Lists and Water Genie Talk in Finnegans Wake

Among the jumble of incoherent words in Finnegans Wake are numerous lists. A list of rivers can be found on page 196. Another example can be found on page 169, and goes like this.

"Shem's bodily getup, it seems, included an adze of a skull, an eight of a larkseye, the whoel of a nose, one numb arm up a sleeve, fortytwo hairs off his uncrown, eighteen to his mock lip, a trio of barbels from his megageg chin (snowman's son), the wrong shoulder higher than the right, all ears, an artificial tongue with a natural curl, not a foot to stand on, a handful of thumbs, a blind stomach, a deaf heart, a loose liver, two fifths of two buttocks, one gleesten avoirdupoider for him, a manroot of all evil, a salmonkelt's thinskin, eelsblood in his cold toes, a bladder tristended..."

Although lists have a tendency to be tedious, I didn't find them to be tedious at all in this novel simply because they are so abstract. Joyce's unique use of adjectives and abstract notions catches one's attention and actually makes them interesting. Another author who uses a lot of lists in his works is Vladimir Nabokov. There is the example of the classlist in Lolita, as well as numerous lists of relatives and events in his biography. Lists and inventory can also be linked to the Water Genie in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Lists can be found throughout literature.