Joyce’s
Book of the Dark
Finnegans Wake
John Bishop
“This magnificent, exhilarating book advances the state
of the art of Joyce study. Bishop gives us a meaning for the Wake that is in many respects truer and more delightful
than any we have had. Moreover, he presents a cornucopia of specific
insights, and does so with a stylistic method as original as
his ideas and as well suited to Wake criticism.”
—Sheldon
Brivic, James Joyce Quarterly
“Mr. Bishop has ventured on the process
more boldly, more thoroughly, more imaginatively and more informedly
than any of his predecessors. He makes the text comment on itself,
as it was constructed to do; but, knowing the whole thing by
heart (as I surmise), he is able to multiply a thousandfold the
concords and discords of which a reader is aware, and to amplify
them through an impressive array of theoretical circuitry.”
—Robert
M. Adams, New York Times Book Review
“
Joyce’s Book of the Dark gives us such a blend of
exciting intelligence and impressive erudition that it will surely
become established as one of the most fascinating and readable Finnegans Wake studies now available.”
—Margot
Norris, James Joyce Literary Supplement
“Though it is well known that Joyce claimed that his intention
in Finnegans Wake was to ‘reconstruct the nocturnal life,’ Bishop
is the first scholar to see in this notion the key to Joyce’s
wildly obscure masterpiece. His reading of Finnegans Wake as a night-book produces a new sense of the book’s form, shape,
and structure. In his reading, Freud, Vico, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead take on new meaning, and his accounts
of the geography and sexuality of the Wake are fascinating.
Bishop brings a rare command of the text to his difficult enterprise,
and the organization and prose are models of clarity. ‘You is
feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy?’ Joyce’s Book
of the Dark will help all serious readers of the Wake get
their bearings.”
—Keith Cushman, Library Journal
John Bishop is associate professor of English at the
University of California, Berkeley.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)
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December 1993
LC: 86-040045 PR
496 pp. 8 x 10
The cloth edition, ISBN-10: 0-299-10820-5, is out of print.
“Bishop shows a masterful command of the
text and its nuances; but of even greater importance is his sense
of the comic flair and wit that so distinguishes this ‘funferall’;
it is the mark of a true Joycean. Because of its freshness of
approach and positive contribution, it belongs in all libraries
housing even a preliminary Wake collection.”
—Choice
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