James Joyce Reading Finnegans Wake (w/Subtitles)

This is an animation i made of James Joyce's bust in Stephens Green, Dublin. The same audio is on youtube already but it doesn't have subtitles so i figured it would make more sense to have a version with the words included since you're missing half the story if you listen to the audio just by itself. The talking head part... the plan was to only add the subtitles at first but then i just got carried away, as you do.

The audio (recorded in 1929) is of James Joyce reading the Anna Livia Plurabelle section of Finnegans Wake. It's a chattering dialogue between two washer women who as night falls become a tree and a stone.
(pages 213-216, or the last few pages of part 1)

[catdogbirds]

Ask an old Irishman for directions in the west of Ireland and you'll hear something similar to this.

[mirandac]

Just when you think it's too boring/ridiculous/indulgent it gets unbelievably beautiful

[ThePapasmurf]

What Joyce wrote was poetry, not prose, meant to be read with that particular Irish inflection and lilt. As you read, let his voice come into your head. Then it becomes more meaningful and shines more brightly..

[vector]

This is a gem. I should return via commodious vicus to this daily

[nordiskkatt]

It is astonishing how much more sense the text makes when read out loud by someone who has the cadence and rhythm of Hibernian English! It feels significantly more accessible like this. So regrettable that he didn't record the entire thing.

[joeundrenoikue]

Come here every Feb 2 for my favorite authors birthday — happy trails Mr Joyce!

[soundgravitation]

Delightful. For anyone who struggles with the later Joyce, here is a perfect opening to the riches within. Thank you.

[michaelsieger]

Thank you! The ranks of the philistines will always deride this work as recondite at best or nonsensical at worst. They think it a failed attempt at innovating a novel form of prose. But once we hear the language in Joyce's mouth, we suddenly get the sense of a lost and ancient style of expression. It is arcane only because it is old and forgotten. We hear the spirits of his ancestors speaking through him; he is merely a vessel for the fragile and fading soul of a forgotten culture. There is nothing pyrotechnical or indulgent in his attempt to preserve these traditions. There is only the aching sense of something deeply atavistic in these lines.

[LongDriveChamp]

that last paragraph will always give me chills.

[StonyMcSorrow]

Lovely animation, and hearing how soulfully Joyce reads this I can now read the damn thing without the feeling that he was just taking the mickey.

[burningrabbitacres]

This is brilliant. I am awed. I am 70. You rocked my tiny world, just as the author did. Blessings....

[RussellWard]

This is captivating rendition... I've just rereturned to FW and went searching for the speaking of it as it was the speaking of it round midnight in Sydney years ago round Bloomsday that gave me a flavor of its humor that made the book less bookheavy and more lightly lively. The talking head and the words is such an effective means of sharing the unique wonder of this dreamwork.

[SassyNiamh]

Really reminds me of the old scealtoirs in the corner of the pub in the early hours of the morning! Beautiful. True Irish storytelling!

[maybole]

I think he said it all and the book keeps saying it to this day. Parts of it makes me cry

[human.yoohoo]

imagine having the video of him reading this into a microphone. especially when he says, "you deed, you deed, I need, I need"

[DrWetness]

So it's supposed to be read in an Irish accent, makes much more sense now

[ellawelly]

words don't often make me tingle like this!

[martincook]

Thank you. This is truly a labour of love and very beautiful.

[cadoganwest]

He is reading the Anna Livia Plurabelle section about two old washer women washing clothes along the Liffey, in it all the rivers of the world are mentioned in homage. The new language in FW is basically one word invades another word full of puns and uses 60 different languages. The first part is about early Irish history Battle of Clontarf, Brian Boru ambushed in the bath (Tolka river), Finnegan was a brick layer who fell off a ladder and in the fall has a dream, a comic history of Ireland. The next section is about his wife Anna Livia Plurabelle, and his sons Shem and Shaun. A leitmotif HCE keeps appearing in the book, can be Having children everywhere, or Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker etc an archetype. FW is a comic novel written in dense puns.

[boodabill]

Brilliantly conceived and created. What a puurfeect way to feel FW.