Finnegans Wake is one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon.There are four Parts or Books and seventeen chapters total in Finnegans Wake. The chapters lack titles, and while Joyce didn't offer potential chapter titles as he had for Ulysses, he did give titles to several portions that were published separately. Part 1: Dublin hod carrier "Finnegan," Joyce's central figure, perishes after falling from a ladder while building a wall. HCE's wife ALP accuses him of being a scam after having her son Shem transcribe a letter about him and give it to another son Shaun. Part 2: The primary protagonists are Shem, Shaun, and Issy, who are banished from their home by their parents after they misjudged the color of a girl's eyes based on their "gaze work." HCE is a Norwegian Captain who, via his marriage to a tailor's daughter, became domesticated. Part 3: The Four Masters' Ass describes how he believed he had heard and seen Shaun the Post's ghost while he was "falling asleep." Part 4: The book is written as a collection of short stories, and it opens with a plea for daybreak. The river Liffey, represented by ALP, flows into the ocean at dawn to mark the end of Part IV.
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was a Irish novelist, poet, and learned critic. James Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland on 2 February 1882. He was the eldest son of John Stanislaus Joyce and Marry Murray Joyce. From the age of six, Joyce was educated by Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College, at Clane, and then at Belvedere College in Dublin (1893-97). In 1898, he admitted in the University College, Dublin. Joyce's first printing was an essay on Ibsen's play When We Dead Awaken. After graduation Joyce went to Paris, where he worked as a journalist, teacher and in other jobs under tough financial conditions. He left Dublin in 1904 with Nora Barnacle, a maidservant who he married in 1931. One of the most powerful and innovative writers of the 20th century, James Joyce was the author of the short story compilation Dubliners (1914) and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). His compilations of poetry include Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927). His landmark book, Ulysses, is often renowned as one of the finest novels ever written. His investigation of language and new literary forms showed not only his genius as a writer but generate a fresh approach for novelists. He expired at the age of 59 on 13 January 1941, at the Schwesternhause von Roten Kreuz Hospital.
