Joyce's Kaleidoscope: An Invitation to Finnegans Wake Book

Kitcher intriguingly titles his book on Finnegans Wake an "invitation". I think this title is only partially warranted. The primary function of the book is to provide a well-defended interpretation of the overarching theme of the book, and to explain how the book realizes that theme. Kitcher is focused on the primary questions Finnegans Wake raises and addresses (his philosophical training means that his descriptions of the nuances of these issues are especially lucid). In its capacity as an interpretation, I am not yet a fit judge (having read the Wake only once), and in that respect I think it is misleading to view the book as an invitation. The answers Kitcher gives to various interpretive questions can only be assessed by someone reasonably familiar with the book already. With that said, I do want to note that, based on my one reading, I think Kitcher's interpretation is quite plausible. Frequently, while reading his book, I was struck by the sensation that Kitcher was making explicit my general thoughts upon reading Joyce (and not just the Wake). So, while I cannot be positive yet, I am inclined to think that this is quite a good interpretation of the Wake'at the very least a challenging one that deserves consideration even if it is to be rejected.

So much for the negative side of "only partially warranted." I think that there are three chapters (5-7) of Kitcher's book that are a magnificent "invitation" to the Wake. They do not focus on interpretation but on a general strategy for reading the Wake, about how to think about its construction and what emphasis to put on the peculiar language used. Before reading the Wake, I read a good handful of critical essays and a couple books about Joyce's entire oeuvre. While reading the Wake, I used McHugh's Annotations and Epstein's Guide. Most were helpful in various ways. But it was only when, halfway through the Wake, I read those three chapters of Kitcher's book that I really felt like I knew what I was doing with Joyce's strange book. My suggestion to intrepid readers, then, would be to read just those three chapters of Kitcher before diving into the fun at Finnegans Wake, and then to move forward with the Wake itself, returning to the rest of the Kitcher only after completing the Wake.