Reddit reviews A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: Unlocking James Joyce's Masterwork (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)

Since you're saying you're going to "take the plunge" you have not read the Wake yet? If my assumption is true, may I also STRONGLY suggest you pick up a copy of [this] (http://www.amazon.com/Skeleton-Key-Finnegans-Wake-Masterwork/dp/1608681661) This one book helped me crack the excentricities of the novel way more than any other resource and I consider it indespensable for any kind of study of the Wake. But other than that, have fun man! Oh, you also may want to check out the album Rift by Phish. It is another interterpation of the dream cycle based loosely on Finnegan's Wake.

I have read it, it took me about six months, it was back when I was in college and had more time for that sort of silliness. However at the same time I also read several companion pieces that helped explain a lot of what was going on - chiefly the Skeletons Key to Finnegans Wake by Joseph Campbell, and the essays about the book by Robert Anton Wilson in Coincidance. Without those guides I don't think I would have gotten much out of it. However, it's definitely not just gibberish, it is a fascinating book the covers a lot of territory about history and how we think about history and mythology, gender relations, science, religion, and more. I don't think its possible to derive a ton of meaning from it if you don't have some sort of guide, but if you have one of those books I mentioned or if you are taking a class on it so a professor can help fill you in or point you in the right directions, it's definitely worthwhile.

Only if you want to put in all the effort to understand it. It wasn't written to be read quickly. There are companion books to help with that as well. Here's one

Reed it at your leisure, bon voyage, avec les-yeux, sans visage.

O but mainly unterstand that what it is is what many say it isn't: a real and truly werked out story of the night.

It contrails many entrained trains of thought, but is ultrameantly a cohesive multi-storied single story comprising many ministories, each a storey of our Tower of Bauble.

Real-eyes that eachant effery word/wort/world May or mightn't half/have/halve/haft multi-tipple meanings/minings/linings/leanings, both in Anglish and in other languishes.

And read outside of it a little bit which's been writ about it, and it'll hint at the wit both in it, and the lit which other wits have written in their interpreting of it. viz: Book of the Dark and to wit: Skeleton Key To Finnegans Wake

Pluck it up, and put it down, as required. Shelf it while you muddle or re-read other books. Go back into it from the front, or back into it from the rear.

Be open.