir in the blood “that

rejuvenates the body into a perfect vessel of health”. In this case, the Elixir is ‘the liquor’. One of

the processes preceding the Coagulation is implied by the words ‘vine’ and ‘vinegar’. If exposed

to air, wine will start to ferment into vinegar on its own. The chemical process that allows wine to

"sour" into vinegar is known as fermentation. The alchemical process of Fermentation starts with

2 Seth Osburn. Seven: The Seven Stages of Alchemical Transformation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10 from

http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1193 C.G.Jung described the stages of the alchemical Great Work in his work Psychology and Alchemy (229). These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts.  See also Hoeffner, Mark. The Dictionary of Alchemy: From Maria Prophetissa to Isaac Newton. London: Harper Collins. The Aquarian Press. 1991. (pp. 238)4 Coagulation. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.alchemylab.com/coagulation.htm

“the inspiration of spiritual power from Above that reanimates, energizes, and enlightens the

alchemist”5. The verb ‘fine’ here stands for the purification from extraneous or impure matter: “O

you’re vine! Sendday’s eve and, ah, you’re vinegar! Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you’re going to be

fined again” [Joyce, 2000:5].

Not only does the Wake deal in many places with hermetic motifs, subjecting language

itself to a fundamental process of transformation – its eternal structure is also based on the

alchemistic process. Like Blake and Swift, Joyce used the techniques identified as characteristic

of the language of alchemy. The ‘rotary processus’ [Ibid.,304] designed to transfer the four-

elemental disharmony of the materia prima and four chapters of the book into the perfect

roundness of the lapis is externally accomplished in the well-known effect whereby the closing

words of the book “(…) a long the” are supposed to flow in the opening: “riverrun past Eve and

Adam’s (…)”.

In her thorough analysis of the alchemical aspects of the Wake, Barbara DiBernar in her

book Alchemy and Finnegans Wake emphasizes the most important section of the Wake - [Ibid.,

182.30-186.18] explaining that “Joyce added virtually all the alchemical allusions at one time,

proving that he intended them to form a recognizable and meaningful pattern” [Ibid., 9]. Some of

the most significant alchemical elements are mentioned in this section: “The house O’Shea or

O’Shame, Quivapieno, known as the Haunted Inkbottle, no number Brimstone Walk” [Ibid.,

182].

The Italian phrase qui va pieno (here goes a full one), which forms a compound here,

signifies the process of fullness, including in alchemy both secular and celestial knowledge, the

spiritual and physical being, which lies in the sphere of unconsciousness, according to Carl

Gustav Jung6. We also have an indication of an important alchemical element within the phrase

Brimstone Walk, since brimstone was formerly the common vernacular name for sulphur. The

sulphur is a synonym for materia prima and it is also a part of the process of Coagulation7.

The idea of “cyclewheeling history” [Ibid.,186], which Hiroko Mikami explains as an

influence of both “Giambattista Vico’s theory of the cyclic evolution of history” as well as the

Books of Kells (a mediaeval Irish manuscript illuminated with motifs based on the combination of

multiple circles and spirals) is also an alchemical aspect of the Wake [Mikami, 2007:93-95]. The

5 Fermentation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10 from http://www.alchemylab.com/fermentation.htm6 Jung, K.G. Mysterium Coniunctionis. KD Atos, Beograd, 1999. (17)7 Ibid, (87-100)

Wheel in alchemy is a symbol representing perpetuum mobile and the philosopher’s stone. The

Tunc Page in the Book of Kells, specifically referred to in Finnegans Wake, contains double

serpents, one of which forms an Uroboros-like square. The Uroboros, a serpent biting its own tail,

is also regarded as one of the significant symbols of alchemy for the cycle of death and rebirth.

“Things above are mirrored in the things below” notes the most quoted rule from the

Emerald Tablet or Tabula Smaragdina (1541) of Hermes Trismegistus. Joyce’s version in

Finnegans Wake reads: “The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of

Hermes“ [Joyce, 2000:263]. To Hermes, the cosmos was a unity of interdependent parts,

connected by sympathies or antipathies and arranged in curious paradigm. Things above, such as

the planets or the signs of the zodiac, were connected with things below, such as man and his

parts, by lines of influence, resemblances, and affinities. This correspondence between

macrocosm and microcosm and among all sublunary things is the essential of the Hermitic

tradition and the part of it that was to fascinate men of letters. The correlations and interactions

between the microcosm and the macrocosm so central to the belief systems of Hermes and the

alchemists were also central to Joyce.

The 'Sacred Marriage' was the goal of the alchemical knowledge. In the Wake, HCE and

ALP constitute one body, that of the dreamer. Their conjunction (wedding and marriage) "from a

bride's eye stammpunct when a man that means a mountain . . . wades a lymph" [Ibid., 309]

quite literally plays on the two-in-one theme. This is the symbol of the "Mysterium

Coniunctionis" archetype otherwise known as the alchemical or sacred marriage between Sol (the

sun king) and Luna (the moon queen). The alchemical, sacred marriage is often referred to as the

hieros gamos or the union of opposites. We can also say that the marriage of HCE and ALP is the

biblical motif used in the Catholic Marriage ceremony of two-in-one-flesh. Anna Livia Plurabelle

or the sacred river ALP is the symbol of the Great Mother in alchemy. The Great Mother is

Mother Nature, the archetypal woman in God and the long-lost Goddess. She is the symbol of

fertility and the creative forces in nature.

Alchemy serves not only as a metaphor for the artistic process, but also as a source for

many of the major themes of the Wake, including incest, colors, forgery, death and rebirth, the

dream form, number symbolism, the macrocosm-microcosm theory and the reconciliation of the

opposites.

T h e N e t w o r k S t r u c t u r e. All the complex systems such as information

technology networks (innumerous transistors) or brains (myriad of neurons) are constructed by

using variations and combinations of a limited number of relatively simple elements. They are

also some of the fundamental techniques through which much of the material in the Wake is built

up into the final product. From the very moment these elements start to interact with the text and

develop a formula for dealing with the outside world, the work begins to operate through the

process of decoding and recoding of information, which offers limitless possibilities of

interpretation.

On the most basic level, there are the acronymic variations, the countless repetitions of all

the possible combinations of the initials 'HCE' and 'ALP'. These variations are numerous

beginning with "Howth Castle and Environs" [Joyce, 2000:3] and "He addle liddle phifie Annie"

[Joyce, 2000:4] and they appear on almost every page. Thus Joyce establishes the presence of

the cosmic couple in the Wake.

Joyce also works in standard riddles and riddle forms, upon which elaborate variations are

sometimes made. For example, a conventional riddle, "Is life worth living?" occurs at a number

of points: "that's what makes lifework leaving" [Ibid., 12]; "Was liffe worth leaving?" [Ibid.,

230]; "Is love worse living?" [Ibid., 269]. Like many other catch phrases used in the Wake

("Tom, Dick and Harry," "hide and seek," "an eye for an eye"), these common riddles provide

easily recognizable and malleable material for Joyce's manipulation. The traditional answer to "Is

life worth living?" is "it depends on the state of the liver" and Joyce may be thinking of this in

some of his punning on the word "liver": "Liverpoor?" [Ibid., 74]; Shem has a "loose liver" [Ibid.,

169]; Shaun's "liver too is great value, a spatiality!" [Ibid., 172].

The work, furthermore, contains "the first riddle of the universe: asking, when is a man

not a man?" [Ibid.,170]. The question is repeated in various guises throughout the novel: “where

was a hovel not a havel (the first rattle of his juniverse)” [Ibid., 231]; "first and last rittlerattle of

the anniverse; when is a nam nought a nam whenas it is a" [Ibid., 607].

Describing the technique used in this book, Margot Norris pointed out that “Events in

Finnegans Wake repeat themselves as compulsively as Scheherazade did, spinning her tales, until

there are so many versions of the event that one can no longer discover the “true one” [Ibid.,

120]. It is difficult to say if father seduces daughter or daughter tempts father. Therefore the

Wakean family is in chaos and the roles and relationships are violated in such a way that

identities are unstable and interchangeable. All the formal elements of the plot, character, point of

view or language are not connected to a single point of reference. This condition creates flux and

restlessness in the work and the reader can sense it intuitively.

James S. Atherton explained that “the microcosm of Finnegans Wake is constructed

according to certain fundamental axioms for which Joyce is careful to provide clues, but which is

the task of its readers to discover for themselves”8. Joyce extracted the essence of many books

and formed the axioms acting as the substitutes for the whole in the Wake:

None of his axioms originates entirely with Joyce, although his combination and

development of them is fantastic in its originality, producing an account of a unique

universe that is also unique as a literary phenomenon. It is an original and carefully

integrated universe, but it cannot be understood without knowledge of its basic sources.

[Atherton, 2009: 28]

The structure is based on the cyclic view of the history which Joyce took from Vico. The

references to The New Science can be recognized over the whole of the Wake: "Cycloptically",

"cycloannalism", "vicocyclometer". This method is very similar to the process of data

compression or data compaction in the information theory. The process involves “transforming a

string of characters in some representation (such as ASCII) into a new string (of bits, for

example) which contains the same information but whose length is as small as possible”9 .

However, the recompression is much more common within the structure of the Wake. This

process can be described as stuffing word after word into the same lexical unit to the point of

overflowing.

The modern information theory, computer science and digital media concepts provide

various analogies with the processes integrated into the structure of the Wake. Another such

concept is the decomposition of the basic parts of the system once they enter into the system. The

basic part operates as a template within the computer network, which is altered due to the

combined influences of the other basic parts or inputs and thus contributes to the coherence of the

whole system. This interconnection or correlation can be illustrated by the relationships between

linguistic strings appearing in various shapes through the book. For example, the phrase "by way

8 Atherton, James S. The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Influence in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Faber and Faber. London.1959. (p. 28)9 Debra A. Lelewer and Daniel S. Hirschberg. Data Compression. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dan/pubs/DataCompression.html

of final mocks for his grapes" [Joyce, 2000:72] announces the Mookse and the Gripes story

starting on page 152. The Great Letter motif is woven through every chapter, but it is given its

fullest treatment in Chapter Five of the Wake.

With each word standing in a potential relationship to all the other words, the reader of

the Wake follows the dynamics of computer's central processing unit10 (CPU), until he comes

upon a signal to jump to a different part of the memory of the text. Each time one of the

variations on the Prankquean's riddle comes along, for example, the option of returning to that

section presents itself. The tale of the Prankquean is very short [Ibid., 21-23] in the Wake, but its

echo can be heard throughout the work, especially in other fables and parables. We have a

variation of the riddle in the question of the Norwegian Captain: “Hwere can a ketch or hook

alive a suit and sowterkins?” [Joyce, 2000:311]. The Pranquean’s three journeys are also those of

the Ondt: “He took a round stroll and he took a stroll round and he took a round strollagain”

[Ibid., 416].

By pushing the reader into potentially endless chains of association and meaning at every

juncture, and thus forcing him to draw heavily on his own experience to inform his understanding

of the book, the Wake sets a process in motion that inevitably extends beyond its own pages. In

order to meet the demands of Joyce's "sound seemetry" [Ibid., 17], his "poetographies" [Ibid.,

242] and his "auradrama" [Ibid., 517], the reader has to create his own semantic network with

such an imagination and freedom that it reacts spontaneously when triggered by the Wake. The

reader with enough imagination can infer the image of the world from the word alone or from a

single phrase. For the modern reader the implications of the phrases such as "Putting Allspace in

a Notshall" [Ibid., 455] suggest not only the idea of infinity in a nutshell, but the compression or

even the collapse of the world’s network in a quite restricted area.

S e m i o t i c N a t u r e. Umberto Eco defined a communicative process “as the

passage of a signal (not necessarily a sign) from a source (through a transmitter, along a channel)

to a destination” in his book A Theory of Semiotics [Eco, 1979:8]. It is possible to visualize the

major characters of the Wake (HCE, ALP, the twins Shem and Shaun, Issy, etc.), and the themes

of the Wake (the fall, the resurrection, the creation of the Letter) as the thin ends of a system of

channels into which the entire book is poured. HCE and ALP exist on an archetypal level as a

10 Central Processing Unit (CPU) is a chip functioning as a computer brain. It is able to collect, decode and perform instructions as well as to transfer the information to the other resources (Microsoft: Računarski rečnik. Prevod petog izdanja.CET. Beograd. 2003. (127))

tavern-keeper and his wife. Their family story is also shown from a religious perspective, and on

that religious plane they become Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Abel. These figures are

the symbols of the fall. The story has a mythological layer coloured by the figures of Finn

MacCool, the scenes of King Arthur's Court or the giants that walked the earth. There is also a

historical layer representing Parnell, Napoleon and Wellington. All these figures appear and

disappear, but everyone and everything ultimately flows back into the figure of HCE.

In his analysis of the semiotic structure of the Wake11 within the book The Limits of

Interpretation, Eco explained a textual network of associations that makes the work’s cultural

and psychological context legible. He illustrated a process of decoding the pun within the

Joycean word “meandertale” [Eco, 1994:18]. Eco also traced the possible nodes of association

which link the words: Neanderthal, Meander and Tale from which Joyce formed the linguistic

unit Meandertale. The newly constructed unit meandertale signifies the very name of the process

that forms it - a meandering quest for associations between words where these associations

simultaneously tell the story of their evolution.

As Eco sees it, this process of continual amalgamation creates “a network of

interconnected puns” [Ibid., 140]. Almost every page of the Wake can illustrate the features of

this interconnection. Within the pun “erigenating” [Joyce, 2000:4] we can notice the Latin root of

the word erigo meaning to erect inserted in the English verb originate12. There are two meanings

packed up into one word. But Joyce was rarely content with two meanings. Therefore, the whole

phrase also brings an echo of a famous Irish theologian’s name Eurigena. The same case is with

the pun “epickthalamorous” [Joyce, 2000:40] consisting of two Greek words epikos and thalamos

which are correspondents of the English adjective poetic and the noun phrase bride chamber13. If

we look at the whole phrase as a compound, we can extract the meaning of epithalamium (gr.)

which is a nuptial poem honoring the wedded couple.

Each word stands in a series of possible relations with all the others in the text. The pun is

the tool for all-pervading ambiguity, by which two, three or even more different etymological

roots are combined in such a way that a single phrase can set up a node of different meanings.

11 Eco, Umberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1900 and A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1979.12 The semantic analysis of the pun found on the web site Glosses of Finnegans Wake. Retrieved on 2011-12-07 from http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1/1024finn1.htm13 The semantic analysis of the pun found on web site Glosses of Finnegans Wake. Retrieved on 2011-12-07 from http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter2/1024finn2.htm

Each meaning in turn interrelates with other local allusions, which are open to new probabilities

of interpretation.

In his effort to reorganize the English language, Joyce invented thousands of new words,

almost all of which are based on the same etymological principles as the standard English. It is

well known that he read etymological dictionaries for pleasure. His addiction to word derivation

resulted in word synthesis. These synthetic words are mostly the problem words and require

much more deciphering. Harry Burrell pointed out that “the process of Wakean logic consists of a

string of associations mirroring actual brain activity” [Burrel, 1996:2]. Often the associations are

words which when pronounced sound similar, but whose meanings are logically unrelated.

Burrell illustrated this by giving an example from Finnegans Wake: “The only man was ever

known could eat the crushts of lobsters” [Joyce, 2000:624]. This would sound like an ordinary

English sentence, with the exception of “crushts”. If we understand that crusts are lobster shells,

it is difficult to connect it with the behavior of the man. Burrell’s discussion further implies that

whenever eating or food is mentioned in the Wake, it is a reference to the forbidden fruit.

Following his explanation, a lobster is equated to an earwig, which in turn represents the biblical

Serpent. Furthermore, eating crushed fruit seems sinful and therefore results in the Fall.

C o n c l u s i o n. The difficulty of Joyce's language in Finnegans Wake, its

unnaturalness confronts readers and forces them into a certain relationship to the words. It is not

just a case of trying harder, of making that Sisyphus' endless effort to match Joyce's own effort in

the writing. It is, rather, a case of recognizing altered relationships between language and

meaning, between the word as that which it refers to and the word as an element within a

particular set of oppositions, within the particular structure that is language.

It is a commonplace in Joyce criticism that the primary structural model for Finnegans

Wake is the web, or network. Furthermore, the Wake is a network of “a jigsaw puzzle” [Ibid.,

210], “a cryptogam” [Ibid., 261] or “holocryptogam” [Joyce, 2000:546], a game of hide- and-

seek or “cash-cash” [Ibid., 24]14, "punns and reedles" [Joyce, 2000:239] or “a rebus” [Ibid., 12],

the solutions to which are forever escaping man's understanding. Taking such complexity into

consideration, the Wake demands a special reading strategy. As John Bishop points out, such

14 Fr. Cache-cache: hide and seek

strategy abandons a “sequential progression along the printed line” in favor of reading “a

sortilege”:

I have only been practicing on Finnegans Wake a kind of textually self-endorsed “Sortes

Virgilianae” (281.R2), where the phrase refers to a traditionally long-standing, if odd

kind of reading procedure called “Sortes Virgilianae” (L. “Virgilian fortune-telling”). A

Western version of the I Ching, Virgilian sortilege licenses the eager reader who seeks

light in personal affairs to open his Virgil “at random” and “volve the virgil page” (270)

– begin interpreting whatever line he hits upon “ad lib” (583, 302). [Bishop, 1986:305]

Someone may object that the application of this method takes the terms out of context,

but Bishop’s reply is that they are the context. What needs to be noted in all of this is the unique

importance of Joyce's conception of the reader-writer, producer-consumer relationship, which is

referred to in following sentence of the Wake: "His producers are they not his consumers?"

[Joyce, 2000:497]. The Joycean writer comes to be replaced by the reader who rewrites the text

– the reader as a poet related to processes of coding, to pursuing transverse references and to the

ability of multi-media perception:

The prouts who will invent a writing there ultimately is the poeta, still more learned, who

discovered the raiding there originally. That's the point of eschatology our book of kills

reaches for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be coded can be

decorded if an ear aye seize what no eye ere grieved for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we

have occasioning cause causing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects.

[Ibid., 482-483]

The desire to capture the wide world on paper created the summaries from all major

cultural categories which were coded into Finnegans Wake. These categories include the lists of

the Irish literary great [Ibid., 256], the lists of the great composers [Joyce, 2000:360], the great

figures of ancient history [Ibid., 306-308], and the stories from Joyce's own collection Dubliners

[Ibid., 186-187]. The Wake is full of lists, and following the principle of redundancy, it is rare

that any item of any list appears only once in the Wake.

As all men go through life trying to find answers ("they are all there scraping along to

sneeze out a likelihood that will solve and salve life's robulous rebus" [Ibid., 12]), some men

struggle through Joyce's final book, again often with no certain answer. Like most of his

characters, Joyce's readers have a hard time with the riddles put to them. Yet the Wake's final

page promises that, through Anna Livia, the keys are somewhere given: “The keys to. Given!”

[Joyce, 2000:628] which will remove all difficulties, unlock all answers. For most readers of the

Wake, this, like the book as a whole, has to be taken on faith.

Literature:

Atherton 2009: The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans

Wake / James S. Atherton. SIU Press, 2009.

Bishop 1986: Joyce’s Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake / John Bishop. The University of

Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin, 1986

Burrell 1996: Narrative Design in Finnegans Wake / Harry Burrell. The University Press of

Florida, 1996.

Eco 1979: A Theory of Semiotics / Umberto Eco. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979.

Eco 1994: The Limits of Interpretation / Umberto Eco. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.

Hoeffner 1991: The Dictionary of Alchemy: From Maria Prophetissa to Isaac Newton / Mark

Hoeffner . Harper Collins. The Aquarian Press. London, 1991.

Joyce 2000: Finnegans Wake / James Joyce. Penguin Books. London, 2000.

Jung 1970: Psychology and Alchemy / C. G. Jung. 2nd. ed. (Transl. by R. F. C. Hull). "The

Collected Works of Jung" Vol. 12. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University

Press, 1970.

Jung 1999: Mysterium Coniunctionis / Karl Gustav Jung. Beograd: KD Atos, 1999.

Microsoft: Računarski rečnik. Prevod petog izdanja. CET.Beograd, 2003.

Mikami 2007: Ireland on Stage: Beckett and After / Hiroko Mikami, Minako Okamuro, and

Naoko Yagi. Carysfort Press. Ireland, 2007.

Norris 1978: The Decentered Universe of Finnegans Wake: a Structuralist Analysis / Margot

Norris. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978

Stewart 1990: Reading Voices: Literature and the Phonotext / Garrett Stewart. University of

California Press, 1990.

Web Sources:

Coagulation. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from http://www.alchemylab.com/coagulation.htm

Debra A. Lelewer and Daniel S. Hirschberg. Data Compression. Retrieved on 2011-11-11 from

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dan/pubs/DataCompression.html

Fermentation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10 from http://www.alchemylab.com/fermentation.htm

Seth Osburn. Seven: The Seven Stages of Alchemical Transformation. Retrieved on 2011-11-10

from http://www.planetshifter.com/node/119

Неда М. Мандић

ИДЕАЛНА ИНСОМНИЈА:АСПЕКТИ СТРУКТУРЕ И ТЕКСТУРЕ РОМАНА ФИНЕГАНОВО БДЕЊЕ

Овај рад се бави основним елементима структуре и тестуре Џојсовог херметичног

романа Финеганово бgење. Анализа обухвата сегменте алхемијске текстуре романа, која се

објашњава са аспекта основних полазишта Јунгове теорије изложене у његовим студијама

о алхемији и псилогији. Сам поступак анихилације лексичких јединица и њихове поновне

семантичке синтезе кореспондира са поступцима алхемичара који налазе своје еквиваленте

у савременим психолошким теоријама. Стога и Џојсове белешке (Work in Progress)

успостављају аналогије са процесом рада древног адепта.

Семантичке варијације и комбинације лексичких елемената сложене структуре

романа пореде се са процесима кодирања које користе савремене мреже информационих

технологија и компјутерских система, што пружа неограничен број могућности

интерпретације.

Анализом семиотичке структуре дела објашњава се текстуална мрежа асоцијација

које чине културни и психолошки контекст. Ова врста анализе ослања се на методе које је

користио Умберто Еко у свом делу Ограничења интерпретације (The Limits of

Interpretation). Метод интерпретације семиотичке структуре полази од премисе да свака

реч стоји у низу могућих релација са осталим лексемама у тексту. Стога су игре речима

средство свепрожимајућих двосмислености којим два, три или више етимолошких корена

комбинованих у једној лексичкој јединици стварају мрежу различитих значења.

Кључне речи: Џејмс Џојс, Финеганово бдење, алхемија, мрежа, игре речима,

семиотика.