I began reading Alan Moore’s Jerusalem this time last year. The book clocks in at a hefty 1,266 pages, and while it’s never been a slog, it has been a slow-going read until I found myself in the current chapter, which is all in Finnegan’s Wake Joyce-speak. My reading has dropped to a crawl, and the experience alternates between confounding and delightful, sometimes both simultaneously. Consequently, I’m having trouble following the chapter’s plot because my brain is working overtime to parse what I’m reading. And as an unanticipated side effect, my brain is still in Joyce mode when I read standard prose, making reading all the more magical.
