Kinky Joyce: Friend or Foe in Finnegans Wake? | Desire and the Reader-Wr...

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0:00
a little known fact about James Joyce is
0:02
that he had a kink or a fetish for
0:04
women's underpants and this finally
0:07
becomes the context for an entire
0:09
chapter in the first chapter of book two
0:11
of Finnegan's Wake the mime of the
0:13
Mcnick and the Maggis and in this
0:15
chapter Shem in the guise of a new
0:18
character Glug as he's called is asked
0:21
to come up and try to guess the color of
0:24
Isabelle and her 29 rainbow girls'
0:27
panties and the correct answer here is
0:30
helotrope but this word proves totally
0:34
ambiguous in the chapter first off
0:36
because it has a number of different
0:37
possible meanings and associations such
0:40
that any one guess is technically
0:42
inadequate because it's not grasping the
0:44
entirety of the other meanings it could
0:46
be seen as deficient or sliding by
0:48
without getting at the facts straight on
0:51
without understanding the facts of
0:53
feminine clothingaring as it's called
0:55
and I think that phrase is really
0:57
important because it shows how even the
0:59
enveloping structure of a text is always
1:02
airing always in a process of diverance
1:05
as Dareda would put it in this video I
1:09
would like to think and theorize about
1:11
Finnegan's Wake as a kinky text which is
1:14
to say concerned with the word or
1:16
concept kink in the double sense of a
1:20
sexual fetish or you know something
1:22
sexually unorthodox and a kind of knot
1:25
or sharp bend or twist in something that
1:28
would otherwise be straight such as a
1:29
garden hose right and this cuts off the
1:32
flow of something that would otherwise
1:33
be there thus a kink is a discontinuity
1:36
a rupture or a
1:38
lacuna and I'll go back to those latter
1:40
three later in the lecture but right now
1:44
I want to focus on how we can explicate
1:46
the nature of kink fetish and desire as
1:50
a fundamental linguistic trope and
1:53
vehicle in Finnegan's Wake
1:57
[Music]
2:02
one of the reasons this concept is so
2:04
important here is because it really gets
2:06
at the relationship between Joyce as
2:08
author and us as readers is he our
2:12
friend here trying to invite us in or is
2:15
he our foe trying to keep us at bay with
2:17
various tropes and defensive mechanisms
2:20
because one thing we know about the
2:22
dream of Finnegan's wake is that it is
2:24
filled with repression and thereby the
2:27
only way that we can get a sense of
2:29
presence is through a deferred chain of
2:33
differential marks as Dareda would put
2:35
it and in this process there are a
2:37
number of psychic mechanisms used to
2:40
distance the dreamer from his or her own
2:43
concepts ideas and
2:45
preoccupations thus Finnegan Wig's
2:47
language is by definition oblique it
2:51
works by extension and temporal deferral
2:56
as such it makes language kinky as well
3:00
by showing the kinks already present in
3:03
language in all forms of discourse it
3:06
shows that they are partial which is a
3:08
term that I use often on the channel
3:10
partial in the sense of gapladen and
3:12
biased right
3:14
so this weaponizes language and
3:17
discourse itself by making it a poignant
3:20
vehicle for desire and thereby also for
3:22
all the different manifestations that
3:24
desire can take excess disgust fear
3:28
repression anxiety depression and more
3:32
therefore Finnegan's wake is not
3:34
speaking for some teological
3:36
understanding of the mind or of the
3:39
world as Sheldon Brivik says the
3:41
discourse of Finnegan's Wake
3:43
accommodates multitudes it speaks for
3:45
multiple voices it genuinely tries to
3:49
accommodate the difference that is sort
3:52
of latent within our conception of
3:54
desire as excess and overflowing beyond
3:58
rational categories
4:00
as such the geometry of Finnegan's wake
4:03
in its sort of desirous turning over and
4:06
mulling over itself is that of a moious
4:09
strip an emobius strip is an otherwise
4:12
circular structure with a half twist in
4:15
it such that it intertwines with itself
4:18
it is interrelated and interdependent to
4:21
itself it has two sides which are really
4:24
the same side of the same structure thus
4:28
it is the oraoros but twisted again in
4:31
another dimension that the oraoros
4:34
um geometry hasn't typically allowed
4:37
for as such this is not only the
4:40
geometry of the text but also the nature
4:43
of the reader writer network he is
4:47
constantly twisting and pulling his
4:49
reader legs trying to get them to go
4:52
down rabbit holes just like the
4:53
characters and yet at the same time he's
4:55
thereby inviting them in to the
4:58
character's unconscious and letting the
5:00
characters minds run free and we are
5:04
thereby implicated in this process and
5:08
this idea of implication is really
5:10
interesting because implicate comes from
5:13
late middle English and before that from
5:15
the Latin implicatus for folded in the
5:19
past participle of
5:22
implicate is to
5:25
intertwine so we have a very interesting
5:27
case here where the reader has to
5:30
actively construct a text that is not
5:32
formally there before the reading begins
5:36
right there are sort of loose structural
5:39
indices markers and signs that point us
5:42
in certain directions but they work at
5:44
best
5:45
probabilistically they don't give us
5:47
sense
5:48
certainty they merely give us rabbit
5:52
holes to go down they give us lines of
5:54
flight as dozen would call it this
5:57
accords with Gabrielle Rangley's theory
5:59
of spectral authorship which he
6:01
elaborates in Joyce as theory
6:03
hermeneutic ethics in derided lon and
6:05
Finnegan's wake and this text goes to a
6:08
great deal to try to explain the nature
6:10
of authorship in
6:12
deconstruction because bot famously
6:14
theorized the death of the author but
6:17
wrangling actually wants to say that no
6:19
the author is not dead even dereda
6:21
acknowledged this the author is just
6:22
there as a trace or as wrangling calls
6:25
it a spectre
6:27
Therefore there is no mode of speaking
6:29
that remains undistorted by iterability
6:32
and ventriloquism he says whenever it is
6:35
consulted authorities pronouncements
6:37
emerge as the result of a negotiation
6:40
that already mixes and confuses
6:42
positions and beneath this dynamic of
6:45
displacement there is a mechanism at
6:47
work that divides even the author from
6:49
any interpretive authority in the sense
6:51
of total mastery over what they
6:53
produce right so we're getting this
6:56
implicated nature of the mobious form
7:00
right where both sides are really both
7:04
different and the same at the same
7:07
time he says language refuses to codify
7:10
a single authentic intention without
7:13
also dividing it wrenching it from
7:15
itself and transforming it in multiple
7:17
and unpredictable ways
7:20
therefore authoral meaning he says far
7:22
from constituting a pragmatic solution
7:25
that cuts through the paradoxes of those
7:27
terms is a concept structurally
7:30
analogous to them we call something a
7:32
meaning intended by the author with
7:34
reference to certain textual effects the
7:37
impossibility of distinguishing
7:39
legitimate from illegitimate effects
7:40
with absolute certainty therefore means
7:43
that the author too is a presence
7:45
constituted by our interpretive
7:47
decisions and this idea of
7:49
decision-making is really important for
7:51
Wrangley because he says that any theory
7:53
of interpretation demands that there is
7:55
some fundamental discontinuity between
7:57
the text and the interpretation that
8:00
results right that we can't get a
8:02
one-to-one correspondence between the
8:05
data quote unquote of the text of the
8:08
empirical facts of the matter to the
8:11
spectre that we invent that we claim
8:14
speaks for Joyce and in Joyce's voice as
8:18
we're doing that we are constructing
8:20
retrospectively what we see as being the
8:23
most authentic image of Joyce which is
8:25
itself based upon a number of decisions
8:28
and assumptions none of which can be
8:30
exhausted
8:32
and this is what's crucial here for our
8:34
understanding of the relationship
8:36
between Joyce and therefore his fetish
8:38
and the way that this implicates us in a
8:41
discourse of desire is that
8:43
conceptualizing authority as spectral
8:45
underlines our implication in the text
8:48
as producers of meaning on the other
8:51
hand the powers that specters
8:52
nonetheless wield including powers of
8:55
dictation can tell us that if the
8:58
meaning thus produced is not neatly
9:00
divisible into elements that partake and
9:02
elements that do not partake in the
9:04
authority bestowed by an authoral
9:05
blessing this does not mean that the
9:08
notion of authority is
9:10
abandoned joyce still leaves something
9:12
for us how did we get Finnegan's Wake
9:14
otherwise
9:16
what divides our readings from authority
9:18
is the uncertainty of their relation to
9:20
it and this uncertainty cuts both ways
9:23
it perpetuates authority in the very act
9:25
of putting it into question right just
9:28
as the Mobius strip perpetuates each
9:31
side while eacing it in the
9:33
process like Daredus Plato who inventing
9:36
Socrates takes on a debt and
9:39
responsibility towards the fictional
9:40
father figure the reader who is at the
9:43
risk of usurping the position to be
9:45
consulted is also tied to this position
9:48
as the one to be iterated and interacted
9:50
with this and I think this is very
9:52
interesting right that we are
9:54
interacting with Joyce in a fundamental
9:56
way we're having some sort of
9:58
conversation but rather than it being a
10:00
dialogue it is a polyogue and this is a
10:04
word that Finnegan's awake uses many
10:05
times in fact in in varying guises that
10:09
we are using multiple different
10:11
languages multiple different discourses
10:14
to try to understand the lack of any
10:17
meta discourse that there is no one
10:20
trope no one schema no one matrix that
10:24
can subsume the entirety of any text and
10:27
thus of any mind or anything that
10:30
desires and try to reduce it to set
10:33
mechanisms desire is by its very
10:36
definition productive in the duloarian
10:39
sense and therefore always exceeding any
10:41
single gesture because desire must
10:43
repeat itself it must propagate itself
10:46
properly speaking it's a sort of virus
10:49
that goes beyond anyone logic that is
10:51
able to
10:52
evolutionarily accompany and accommodate
10:55
any environment or vehicle but Patrick A
10:58
mccarthy clarifies in his essay a
11:00
warping process which can be found in
11:03
work in progress Joyce centenery essays
11:06
that Joyce and his reader are ultimately
11:08
partners not antagonists
11:11
if the reader cannot hope to understand
11:13
exactly what Joyce meant when he wrote
11:15
the book it is equally true that the
11:17
book lives only in the experience of its
11:19
readers and has no set meaning apart
11:21
from that experience right so where
11:23
needed why would Joyce write this and
11:25
spent 17 years on it if he didn't want
11:27
it to be read
11:29
although he makes many demands on his
11:31
readers Joyce accords them a place of
11:33
honor in keeping with Stern's dictim
11:35
that the truest respect which you can
11:37
pay to the reader's understanding is to
11:39
have this matter amicably and leave him
11:42
something to imagine as well as yourself
11:45
precisely so and it is this reliance on
11:47
the reader's cooperation not to mention
11:49
his goodwill knowledge sense of humor
11:52
patience and insomnia that defines
11:54
Joyce's attitude towards his audience
11:58
right so there's a mix of leg pulling of
12:01
occultting while at the same time a
12:03
sense of charitability and relationship
12:06
because Joyce is fundamentally
12:08
infatuated with relationships and he
12:11
wants to see that the readership that we
12:15
engage in is one of a relationship with
12:18
textuality with a fulminating excessive
12:21
medium that tries to tell us things
12:23
without communicating facts right
12:27
without claiming that what happens in
12:29
Finnegan's Wake somehow corresponds to a
12:32
world no it is beyond correspondence it
12:34
is in a sense a world of its own
12:36
isolated and yet at the same time it
12:38
always opens up and demands that it be
12:41
opened up that's why every time I'm next
12:43
to Finan's Wake I just have to open up a
12:44
passage and just read something because
12:46
it just compels me and this is a
12:48
fundamentally desirous impulse right
12:51
that we want to implicate ourselves in
12:53
the text and the text wants to implicate
12:55
itself in us that's why there's so much
12:56
self-reflexivity and doubt in Finnegan's
13:00
Wake therefore the kinky text of
13:03
Finnegan's Wake opens up and exposes
13:06
kings and analyzes them as indeterminate
13:10
spaces between any two points that
13:14
allows for play
13:16
play conceived of in the dual sense of
13:18
fun like playing a game but also play as
13:21
in the quality of limited free reign
13:25
between two like machined parts for
13:27
example right there's a little space of
13:29
play in between where it can sort of
13:31
jiggle around there is a sort of limited
13:33
movement allowed between relative
13:36
fedters
13:38
these two aspects of play are really key
13:41
to understanding the relationship of
13:43
Joyce to kings because at once we can
13:46
see that Joyce is kind of in a sort of
13:49
flagagillatory manner playing with
13:52
himself therefore it's of course
13:54
sexually explicit and filled with
13:56
innuendo and yet at the same time he's
13:58
also playing with us in the sense of
14:01
perhaps exciting us sexually but also
14:04
playing with us in the sense of two
14:07
members of some common game but thirdly
14:12
playing at our expense right as if you
14:15
play a prank on someone and they are the
14:17
sort of butt of some joke so there are a
14:20
number of different facets to
14:22
understanding Finnegan's wake as a kinky
14:24
text it is at once concerned with play
14:28
and joy and excess while at the same
14:30
time being marred in repression anxiety
14:34
disgust fear and
14:37
self-loathing therefore Finnegan's Wake
14:39
teaches us as well as leaves space for
14:42
us to enjoy play that is at once
14:44
innocent and benign and at the same time
14:47
sexually illicit and excessive this is
14:50
the reason we never kind of figure out
14:51
what the crime of Finnegan's wake
14:54
is as such I think this is a really
14:56
helpful way for approaching Finnegan's
14:58
Wake because it helps one foreground the
15:01
pleasure of the text the extent to which
15:03
it really exudes personality so I think
15:06
this idea of Finnegan's Wake as a kinky
15:08
text can be really incisive for
15:10
understanding the reading experience
15:12
understanding how Finneian's wake
15:14
privileges ambiguity such as between the
15:17
writer and reader but just in general
15:19
the various happenings that happen in
15:21
Finineian's wake are defined by
15:24
ambiguity discontinuity rupture lacuna
15:27
occultting
15:29
deference fleeing dancing and constantly
15:33
exceeding through gesture right it
15:36
doesn't exceed through conceptual leaps
15:39
without any sort of substance but write
15:42
they are filled with concrete gestures
15:45
i'm reminded of Heran's concept of the
15:48
bub of the solid word which is very
15:52
similar to what Stuart Gilbert has to
15:54
say in his prologina to work in progress
15:56
that can be found in our exagination
15:58
where he says that the word building of
16:00
work in progress is founded on the rock
16:02
of petrified language of sounds with
16:04
solid
16:06
associations and the solidity or ground
16:09
or the unground in a way of finning wake
16:13
language is desire
16:15
in all the excesses of feeling and
16:18
affect therefore I ask you to go forth
16:20
not only in reading Finnegan's Wake but
16:22
in any text by focusing on the affective
16:25
immediiacy of desire and of the text
16:28
which demands to exceed any
16:30
interpretation i think that this can
16:32
really productively understand the
16:35
experience that Joyce wants us to glean
16:36
from Finnegan's Wake as well as the sort
16:39
of political and ethical implications
16:40
that we can take from the way that we
16:42
interpret it
16:44
so that being said that's it for this
16:46
lecture i hope it's been somewhat
16:48
interesting and helpful you can check
16:49
out any of my other lectures I've done
16:51
on postmodernism German idealism gender
16:53
theory postcolonial studies and other
16:55
classic literature you can also become a
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channel member for $5 a month and gain
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access to among other things a private
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your needs i also have super thanks if
17:05
you'd just like to donate to the channel
17:06
because it really helps me purchase all
17:08
the varying books of various kinds and
17:10
bring you all this wonderful secondary
17:12
literature but no pressure care about
17:13
yourself first that's it for this
17:15
lecture and I'll see you in another one
17:20
[Music]





Kinky Joyce: Friend or Foe in Finnegans Wake? | Desire and the Reader-Writer Relationship
Gavin Young Philosophy
10.7K subscribers

212 views  Jun 8, 2025

In this lecture, I theorize Finnegans Wake as a "kinky text", using the term "kink" in its dual sense: 1) a sexual tabboo/fetish, and 2) a knot or sharp bend/twist in something otherwise straight -- thereby, a distontinuity, rupture, gap, or lacuna. Using Gabriel Renggli's concept of the spectral author, I chart the ways by which Joyce implicates his readers in himself and his text, showing how he weaves a textual geometry in the shape of a Möbius strip. Enjoy!

Music is Pierre Boulez's Piano Sonata No. 1    • Piano Sonata №.1 - Pierre Boulez (1946)  

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People mentioned
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James Joyce
Irish novelist and poet (1882–1941)





Gavin Young Philosophy
10.7K subscribers



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