Page "Finnegans Wake" Paragraph 64

The Canadian critic, historian and novelist Patrick Watson has also argued this point, writing that Those people who say the book is unreadable have not tried reading it aloud.

This is the secret.

If you even mouth the words silently, suddenly what seemed incomprehensible ( Hubert Butler called it " Joyce's learned gibberish ,") leaps into referential meaning, by its sound, since page after page is rich in allusion to familiar phrases, parables, sayings of all kinds – and the joyous and totally brilliant wordplay, over and over again imperceivable until you actually listen to it – transforms what was an unrelievable agony into an adventure.