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    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    Written by James Joyce

    Narrated by Jim Norton

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, Joyce describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus: significant memories from infancy, schooldays, family life, his first taste of sin, guilt, repentance – and his passage to freedom as he elects to leave Ireland for ever. This is, in effect, autobiography. Stephen is Joyce; every person he encounters and every incident he experiences, is drawn from life. The writing, though, displays the colour and imagination of the very finest fiction, in language which cries out to be read aloud.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateOct 7, 1995
    ISBN9789629545901
    Author

    James Joyce

    James Joyce (1882–1941) is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century. After graduating from University College Dublin, Joyce went to Paris. During World War One, Joyce and Barnacle, and their two children, Giorgio and Lucia, moved to Zurich where Joyce began Ulysses. He returned to Paris for two decades, and his reputation as an avant-garde writer grew. Joyce’s works include the short story collection Dubliners (1914); novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939); two poetry collections Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927); and one play, Exiles (1918). Every year on 16 June, Joyceans across the globe celebrate Bloomsday, the day on which the action of Ulysses took place, proving Joyce’s importance to literature.

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    Reviews for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    3.5/5

    95 ratings78 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I'm probably going to English major hell, but I could not get past the first half of this book.
    • 5/5
      Perhaps the ultimate tale of growing up as a gifted, sensitive, hyperaware young person, dealing with feeling like an outsider as a result of such circumstances, and eventually embracing ones gifts and deciding to rely upon them, despite the slings and arrows. Much more readable than Ulysses or Finnegan… transcendent in some parts, delightfuly cheeky and irreverent in others, and always painfully innocent and sincere just below the surface. Packed with awe and wonder and a feeling of gathering mastery and self-discovery.
    • 3/5
      An autobiographical novel, it is very conventional compared to where he was going for the rest of his life. He chooses his framework characters, the male parts of the Daedalus family, and thyeir relationships to the growing Stephen.
    • 4/5
      Very thoughtful about religion and Irish politics. I'm not really sure what I got out of it. the part about hell was kind of disturbing and far too long. the end seemed unconnected from the beginning (because it was written at a different time) I liked the part about boarding school the best. (the beginning)
    • 4/5
      Despite having been a professor of literature, I haven't read much by James Joyce. I loved his story collection, Dubliners, but I've never tackled what are considered his great novels--and I'm not really sure that I want to. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a short novel that showcases Joyce's stream-of-consciousness style in an accessible way. It's the story of his later hero, Stephen Daedalus, from childhood through his university years. I would agree with those who say that it's tied to a particular time and place (Ireland in the early 20th century); note, for example, Stephen's idolization of Parnell and the overwhelming influence of the Catholic church. Yet many of the struggles young Stephen goes through, such as breaking out from under his parents' wings and finding his own place in the world, are still prevalent for the youth of today. There's a lot of humor in the novel that helps it to rise above the usual coming of age story.I listened to the book on audio, wonderfully read by Colin Farrell, an actor of whom I'm not usually fond. One rather funny note: When I originally downloaded the book, the cover title appears as 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman"! I see that someone must have reported the error and a correction has been made. I usually delete books once I've read them, but this one will stay on my iTunes for the novelty factor.
    • 4/5
      high school required
    • 4/5
      My reactions to this novel were very mixed. The book is not a conventional novel, and this was Joyce's intention, as you can glean from his conversation about aesthetics in the last chapter. A strange blend of semi-autobiographical material and fiction, with a voice that mimics the age and maturity of the main character, Stephen, and thus changes as he changes. I got the impression that Joyce was writing himself into a story that was a bit different from his true story, in an attempt to reinvent himself through words. Indeed, Stephen dwells on the power of words extensively throughout the novel. Is the book well written? Yes. Does it follow standard forms of plot and character development? No. Does it complete its own mission of becoming something new and original, breaking away from tradition? Yes. Did it always hold my attention? No.I enjoyed the first chapter, which chronicles Stephen at his youngest age in the book, and is told with a childish perspective, straight forward and yet often fragmentary. I've read that some people have a hard time understanding this section, but I found it easy to interpret, maybe because of the copious notes in my Penguin edition. Chapter 2 waned in interest for me, and yet I was engrossed by Chapter 3 (the infamous hell chapter, which turns many people off), although I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it. It was just very interesting. Then I found Chapter 4 mediocre but with a fantastic ending, and I had to slog my way through most of Chapter 5, which consists of long philosophic debates. In the end, this is one of those books that I am glad I read because it is masterfully written, and because it rightly occupies an honored position in western literature for its innovation. Also, I hope to read [Ulysses] soon, and this book is its precursor, of sorts. Some of the passages were simply stellar in the imagery and metaphor. The end of Chapter 4, where Stephen experiences his own 'rebirth', was beautiful. This is also one of those books, though, that took a bit of work to finish, and was not always an enjoyable read. I can appreciate Joyce's skill without agreeing to his life philosophy. In fact, I'm sure that he would despise mine. Stephen is a judgmental young man. (In one section, after he has abandoned his Catholic faith, a friend asks him if he will become a Protestant. His response? "I may have abandoned my faith, but not my self respect." Heh. Thanks for that, Joyce.) I feel accomplished having finished it, but don't plan on a reread.
    • 3/5
      James Joyce’s autobiographical story of growing up and struggling with religion, politics, sexuality, poverty, and what it meant to be Irish in the late 19th century. Told in the stream of consciousness style he pioneered and which had a huge impact on literature has its great moments, but as in Ulysses he takes it to an extreme, and it is often difficult to understand what the hell he’s talking about. Moreover, while I have a feeling his descriptions of Catholicism are accurate, they are lengthy and weren’t very interesting, and there was a heaviness to this book that I didn’t like.Quotes:On Ireland:“- … When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.Davin knocked the ashes from his pipe.- Too deep for me, Stevie, he said. But a man’s country comes first. Ireland first, Stevie. You can be a poet or mystic after.- Do you know what Ireland is? asked Stephen with cold violence. Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.”On solitude, and sadness in youth:“His mind seemed older than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon a younger earth. No life or youth stirred in him as it had stirred in them. He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filial piety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel and loveless lust. His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul incapable of simple joys, and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon.”Lastly, I loved the feeling of this one, cricket in the evening:“The fellows were practicing long shies and bowling lobs and slow twisters. In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.”
    • 5/5
      [Review of the Naxos Unabridged Audiobook Edition]I'm trying something new for me with listening to Irish narrators read James Joyce and this audiobook edition of his "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" performed by actor Jim Norton was a terrific start to this. Norton's performance of the narration along with his singing of all the musical rhymes and lyric sections bumps this up to a 5/5 rating with the 1 hour long section of 'hell and damnation' sermons delivered at Stephen Dedalus's Belvedere College alone worth the price of admission and quite chilling to boot. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness style may be a bit hard to follow aurally though and I did find myself referring to my old paperback copy frequently and still looking up some of the more obscure Irish and Latin references (easy to do on-line these days) but those are minor quibbles. 2012 is a big year for Joyce fans with his works entering the public domain and already one test case (google "The Cats of Copenhagen") of someone breaking grandson Stephen Joyce's previous publishing embargoes, so if you've been intimidated by Joyce previously, consider trying out an audiobook version.
    • 3/5
      I have never read James Joyce before and I had heard that A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man is considered to be his most accessible work so I decided this was where I would start with this author. In this book we follow the early years of Irishman Stephen Dedalus, starting from his boyhood and taking us through to the end of his university years. It is apparent immediately that James Joyce is a master wordsmith. His writing paints vivid pictures but I disagree with those who call this book timeless. I felt it was quite dated and specific to it’s time and place. It is a barely concealed autobiographical piece and takes the main character through his adolescence while he searches for his own identity. His views on family, religion and the very essence of being Irish clearly date this piece as early 20th century writing. Joyce is brilliant but I struggled through this short and quite readable book so I am not reassured that I will appreciate his more complex works and I expect they will be pushed to the bottom of the 1,001 pile.
    • 3/5
      Zwakke start, als een standaardcollegeroman, maar vanaf hoofdstuk 2 erg intrigerend door de breuk in constructie en stijl. Het hoofdpersonage is erg antipathiek en gecomplexeerd. Sterk autobiografisch. De donderpreekscene is subliem. Prachtige alternatieve Bildungsroman
    • 3/5
      When I first started reading this book I really enjoyed it, I lost myself in the flow of the writing. However, towards the middle my interest was lost, not so due to the heavy prose about sinners & hell, although I did think it was overdone, it was more the long soliloquies about things such as the meaning of beauty or the works of classic writers & philosophers. They just seemed self indulgent & didn't bring anything to the story. What I enjoyed most about it was that its one of my favourite types of story - a coming of age tale. I do prefer more modern versions of this type though, mainly because I like to relate to the character & its hard to do that when there is such a gap in the times. I think this is a book you'd gain more from if you knew about the politics and Irish culture of that time. And a knowledge of religion would have helped too, as I'll readily claim ignorance to the different Christian denominations. Overall, long-winded but good.
    • 3/5
      (Original Review, 1981-02-16)"April 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."How much I love/hate Joyce when I read about him...how could he have denied his mother on her deathbed? That act disturbed me - he did not even kneel when she died.I am not speaking of hypocrisy here just thinking of a young poseur who was thinking of himself above all - as you do at that age - especially if you are the ''favourite'. How much are the writings of Joyce autobiographical? Is the 'real 'Stephen Dedalus - AKA Joyce - a 'self-obsessed arsehole' - and did Joyce realise that about himself during his writing? As regards the Portrait Joyce changed the original title from ‘Stephen Hero’ - why did he do that? When did Stephen stop being a Hero?Read it again recently - skipped loads of 'the sermon because being brought up a Catholic have kind of heard it all before but have never been on a Retreat where apparently, in the olden days, you would receive the hell-fire message in spades. I found it interesting in the book that Stephen had to find an anonymous confessor to his 'sins'. He seemed too proud or ashamed to confess to a priest at the school who may have recognised his voice.I think one of the best things I learned from The Portrait was how much Joyce loved his jovial, irascible Father. The last chapter in The Portrait seems a bit of a 'cop-out' with its diary entries...a bit rushed-but maybe that was all meant.The last entry is particularly poignant (vide quote above)The bits that stick in my mind aside from the obvious passages (Hell Fire Sermon ) are the childhood passages, Dedalus remembering his uncles' tobacco smoke, listening to and trying to make sense of the adults arguing about current affairs as a bystander, the bewilderment of starting a new and strange school and trying to understand and navigate the adult rules and language of the constitution chimed with my own memories of childhood. The child is the father of the man, I think Joyce says we cannot shake off these experiences, they form who we are. You are always going to be an exile from them even if you leave physically and geographically.
    • 4/5
      The story follows Stephan Dedalus as he grows up in Ireland and eventually breaks away from Irish society. He abandons religion, Irish politics and much of what he’s been taught and what his family holds dear. As a teenager he’s tormented by Catholic guilt, especially concerning his sexual urges. He’s both fascinated and plagued by the thought of women. Stephen eventually goes his own way, to the point of leaving the country.Joyce’s writing style is dense and wordy. Attention must be paid to every word. It can be a chore at times, but the Stephen’s story is fascinating.
    • 4/5
      Rich and deeply-felt charaterization in Stephen Dedalus make this a winner. Joyce's complex prose style is more accessable than in Ullyses (which I have tried many times to read, but couldn't), though it does have its stretches that I had to reread.
    • 3/5
      In Portrait, James Joyce dramatises incidents and periods from his own childhood and adolescence, and I don’t really know what to feel about this book. Parts of this were brilliant: the writing, the rhythm, the selection of words and images. This book is excellent at expressing the unscratchable ache that is growing pains: the death of a child’s naïve belief in Justice when unfair punishment is handed out; the intensity of adolescent frustrations, both sexual and religious; and the search for fundamental meaning in life. On the other hand, well, there were numerous occasions where I felt like rolling my eyes at the text, because I’ve read too many books about sensitive, intelligent, precious little main characters who struggle mightily against their schoolboy tormentors and an understimulating environment. I know that I can’t really hold that against this book -- the century of intervening literature that makes this kind of story feel so trite is not this book’s fault. But still: the story feels so trite in many places.This book left me feeling very ambiguous. For example: a very large section of this book is taken up by a series of fire-and-brimstone sermons delivered by a Jesuit hell-bent on frightening children into good old Catholic obedience through extensive and lascivious descriptions of torture. I can appreciate what Joyce was going for here, and it’s well done indeed: I can really taste the hunger for power, the emotional manipulation, the all-encompassing prison that this kind of mentality wants to enforce. But these sermons take up 12% of the text. 12%! That is way, way too long, and spoils the effect. Then there are later bits, where the main character expounds his views on beauty and art which serve as a replacement for his earlier religiosity, and which are intellectually impressive, but they are shoehorned in in the clumsiest of ways. Again, the effect is spoiled.Both of these -- the fire-and-brimstone, and the intellectualizing theories -- overstay their welcome and tip the balance from “Impressive, well done” into “Man, Joyce really loves hearing himself talk”. And self-important smugness is a sin I find hard to forgive. So yeah. Three stars?
    • 4/5
      The rhythm and detail of Joyce is here as he captures the passion, extremism, and narcissism of the adolescent mind.
    • 5/5
      This novel took me three times as long to read as it might have. A third of my time I spent reading it, a third reading about it, and another third lost in daydreaming and memories as time after time Joyce hit something from my experience so squarely on the nose that it sent me reeling.It didn't begin at all well. A title that reads like a subtitle, an opening line about a moocow, a stream-of-consciousness narrative with glimpses of scenes in fits and starts ... I feared the whole novel would be like this, until I understood it was a child's apprehension of the world. Confusion swiftly gave way to respect. James Joyce had a great talent for recapturing not only the events of childhood but also the much more difficult to remember perceptions, how a young boy takes in and processes what he learns about the world. I would never have recalled it quite this way, and yet it echoes with truth. The boy ages and the same truth shines from the page with each passing year and event, as how he perceives and what he perceives alter with time. He discovers the world is not black-and-white, that not all arguments have tidy resolutions, that the opposite sex is only human too, that religion cannot provide definitive answers, that destiny calls from within. He's still got his blind spots, though: he's stubborn about letting the world in, about taking responsibility for anyone or caring about his roots, and he's far too full of himself and his accumulated learning. But what's an artist without a surfeit of pride?I took the title to be self-referential to Joyce, but it's meant more generically; this is the development of a fictional artist's mind from childhood to self-identity as such, although with biographical elements borrowed from Joyce's own life. Surprisingly accessible (if not so much as "Dubliners"), the only sticking part for me were the big long diatribes about hell and damnation which don't really get examined but pull no punches as an example of what was being knocked into Catholic Irish boys' heads, and maybe still are in some dark corners of the world. I'm bound to deeply admire this book, one I'm stunned by for how well it got inside my head and toured me through episodes from my own life, like a tourist guide who remembers me better than I do.
    • 4/5
      This work shows Joyce's talent. It is well written, easy to follow and portrays characters that the reader can easily like. Man, did Joyce ever change when ego set in.
    • 5/5
      Alright, I’m not going to lie: it’s probably best that you not go into these books unprepared. The journey from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake (which includes Portrait and Ulysses) is studded with hardship and probable failure. Let’s take a good hard evaluation of where you are: you’ve just finished Dubliners. I know you have, because if you haven’t, then you need to re-evaluate your position and realize that you’re going to get nowhere and fast. It’s said that a number of people fail to finish Ulysses. This is true because a lot of people don’t do their homework and read Dubliners first. It’s also true because Ulysses is James Joyce’s most famous book, and readers often like to think they’re hot shit and can start with that.Many a reader ends up fallen on the road of Ulysses, but don’t let that lead you to rashness when you read Portrait. In fact, I would argue that most of the people who failed to read all of Ulysses would have just as soon failed at Portrait. It contains in essence early versions of techniques that would appear in Ulysses. That being said, is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man a lesser work of James Joyce’s? That is to say, is it one of those works of art that just so happens to get eclipsed by a later piece by the same artist?Probably the best example I can think of outside of this would be Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction. To me, Reservoir Dogs showed many of the things that would make Pulp Fiction great, but what makes Pulp Fiction the superior movie can pretty much be summed up in the character of Jules Winfield, who has an epiphany and decides to change directions in his life- much like a story out of Dubliners, albeit highly stylized and exaggerated.That being said, does this mean that Leopold Bloom is Ulysses’s Jules Winfield? I will discuss further when the topic comes up. For now, I can only tell you positively that A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is no Reservoir Dogs. It is, in fact a masterpiece in its own right, and any supposed inferiorities it must contain only appear as such because it pales in comparison to Ulysses, the greatest novel of the 20th century- and that by a good length of head and shoulders. How can I say this? Simple. All you have to do is compare this relatively small book (Joyce’s smallest novel) to anything William Faulkner ever wrote and you shall quickly see not only where Faulkner derives his technique, but who achieves that technique to a greater degree and with more skill. Yes, it’s that good.Also, we can note that there are quite a few properties that differentiate this incredibly interesting small novel from its younger, bigger, more well-known brother. First, the text has been touted as being outright autobiographical by James Joyce. Naturally, it covers a lot more time than the diurnal Ulysses or the nocturnal Finnegans Wake. It gives the reader an excellent start on Ulysses by introducing the characters of Stephen Dedalus (who is James Joyce) and Simon Dedalus (who is John Joyce), both playing large characters in that work. It also shows itself to different in its themes from Ulysses. While the latter can be said to be variously about father-son relationships, the love between man and woman, and Shakespeare (amongst others), the former is about the roles country, religion, and family play in life, the development of the artist as such, and Aristotle and Aquinas (amongst others).To discuss further the plot, the novel traces the life of Stephen Dedalus as he goes through childhood and adolescence and chronicles his personal journey to become an artist. True to habit, James Joyce loved to use real life for his fiction and used it extensively not only for this book but for all of his books and all of his other work. There’s not much in terms of science fiction or invention here, although I have read an unconvincing argument Cliff’s Notes tried to rally that Stephen Dedalus was not James Joyce at all. It really pointed to what are ultimately minor differences between the character and the person.The book chronicles an accident Stephen had where he broke his glasses, was forced to read without them despite the fact that his doctor told him not to, had a stand with a prostitute in Dublin, and experienced a fiery sermon (or catechism) by a priest and felt subsequent guilt about his stand, and then explained his complex philosophy to his peers which derived from Aristotle and Aquinas. These events are important enough on their own, but the real draw is in having Stephen’s thoughts presented on the events throughout. Once again, not light reading by any stretch, but something akin to reading The Sound and the Fury if you need a point of reference.
    • 5/5
      Overweening bastard that he is, Stephen Dedalus goes to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race. And I think: Wow, now I finally understand what Ulysses was all about. It was Joyce's great thesis and his canticle of canticles, his attempt to speak of Irish ghosts in their own language. And Portrait needs to come first, set the scene. Ye Artificer his Remarkable Historie.

      But it's so much more. It's an incredible invocation of the fears and fancies of childhood in a dark and brutal island off the coast of civilization, for we scattered generations of the Commonwealth a shivering memory of the disciplinary yoke of the imperial world-system out of which we came, its origin on another small cold island and its combination, in enchanted Ireland, with an ancient tyranny of soulmongers--Church and Charter, Christ and King. Joyce teases out the stunted schoolboy resistance that persists furtively under that hideous weight and, in the first section, makes it stand tall and proud and relate one small victory in a way that makes it an exemplar, a rebel ballad which will echo and shift, with none of the unavoidable self-neutering fascism of Another Brick in the Wall. When the dean offers to chastise the priest that paddled young Stephen, I want to throw my cap in the air, clutch my rock candy and shout "Haroo!"

      It is also, and here I see how Riddley Walker is the Dedalus of his culture, an ecstatic linguistic myth. Stephen languishes in phantasmagoria, transfixed by the Church's imagery even as its language leads him down scholastic and aesthetic rabbit holes. No site of resistance in thee, O Lord. He breaks free, but languishes too in sex and jealousy and a sense of his sex as sin that keeps him yoked to Sweet Baby Jay as much as he was when he thought he had a vocation--more, since there is now no intellectual tradition for him to inhabit and hone to a rapier point. And like Wittgenstein, this is what brings him back to language--the emptiness of any Irish emancipatory project that is not reflexive, that doesn't come to terms with rape and pillage of a people's speech and culture. The fact that the ghosts of Eire are now strangers, hostile and hungry ghosts. English priests will come and run your parish schools and be rebelled 'gainst in a mummer's show, but there ain't no English firbolg. The fact that the working and peasant classes are as estranged, slouched low inside the Celtic soul, and Stephen/young Joyce is so transfixed and compromised as to attack the people on one side with the class attitudes of the oppressor while still grasping after the deep insights and magic words with which the house Irish or say the native boy can convincingly and with the heart of a believer--one that no matter how effete and Anglified, hates righteously the foreign muck that encrusts him--can fight back as comfortable in his weapons as the car-bomber or the Gaelic association athlete or the balladeer. "Oh tell me Sean O'Farrell" is an anti-colonial weapon too, no doubt about it, but it's not the right one for Joyce/Dedalus, the freaky eyepatch, the adept who feels and the aesthete who believes and the fart-sniffing genius who moves away to Paris and unsettles the whole non-Celtic and imperial world with the queerness of his offerings.

      Meaning: Joyce's Sean O'Farrell is "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo". Dedalus's pikes hidden under haystacks and gleaming together at the rising of the moooooon are "The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea" and "Come forth Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job" and "If others have their will Ann hath a way" and perhaps even "End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousandsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs". Speaking English like a foreign language, like not only your Irish politics and desires and fears but indeed your Irish lips and mouth and brain are different. The extraordinary final third of Portrait of the Artist is where a callow young smartass engages intensively with others of his ilk in words, words, words, leavened with occasional fists; learns to quit yammering about what needs to be done and think about how to just maybe start to do it; and understand that the first step for the poor tongueless Irishman is to make words strange. This book reveals Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as, at least in part, a great project of national liberation. It is their prospectus and methodology.

    • 5/5
      Loved it. I feel disappointed that I found myself relating to Stephen: I think Stephen is kind of an asshole. Then again, I am kind of an asshole. Most young people are. "Smithy of my soul..." = beautifulLovely reverberations. I'd love to write a book with a centrifuge, wakes and reverberations like a finger to a puddle.
    • 2/5
      I know it's a great classic, and I love things Irish, but I couldn't make it through this book. Autobiographical story of james Joyce's youth. The Thomas Wolfe of Ireland; doesn't know when to quit writing description. Pages upon pages about how the Catholic church laid plenty of guilt on and caused major political rifts among families. Give me Angela's Ashes anyday!
    • 2/5
      I know it’s a great classic, which is why I read it. But can I just say that I could barely understand what was going on through the whole book without sounding like a complete idiot? I had been planning on reading Ulysses but maybe not.
    • 3/5
      Very enjoyable for its influential literary style. As someone reading from quite a different generation, the story wasn't enough to keep it afloat on its own but more than makes up for it in punctuation. Moved through it fairly quickly, so would be worthy of a second read to reveal more depth- it is certainly there.
    • 5/5
      This is the only Joyce book I've ever been able to get through. I loved it though. I thought it would prime me for Ulysses, but I've never been able to handle that book.This was marvelous. Magical even.
    • 5/5
      It's a great novel about all aspects of the Christian life...........................The part where he stops being deathly afraid of sin is actually really necessary. (“Supererogation”). Sunday was dedicated to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Monday to the Holy Ghost, Tuesday to Guardian Angels, Wednesday to saint Joseph, Thursday to the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, Friday to Suffering Jesus, and on Saturday he went to the jazz club with Thomas Merton. It doesn’t mean.... I don’t know. “Father forgive me; it’s been a day since my last confession, and I looked at Eva Cassidy the jazz singer for twenty seconds.”“Father forgive me; it’s been eight months since my last confession, and I’ve been really whoring it up the whole time.” There’s a difference. ...............................Really, by the last part, when he was “disillusioned with church and society”, or whatever, it could very well be, “A Portrait of the Scholastic as a Young Man”. If he was annoyed with the rowdy students, it was because they couldn’t follow all his quotes of Aquinas in Latin. As he was once a rowdy student himself, it’s quite the transformation. And yet he was not weighed down with a sense of sin, but carried with him a certain satisfaction. ...................................The closest any of them come to sinning, if you will, (excluding, for some reason, “I’ll be the death of that fellow one time”), in the end is questioning various doctrines, which is not a sin. It’s only a “nationalist” church which would curse that, and it’s not a nationalist book, or, more to the point, a nationalist *reality*. .... He just doesn’t sound like a cursing cynic to me. [reposted 2/3/18].
    • 3/5
      I read this in preparation for a Joyce class I will start next week, focusing on Ulysses. I am very glad I did, because this book has inventive style, a gripping storyline and a representation of social issues not unlike Quebec's in the 50's and 60's - and is a good introduction to the kind of experiments Joyce makes in Ulysses.The development of an artistic mind striving for freedom is fascinating when put in Joyce's lyricism and grand eloquence. I was scared by Joyce at first but now I feel more confident than ever that I can enjoy and appreciate his work.
    • 5/5
      The classic Bildungsroman. Of course, I hate to use the term Bildungsroman cause you sound like a pompous ass. However, since I am in fact a pompous ass, it works out ok.
    • 4/5
      James Joyce. Really, what more needs to be said about something bearing his name?If you haven’t ever read Joyce, I imagine I should probably go on. In A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce sets off on a novel that defines Joyce in the literary annals. The novel, a semiautobiographical account of Joyce’s own upbringing, starts with the Artist (called Stephen Dedalus) as a young child, and progresses through his young adulthood. As he ages, not only does he glimpse the world through older and clearer lenses, but also the writing style and vocabulary reflects his advancement in learning.Reading the book provides the participant two things (among others): First is the interesting way through which Joyce crafts his narrative to age with the protagonist, and second is the interesting story it tells.I recommend this, especially if you are considering scaling Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. Portrait will give you a glimpse of what to expect as you’re dangling from one dangerous precipice or another.