Finnegan's Wake

What a strange man James Joyce was, as clearly illustrated by his final novel. Or is it a novel? 628 pages and all I can think is what did I just read? Why didn't someone help that poor man? His literary journey from 'Dubliners' to 'Finnegan's Wake' reminds me of pictures done by a man who only painted cats, who became schizophrenic: by the time his malady had finished its course, one could barely see that he had painted a cat. So it is with Joyce and his work. He could only write about Ireland, and in this final book of his, one can hardly tell it's about Ireland. Still, despite some initial shock (I had to read a different book after the first two chapters), I managed to get through Joyce's great joke on the literary world, and found myself captivated. After I finished the book, I went back to the start to complete the sentence at the end that he finished at the beginning, and I found myself wanting to start the book all over again. I resisted temptation.