People make the mistake (understandbly) that the Wake should be read like a typical novel. The book, because it ends and begin in midsentence really doesn’t have a “beginning.”
There was a letter Joyce wrote where he talked about 12 or so meanings for a single sentence. The Wake is best understood as a “reference” book where you open it up to a section, read a few sentences, like poetry, think about the allusions and references and then put back down. It’s a body of text to Access instead of Read, if that makes sense.
Ulysses is much closer to a novel (even in the phantastical parts) than the Wake is. Ulysses is best served when read traditionally.
EDIT: Ebert had a great bit about the movie “Finding Forrester” when the camera pans down upon the stack of books upon the main character’s stand and noticing that of all the titles, Finnegans Wake was the only one with the spine unbent or unopened.
Unironically it’s this synopsis retold thousands of times.