I've only read passages here and there. It is more or less gibberish. It's impossible to understand without either a) a guide that will decipher it for you more or sentence by sentence, or b) spending thousands of hours digging up references, decoding puns in obscure languages, and cross references the occasional phrase that does make some sense.

The only people I know who have read it completely, have confessed to me that they've forced themselves through it just to be able to say they've read it. I think that's the wrong reason to read a book. Personally I get nauseous if I read too many words without understanding, so I wouldn't be able to do the same.

Of course it's extremely clever and original. It's lyrical, abstract, and fanciful. But I think it's not as good as Ulysses or the Dubliners, and doesn't reflect the human experience as clearly. I would say 'The Dead' from Dubliners is superior to the whole of Finnegans Wake. I wish Joyce had spent those seventeen years writing several less ambitious works, but of course who am I to judge his genius?