Ladies and Gentlemen,
Here are some notes
on Finnegans Wake—“a bag-man’s babble, a bomb site, a druid’s curse on
Rome, an Irishman’s revenge on English,” etc.
I’ve got a fair bit o’ the Irish in meself, as I confess in My
Racial Profile.
Which may account for my positive outlook: Joyce
said yes, Becket said no.
On the other hand, Joyce
made a dubious choice.
Beckett? I prefer Pinter.
It’s all in the
book, if you like books.
Casanova, or rather Casanova’s
descendant, is trying to get a lecturer appointment at Oxbridge, when
he makes the mistake of defending Finnegans Wake: “It’s a bit of an
avalanche—a comic monologue—a barroom rant—a
child’s private language. The one thing it’s not—is serious.”
Uh-oh. You want a job, you gotta be serious.
Bob
Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a film reviewer, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.
“I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.”
💗
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