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Title: The Finnegan's Wake of The Great Migration
Review: This is a Joycean journey and is perhaps the reason some people had trouble with its concept. It ends where it starts.The work starts out in Mississippi, then segues to Chicago, Washington, Chicago and back to Mississippi. In the process we cover the technological origins of the Great Migration, the building to the second Chicago ghetto, the rise and fall of the Great Society and the remigration (albeit scant) back to Mississippi. All of this is seen through the eyes of several families that took part in the migration.Thus this is not the format we are used to in dealing with historical works. I found the mixture of historical narrative and the reality of the families involved to be a charming mix, one that touched me on a human scale.I read this work at the same time I read "The Building of the Second Ghetto" (a rather more opaque but valuable work). The two complimented each other.
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