Growing up and Growing Down in Finnegans Wake

This essay considers how the reader’s experience of moving through Finnegans Wake is patterned by diversion: the work invites exploration of the twisting paths of fantasy worlds and fantasy words. It is then proposed that Finnegans Wake allies contrasting states and styles, such as the adult and the childlike, or the explicit and the elusive. This essay shows how moving between these aspects involves transgressions, and goes on to consider Joyce’s handling of erotics and playfulness, while also discussing the work’s power seemingly to infantilise. This leads to a consideration of repetition and the unfolding of multiple selves and ages. Finally, the author suggests that the games Finnegans Wake plays may be distracting, and highlights the importance of misreading and error, which collaborate in the staging of an imagined return to the childlike.