This book is FINALLY back in print in the USA and for a very reasonable price! this is part of Eerdman's "Biblical Resource Series". "The purpose of The Biblical Resource Series is to bring back titles that the scholarly community regards as ESSENTIAL RESOURCES for the biblical thinker of today." This is well organzied so even the beginner can easily find information, and covers Nomadism, Family Institutions, Civil Institutions, Military Institutions, and Religious Institutions. An encyclopedia of sorts! Roland de Vaux (1903-1971) was esteemed both as a biblical historian and as an archaeologist. If you get this book, you also need to purchase Archaeology of the Land of the Bible by Amihai Mazar available here. Both will get you moving in the direction of biblical studies.

This is a indepth look at Ancient Israel, but not at all dry. The author has a dry wit and great enthusiasm for his subject. Although he uses alot of Hebrew language references, I was still able to understand his explanations. The author's personal faith in the Christian God is evident and refreshing. He is not out to tear apart the Old Testament, but to help other's better understand the life and times in which it was written. For anyone who has had questions after reading the Old Testament, I highly recommend this book. Submitted by Wendy Lang, Orillia, Canada

so many things he misses, so much obvious stuff he includes, and so little detail on the meaning of some of the annotations end up making this book somewhat of a nuisance, breaking up the flow which makes the Wake enjoyable. I still prefer Joseph Campbell's Skeleton Key to FW, though it admits that it does not try to catch every allusion. I find that most of the things that I really do want to find out, where I hear some echo of something, he doesn't touch on, or doesn't touch on to my satisfaction. Really, this project should be a collaboration online where people would add their comments to the possible meanings of different lines, because there are so many. Each man comes at it with his own knowledge, interests and needs, and can't get everything. So while this is useful for some, it's more of an impediment for me. A tattered security blanket that trips you up while you walk, you feel like Linus from peanuts lugging out this big blue thing.

Roland McHugh is an admirable Joyce scholar and most certainly knows more about the Wake than I, but I must say this book is not at all what I was looking for in an annotated guide. I was expecting the format of Ulysses Annotated, but instead was confronted with a very different mode of operation. McHugh's book is very useful in two areas, those being 1.)Foreign Words and 2.)Joyce's compound words. This is because the author presents the annotations as if they were personal notes in his own copy of the Wake, rather than full explications as found in Ulysses Annotated. McHugh argues that this will force the reader to make his own connections and lead to more frutiful conclusions, but the same goal could be accomplished by simply doing what McHugh has done, read FW, study it, and make notes of your own. Any beginner who is not familiar with some of the primary themes of the Wake will be sorely disappointed. The best example of the way McHugh skims over these is found in the preface (which I believe can be previewed on this site), where he shows how in a regular annotated guide a reference to Giambattista Vico would take up 9 lines of text, briefly explaining his theory, and in his own method it is simply referred to as 'Vico'. This reference would mean absolutely nothing to a reader unfamiliar with Vico. For a reader seeking to add a little convenience to their own personal study, this is perfect. For the reader seeking (relatively) full explanations of historical and literary allusions and such, this is most certainly not the guide to get. This book would have been exponentially more useful had it simply been integrated into the text of FW, ie one page of FW, one page of annotations.

The Annotations is a very helpful reference, pure and simple. Even for those familiar with the nightlife of the Wake, ANNO. invariably points out redlight districts which have escaped the reader's attention.

It is simple to use; my hardcover copy is identically paginated and so there is no confusing looking for the right page. (Apparently the softcover versions conform to this, also.)

Etymology is provided where necessary, and there are the usual plethora of abbreviated historical allusions.

Reviewing ANNO. before reading considerably helps in "getting" at least an increased small percentage of the numerous puns, parodies, allusions, etc.

Not an absolute requirement for reading the Wake, but doubtless a very great help.