Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ Takes Off in China

BEIJING â€" From Auckland in the east to San Francisco in the west, through Shanghai, Dublin and New York, this year’s Bloomsday will sweep around the world, for the first time featuring an entire online reading of James Joyce’s most celebrated work, “Ulysses” in more than two dozen cities and multiple continents.

The mostly live readings to mark the Global Bloomsday Gathering on June 16, which celebrates the day in the life of the novel’s main character, Leopold Bloom, will begin at 9 p.m. Irish time on Saturday (8 a.m. Auckland time on Sunday, on Bloomsday itself), said the organizers, the James Joyce Center in Dublin.

“Early on in Ulysses, Bloom reflects on what it would be like to accompany the sun in its progress through the day: ‘Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically,’ ” The Irish Times wrote this week.

The readings can be heard on a Web site, www.globalbloomsday.com, and reflect the title of a novel on the fictitious Mr. Bloom’s bookshelf, “In the Track of the Sun,” it said.

“Hearing Ulysses read in all these multiple voices and multiple accents, living exemplars of the book’s own multiple voices and styles, its huge variety and range of linguistic expression, should be an inspiring experience,” the newspaper wrote.

The event is “a terrific opportunity to show the world just how wide reaching the legacy of James Joyce and our Irish cultural heritage extends,” the center’s general manager, Mark Traynor, said on its Web site.

“From the beginning we’ve had a tremendous response from Joyce groups around the world â€" both big and small who were eager to participate in the project. It’s a kind of virtual gathering â€" a free, accessible way for people all over the globe to celebrate the work of one of Ireland’s most iconic figures,” he said.

Here in China, the first four pages of Chapter 9 will be read by Dai Congrong in Shanghai (there will also be a reading in Beijing) â€" though the translator of Joyce’s most difficult work, “Finnegans Wake,” says her contribution was prerecorded earlier this month. “I just sat down and read the book and someone recorded and also videoed it,” she said by telephone from Shanghai, where she is a professor of Chinese Literature at Fudan University.

Ms. Dai, 42, says there’s a real fascination with Joyce in China, as people search for new ways to express themselves in a fast-changing society.

A China-Joyce specialist who wrote her PhD on the Irish author, Ms. Dai began translating “Finnegans Wake” in 2006. In December, she has published Book One (of four) of what is widely recognized as Joyce’s most difficult work, in a joint effort by Shanghai VI Horae Publishers, a private company, and Shanghai Peoples’ Publishing House, a state-run company.

“I’m still working on Book Two. The progress is very slow,” she said. “You can’t translate ‘Finnegans Wake’ quickly, because I have to give footnotes for everything.”

Page one of the work shows 5 lines of Joyce’s text and 18 lines of footnotes. The challenge began with the very first word: “riverrun.”

“I have to explain every word, as well as the cultural background and the alternative meanings,” she said.

“For example ‘riverrun’ could be ‘the river ran,’ and ‘reverend,’ and the German word ‘Erinnerung,’ ” or memory. “Because this book is about the meaning of memory and time, and why. So even the first word in the book you have to explain.”

“About 8 out of 10 of the words I have to write footnotes,” she said.

But the book’s mind-boggling complexity â€" native English speakers struggle with it and many have wondered if it was Joyce’s joke â€" doesn’t explain its popularity in China, where the first print run of 8,000 copies sold out within two months.

At the end of March, the private publisher, Ni Weiguo, who has previously published Plato in Chinese, issued another 5,000 copies.

“They’ve all gone to bookshops,” said Mr. Ni in a telephone interview. “I didn’t publish this to make money. It’s exceeded my expectations. I published it to give people a great book.”

Who is buying it? “Professors, people who love modern literature and writers, all kinds of well-known writers. Translators,” he said. Many love the way it lacks a coherent narrative and plot; something that shocks many readers here.

“Chinese readers are used to story and plot,” Ms. Dai said. “They want to know why this book is so important, so they try to understand it. But it’s difficult and challenging.”

“Finnegans Wake” in Chinese may strain the imagination of many, given the almost unsolvable challenges of the original English, but Ms. Dai said that Chinese readers’ responses have been almost exactly the same as readers of English.

“They have divided opinions. Some praised it so much, and some complained they couldn’t understand it. Some said it was really great, just like a poem, and very enlightening. A touchstone of your intelligence,” she said. “Others thought it was pretending to be smart but they doubted whether those who praised it understood it.”

How much longer will it take to finish the whole book?

“I thought perhaps eight years,” she said. “I am hoping my publisher can find someone to help with the footnotes.”

Mr. Ni said he was “working on it.”