This little book of
criticism is designed to serve as an introduction to the author and his work, with some critical explanatory
and explicatory notes, laying forth not only Joyce's biography (especially as it relates to and/or is reflected in his works) but his techniques and direction. The author of this critical work also
compares Joyce's critics, explicators, and expounders, and compares and critiques them somewhat as well. One of the enduringly beautiful aspects or experiences of reading this book is that it points out the origins of meaning in some of FINNEGAN'S WAKE. it seems that several versions of parts of that epic exist, and that Joyce worked over the first narrative versions to produce the dreamlike unconscious state complexes we find now in that great epic work.
From the reader's, researcher's, or lover of Joyce's point of view (or the just curious), one of the best parts of this book is the extensive annotated bibliography at the end of the book. It contains general
works in which Joyce is mentioned or expounded, Joyce's own works, and works specifically of
criticism of Joyce's oevure, both book-length and articles, as well as reprints.