Originally published in 1977. The pioneer critics of Finnegans Wake hailed the work as a radical critique of language and civilization. Resuming their position, Margot Norris explains the book's most intractable uncertainties not as puzzles to be solved by a clever reader but as manifestations of a "chaosmos," a Freudian dream world of sexual transgression and social dissolution, of inauthentic being and empty words. Conventional moralities and restraints are under siege in this chaosmos, where precisely those desires and ...
Read More
Originally published in 1977. The pioneer critics of Finnegans Wake hailed the work as a radical critique of language and civilization. Resuming their position, Margot Norris explains the book's most intractable uncertainties not as puzzles to be solved by a clever reader but as manifestations of a "chaosmos," a Freudian dream world of sexual transgression and social dissolution, of inauthentic being and empty words. Conventional moralities and restraints are under siege in this chaosmos, where precisely those desires and forbidden wishes that are barred in waking thought strive to make themselves felt. Norris demonstrates convincingly that the protean characters of Finnegans Wake are the creatures of a dreaming mind. The teleology of their universe is freedom, and in the enduring struggle between the individual's anarchic psyche and the laws that make civilization possible, it is only in dream that the psyche is triumphant. It is as dream rather than as novel that Norris reads Finnegans Wake. The lexical deviance and semantic density of the book, Norris argues, are not due to Joyce's malice, mischief, or megalomania but are essential and intrinsic to his concern to portray man's inner state of being. Because meanings are dislocated-hidden in unexpected places, multiplied and split, given over to ambiguity, plurality, and uncertainty-the Wake, Norris claims, represents a decentered universe. Its formal elements of plot, character, discourse, and language are not anchored to any single point of reference; they do not refer back to center. Only by abandoning conventional frames of reference can readers allow the work to disclose its own meanings, which are lodged in the differences and similarities of its multitudinous elements. Eschewing the close explication of much Wake criticism, the author provides a conceptual framework for the work's large structures with the help of theories and methods borrowed from Freud, Heidegger, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, and Derrida. Looking at the work without novelistic expectations of the illusion of some "key" to unlock the mystery, Norris explores Joyce's rationale for committing his last human panorama-a bit sadder than Ulysses in its concern with aging, killing, and dying-to a form and language belonging to the deconstructive forces of the twentieth century.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Decentered Universe of 'Finnegans Wake': a to cart. $54.30, poor condition, Sold by Anybook rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lincoln, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1976 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has soft covers. Clean From Markings In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 300grams, ISBN: 0801821487.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $19.31, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $19.31, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $21.74, good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Pre.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $32.50, good condition, Sold by Montclair Book Center rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Montclair, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $36.50, very good condition, Sold by Satellite Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Burlington, VT, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $58.33, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Santa Clarita, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University P.
Add this copy of Decentered Universe of Finnegan's Wake: a Structuralist to cart. $106.99, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1978 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
