The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

James Joyce's use of ten one hundred-letter words in Finnegans Wake has always been an intriguing feature of that novel. Eric McLuhan takes a new by placing the Wake in the tradition of Menippean satire, where language is used to shock and provoke. Seen in this light, Joyce's peculiar language and style become part of this Menippean tradition through his use of the linguistic 'thunderclap'.

The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake is the first book to examine this strangest and most prominent aspect of the language of the Wake, and explain its use in the context of classical Greek literature. Each thunderclap is a resonating logos that represents a transformation of human culture. McLuhan presents the thunders as encoding Joyce's study of ten major communications revolutions, ranging from neolithic technologies such as speech and fire, through cities, the railroad, and print, to radio, movies, and television. Seen in this fashion, Finnegans Wake is both an encyclopedia of the effects of technology in reshaping human culture and society, and a complete training course for detecting the changes in sensibility occasioned by new media.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press; 1 edition (May 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802009239
• ISBN-13: 978-0802009234
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,592,746 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Firmly places the Wake in the tradition of Menippean satire, October 28, 1997

By A Customer

The bibliography alone is worth the price. Prof. McLuhan describes the Menippean tradition beginning with Lucian and traces a continuous line to Joyce. He describes the breakdown of the Greek Logos into the Trivium, and how the ratio between Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic (and the culture itself) changes under the influence of technology. He shows how Joyce uses the thunders as rhetorical gestures enacting the transformation of culture by technological metaphor using textual context and multilingual etymology. Sounds horribly stiff, perhaps; its really much more fun (and much freer) than most over-conceptualized scholarship.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finnegans Wake's Thunderwords analysed, June 1, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Minneapolis, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This book make FW a bit less obscure. First he narrows his focus to the ten 100-letter Thunderwords in FW and shows that, like DNA in a chromosome, each Thunder contains all the themes of its section in microcosm. (find the Joseph Campbell on Finnegans Wake video and hear him read the first thunderword for the full effect) Second, he fits FW in the genre of Minippean satire, so its disorderly mess has a bit of company on the bookshelf. Hey, "Every artist creates his own precursors", Borges wrote. When I went to school, it was Horatian and Juvenalian, nice and nasty, Garison Keillor vs Howard Stern. Well, now there's room for Tristram Shandy and Frank Zappa, too. A good entree to the subject.

trivia: The author's dad was the guy Alvy Singer produced to silence the movieline bore in Annie Hall.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can an entire book that explains 10 words be fun to read?, December 30, 2003

By A Customer

Yes I said yes. (Now and then I realize how esoteric my books about Joyce and "Finnegans Wake" are.) Anyway, Marshall McLuhan's kid Eric dove headlong into the Frey oops fray and came up with a winner. "FW" takes place on a Thursday, as does "Ulysses." And Feb. 2, 1882, was a Thor's Day too. Oh my gosh...how does one write a review of this book. I guess it's for Joyce fans, or those who have read "Finnegans Wake" more than once. To me, reading "about" the Wake is as fun as reading the Wake. "Oh; THAT'S what that means!!" Let's face it, we all need a lot of help. If you've seen the paperback "War and Peace in the Global Village"---where, I think, the page called "What the thunders said..." is found---you'll have a headstart. Enough! or too much. Thanks, Eric McLuhan.