Review: Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Mr. James Joyce's extraordinary philological fantasia, Finnegans Wake, raises once more the question; "What is the chief object of a man of genius in writing? It is clear that Mr. Joyce got great pleasure from expressing himself in Finnegans Wake, but it is equally clear that he made no attempt to enable other people to understand him. If he thought of his possible readers at all as he wrote, he must have done so only in the mood of an ingenious Torquemada who makes things, not as easy as possible, but as difficult as possible, for the would be solvers of his crossword puzzles. The fact is, he has constructed the most difficult puzzle in the history of literature, a puzzle that, I think, will never be completely solved without the aid of Mr. Joyce himself.