Finnegans Wake

“riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius virus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”

Finnegans Wake begins in the middle of a sentence. The opening line encapsulates the novel’s ideas about the cyclical nature of life and death, pairing with the final line to form a complete loop. Just as HCE falls and is reborn as part of an ongoing cycle, the narrative itself becomes just as cyclical. The river continues to run, though the ensuing novel will explain why the river, Eve, Adam, and any phrase with the initials HCE—such as “Howth Castle and Environs” (3)—will be important.

“A baser meaning has been read into these characters the literal sense of which decency can safely scarcely hint.”

The characters’ descriptions and their roles in the novel are playfully ironic. Characters such as HCE and his family are so smothered in literary figurative language, in which they become other characters and historical figures at regular intervals, that trying to form a “baser meaning” or a “literal sense of decency” (33) regarding anything in the novel is almost impossible. In fact, the novel “can safely scarcely hint” (33) at the true depth and nuance in the narrative subtext.

“And not all the king’s men nor his horses / Will resurrect his corpus.”

The story of HCE’s crime becomes a local legend. It grows from a rumor to a gossip item to a folksong to a myth.