First, I'm just throwing around ideas here. Its such a complicated multi-faceted thing, I dont know if it can be reduced to a defined set of causes.
I dont know, I've read the first few pages of Finnegans Wake, and it seems like a lark to me. Maybe its written with heart and soul, but I had a terrible feeling in the few pages I read that Joyce was laughing at the reader attempting to decipher that particular book. he sure didnt write it for common people to read it. I cant remember the person who said it, but essentially the idea was to be considered a respected author of literature, one had to write to the professors not the people. I think Finnegans Wake is an example. And was it harder to write than the Divine Comedy? War and Peace? Paradise Lost, etc?
(By hard I meant that it is the most difficult work to read, not to write.)
If you continue to read I think you will change your mind about The Wake being "a lark". I do understand why few people would want to read a work which takes months of serious effort to get through, written in something that seems to be a whole new language. But for me there are such few works of literature that I really enjoy and for them I have all the time in the world. And why should books be written for common people?
Here speed, is the ending of Finnegans Wake, when the river joins the ocean. Very straightforward and beautiful:
"But I’m loothing them that’s here and all I lothe. Loonely in me loneness. For all their faults. I am passing out. O bitter ending! I’ll slip away before they’re up. They’ll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it’s old and old it’s sad and old it’s sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I’ll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he’d come from Arkangels, I sink I’d die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There’s where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous-endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given ! A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."
Hey, that passage is nice. It seems to make much more sense than the first few lines in the book, which I have tried to decipher over the internet not too long ago; seemed like a little too much for me, though. I respect everyone who read that, really. It takes, what, over a year to read that? I guess nothing can ontologically disclose Being (
) and be readable at the same time, but oh well...
It won't take that long if you allow yourself to use some guidance.
To disclose being the work needn’t be hard, but it might need to trigger a feeling of strangeness or freshness in the reader. Just look at the word use in The Wake, almost every word contains many possible meanings (as all words do, really) through Joyce’s punning and that forces the reader to step back and see the words in a different light, create a different relation to language than one normally has, because normally it just is. But don’t take this as an extremely short example of a Heideggerian analysis of Finnegans Wake, I’m no expert on Heidegger myself (and read him more from an artist’s point of view) and I shy away from the use of philosophical or ideological jargon when discussing literature. Sometimes it fulfils a purpose, but most of the time the work gets raped in the process.
I'm currently reading The Notebooks of Maulte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke. I highly recommend it to Nile, Kmik and Murphy. Its a poetic, better written, and deeper version of Nausea about Being, without the philosophy. Very intriguing style as well--part poetry, part essay, all conjoined with a sort of first person narrative that really doesnt follow any specific timeline.
I have it on my bookshelf, but I've not yet read it. I did truly like Rilke's poetry when younger, especially some of the Elegies. I will check it out.
Now Reading: Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth - oh, this is interesting. Not the greatest stylist and some of the dick-and-vagiyna mania can become tedious, but one great character (Mr Sabbath himself), some wonderful parodies/paraphrases (Joyce and Shakespeare), some great fun and a beautful Beckett-taken-american-style-encounter with Mr Fish makes for a really good book.
Lolita: I can't understand how so many people can rave so much about the first paragraph (Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, etc). Yes, some cool alliterations, but what more? I'm not saying it's bad, but so good? It's also strange how he can get away with so much bad, flowery and vulgar imagery. The novel in itself is intruging and I might come back to this when I've read further than a 100 pages.
). By the beanbag is The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins, along with The Wheel of the Year by Teresa Moorey. For the ads, you know. Just a little light theoretical genetics and/or Pagan theosophy. 
