The Books at the Wake

In Finnegans Wake Joyce uses world lit­erature, great and small, sacred and pro­fane, as one of the most important and frequent of his sources. Setting out to ex­plore these literary allusions, Mr. Atherton sheds a great deal of light upon other as­pects of Joyce’s work. Entire chapters are devoted to such major figures as Swift and Lewis Carroll, while less important influences are grouped together under such headings as “The Irish Writers” and “The Fathers of the Church.” He also sur­veys the various interpretations of Finnegans Wake, and makes use of the Letters of James Joyce and the manuscript of Fin­negans Wake in the British Museum.