Saturday, March 6, 2010

30 Words from Finnegans Wake

I have decided on the 30 words (38 actually) that I am going to memorize from Finnegans Wake. Unfortunately I won't be there to present in class, but will be taking part in the riverrrun project to make up for it.

My passage is from page 213 and goes as follows:

"Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every telling has a taling and that's the he and she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing. My branches lofty are taking root."

I chose this section because I feel like it is quite pertinent to the class, or that at least it can be decipher in such a way to make it pertinent to the themes of the class. "Every telling has a taling," to me, seems to imply that behind every story that has ever been told, there is some sort of fictitious element or "tale." This could pertain to literature or a story that a friend simply tells another friend. His "branches lofty taking root" could be his story beginning to take hold. The themes that I see most within this little section are Life as Myth and Dream and Life as Fiction. If every story has some bases on a "non-truth" so to speak, than how can life be based on truth. The elements of fiction that accompany every story culminate into a life more based on fiction than "truth," if there even is such a thing. Truth is something that is in the eye of the beholder, and that varies from person to person. Therefore, the stories that they tell and the things that talk about, hold some sort of subjectivism and lack in absolute "truth."

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