Interactive Finnegans Wake Notebook Page An Interactive Finnegans
Wake Notebook Page
Contributions from actual visitors to this obscure page!
The study of James Joyce's notebooks and drafts used in the composition of Finnegans Wake is currently one of the most exciting areas of Joyce studies. This is because there is a great deal of ongoing transcriptive and annotative work being done on the vast assortment of manuscript materials.Because Finnegans Wake is such a communal polyphony it isoften best read in a group setting where a wide range of individual perspectives and knowledge can be brought to bear. The same is true when studying the notebooks. These records of Joyce's creative process are as diverse and complicated as the Wake itself (not to mention frequently illegible) and demand the abilitiesof a world community. It is in this spirit that I invite you to join in helping to decipher and annotate the following page (chosen semi-randomly) from Joyce's notebooks.
Below is page 94 from notebook VI.B.14. Danis Rose (in The Textual Diaries of James Joyce) has recently dated this notebook from August to late November of 1924. Though it contains a typically diverse range of material there are extensive clusters of notes on St. Patrick, Brittany, and Oscar Wilde. For more detailed information on its compostion and contents, see David Hayman's introduction to JamesJoyce Archive Volume 32.
Click on the page itself to see a larger (and hopefully clearer)version.
Or simply click on one of the arrows to the right of my tentative transcriptions to view and comment on that particular item.
rosary of bread in milk soup 
hairpins in bed
widow, potbeating,
money after wake for dead
la pleurade
S.P. if I can't upset the {x}
Mt.-- I'll sit upon it {x}
jeu de massacre
assback roof {x}
Trema dianesse
low Irish (W)
high Irish (E)
J suis un sot breton
12' haut
{Shaun siglum} accordian
writing he was {x}
{Issy siglum} sits on coif to iron it
Please use this form to submit any initial responses to this transcription:
bjork@binc.net