Reading Finnegans Wake

£300 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Fine. In 2013, Ximena Pérez Grobet transformed a 1965 Faber Faber copy of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake into a unique piece of book art. She ‘altered it by unbinding it and cutting each page into thin strips of paper, almost line by line and then used two knitting needles to put them back together in the same order, thus recomposing the text of the novel; the text ends up compressed, each page knitted, I then rebound the book with its original cover.’ ‘A different, also plastic means is thus used to show the deep complexity housed in Finnegans Wake. I thereby convert Joyce’s language into material and establish a new form of visual reading that not only respects the original structure, but also seeks to preserve the rhythm and form of style beyond the need for meaning, thus maintaining the original format and material of the publication and creating a visual tribute to the novel and its author.’ This facsimile, produced in an edition of 300 copies in 2022, presents Pérez Grobet’s unique and important work in a more accessible format.

• Year: 2022

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