A way a lone a last a loved a long the
The identification of the speaker of the closing line of the novel is really not that important. Characterization is not the novel’s strong point or, for that matter much of any point at all. This is not critique; this is directly from the mouth of the author. Why begin with this section on quotes from the novel with the final words? Because as opposed to characters, words mean everything. If Finnegans Wake is “about” anything, it is about words and wordplay and that is why an examination—however superficial—should rightly begin at the end. Because, in typical Joycean style, the end is not really the end.
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Neither is the beginning really the beginning. They are both together forever enjoined as one, existing outside the traditional and conventional notion of time. Put the final words of the novel in front of the opening of the words of the novel and see if they make sense. Spoiler alert: they do, but only, of course, in a Joycean sense of the concept of making sense. “A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”
Believe it or not, the end is the beginning (those familiar with Pink Floyd’s epic album The Wall will feel a sense of familiarity here) and within the mind of James Joyce and his dedicated readers, when stitched together in proper order, the stream of consciousness monologue by Anna Livia Plurabelle’s mind pursues without full conscious intent really does make sense in a way that these sentences make sense. Perhaps even the stitching process fails to bring out the sensibility to a great many, but do not let that bother you at all. It is the whole point of the existence of Finnegans Wake, after all.
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
One of the word games that Joyce was fascinated in playing in the novel is the pursuit of the longest word in the English language. Of course, unless a word invented by an author makes it way into lexicon of common usage—however rarely it might actually be engaged—it does not really become a word. Thus, even though this particular 100-letter indulgence is often situated among Joyce’s devotees as an example of one of the longest words in the English language, it is not authenticated as such.
It is also worth noting that anyone can stuff a bunch of letters up against each other and refer to the result of a word, but unless those letters in combination actually mean something, it remains one-hundred percent gibberish. Let us be kind and describe these one-hundred letters as 99% gibberish with the remaining 1% barely clinging to the author’s intended definition: the sound of the thunderclap accompanying the fall of Adam and Eve from the paradise of the Garden of Eden.
