A German translation of James Joyce's 'Finnegans Wehg' ('Finnegans Wake'). Photo by Pete Smith.

Walter Wetzels, an emeritus professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, recently donated a German translation of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to the Ransom Center. He shares a bit of his history with the text.

It must be more than 50 years ago after reading my first novel in English (that was Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel) that I very ambitiously tried the famous and feared James Joyce. And, of all things, I chose Finnegans Wake. Little did I know what to expect, and—predictably—it turned out to be a disaster. I felt completely defeated and asked myself whether the English that…