Finnegans, Wake! : January 2024

28-Year Book Club Conquers Literary Everest

Gains National Attention

Press Event: Reunion Party is Set for Friday, February 2, 2024, Venice, CA, on the birthday of James Joyce

Jan. 18, 2024 - (Venice Beach, CA) For many, reading Finnegans Wake would be a daunting undertaking. But after 28 years of perseverance, the Marshall McLuhan/Finnegans Wake Reading Club (a.k.a Venice Wake) in Venice Beach has finally reached the last page of James Joyce's infamous and widely considered unreadable novel. It took 28 years to read a novel that Joyce took 17 years to write!

Location:
Venice - Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library
501 S. Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291
https://www.lapl.org/branches/venice

We invite you to celebrate community & literature evoked by this line written by James Joyce from Finnegans Wake (p.154): "Let me be Los Angeles."

The book group will begin again on Friday, February 2, at 1:00 P.M.

Book club founder Gerry Fialka (Wikipedia) will read aloud the last and first lines of Finnegans Wake restarting the book where he began his book club 28 years ago beginning mid-sentence:

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.

Available for Reporters/Editors:

Archival Video Footage of the Venice 'Finnegan Wake’ book club in action on YouTube (Courtesy of book-club member Duncan Echleson):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o_s2m-oUlE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa-xa8fLy2Y&t=28s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM5lOcpzLQM&t=19s

To learn more about the Marshall McLuhan/Finnegans Wake Reading Club (a.k.a Venice Wake), visit https://LaughTears.com/McLuhanWake.html

"Fialka brings his distinctive approach. My phone interview with him lasted one hour and eight minutes, and its zigs, zags, and sheer velocity were unmatched in my nearly 20-year journalism career. Was I writing about Finnegans Wake, or was I suddenly inside it?" - Lois Beckett, The Guardian 11-12-23 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/12/california-venice-book-club-finngeans-wake-28-years

Marshall McLuhan/Finnegans Wake Reading Club is an independent, unaffiliated public-service literary group. Not a part of the LAPL.org. Free admission.

Book-club founder Gerry Fialka available for interviews on request at pfsuzy@aol.com

Recent NEWS articles about the Venice Wake's record-setting 28-year read-a-thon:

The Guardian (Sunday edition, called The Observer)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/12/california-venice-book-club-finngeans-wake-28-years

The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/11/16/finnegans-wake-book-club-california

and

[Finnegans, Wake! blog]
https://finwakeatx.blogspot.com/2023/11/guardian-observer-celebrates-galaxy-of.html

and

Mental Floss
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/book-club-reading-james-joyce-finnegans-wake-30-years

and NEW YORK TIMES
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/books/finnegans-wake-james-joyce-venice-book-club.html

and RADIO:

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/venice-book-club-humperdinck-indigenous/finnegans-wake

and

https://www.wbur.org/npr/1213890392/this-book-club-finally-finished-finnegans-wake-it-only-took-them-28-years

and