My advice is to treat Finnegan's Wake not as story to sit down and read but as a massive collection of jokes and experiments mixing together languages and stories and meanings.
There is a section, for example, that mixes something like the inventory of a pantry with a sexual encounter, so if you read it out loud you seem to be listing off various food products, but somehow underneath it all... something else it going on.
It's best to read out loud IMO because above all else it sounds funny. It's playful and silly and fun, so if you sit quietly and try to make sense of it you will miss the point.
There is a section, for example, that mixes something like the inventory of a pantry with a sexual encounter, so if you read it out loud you seem to be listing off various food products, but somehow underneath it all... something else it going on.
It's best to read out loud IMO because above all else it sounds funny. It's playful and silly and fun, so if you sit quietly and try to make sense of it you will miss the point.