The Role of Thunder in «Finnegan's Wake»

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

In the huge and mysterious Finnegan’s Wake, 10 claps of thunder—each
one represented by a different 100-letter word—appear in the text.
Critics have long puzzled over the meaning of these linguistic
thunderclaps. Eric McLuhan sees Joyce’s novel as an example of
Menippean satire, a genre that strives to shock and thereby awaken
readers. In this ambitious and erudite study, which includes
reproductions of manuscript drafts of the novel, he provides an
elaborate table analyzing the words within words of each polyglot
thunder-word; appendices dealing with the composition of the words,
Menippean satire, and the rhetorical structure of the novel; and more
than 50 pages of notes. This is not a book for the common reader, but
Wake buffs and academic libraries will find it indispensable.