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Jan 29, 2012

Simona rated it:

I pensieri mi scappavano via. Gli impegni seri della vita, che ora parevano separarmi dai miei desideri, mi sembravano un gioco infantile, antipatico e noioso. {Arabia

Dopo aver letto i primi racconti ero abbastanza perplessa. Il fatto è che c'era qualcosa, in questo libro, che non mi convinceva affatto; mi sembrava che ogni racconto non finisse mai, ma una volta letta l'ultima parola di ognuno si raccartocciassero su se stessi e le vite dei personaggi riprendessero a scorrere daccapo. E in More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 19, 2009

Choupette rated it:

So. Dubliners, hey? Honestly, didn't love it.

Joyce's Dublin is defined by a sense of paralysis. (I'm not making this up; just read any piece of criticism on the subject - it gets repetitive.) Many of the critics like to extend this to talk about the themes of 'gnomon' and 'simony' (don't know what they mean? Well, I expanded my vocabulary, thankYOU Mr. Joyce), because they're mentioned in the same context as 'paralysis'. And it works, I guess, if you stand on your head and use a micr More...

13 comments like (22 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2008

John rated it:

Brilliant and encyclopedic as James Joyce was -- the artist who, more than any other, hauled the ancient storytellers' calling to distill an entire culture into the 20th Century -- his work in prose began with this subdued, sequenced exercise in urban heartache, and it's the book I choose to celebrate for Goodreads. Yes, ULYSSES had its way with me, too, a walloping inspiration, there's no denying. But DUBLINERS provides the ur-version for what's become a fiction staple, the community portrait More...

4 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Robin rated it:

I suppose I've always intended to read Joyce; it's terribly daunting but seems inevitable, too, that I must follow the man all the way through to Finnegans Wake. I have a copy. Untouched. Another remnant of the days when I thought I was on Earth to prove some kind of a point.

But I'm still awfully curious, and this year I finally dipped a toe in. Dubliners came first and seemed easiest to start with, and I'd read a story or two of it already. And indeed it is pretty conventional More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2008

Trevor rated it:

The worst of it is that I know I’ve read this before. Some of the stories I would have read more than once before too. So, why is it that so few of them have stayed with me?

There are other stories I've read in my life that I could nearly recite to you and bits of poetry I quite literally could recite – in fact, one of my less amusing party tricks is to do just that with endless tracts of The Waste Land. One of the less attractive costs of over-indulging in alcohol…

I More...

12 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Erelin rated it:

This Was my first introduction to famous James Joyce. I decided I should start with some of his shorter works before tackling Ulysses. I should start by saying that I am definitely in awe of Joyce's genius, his amazing, almost supernatural talent, and that I feel that there is so much an aspiring writer can learn from him. I definitely agree that he is amongst the greatest writers who have ever lived. So I bow down before him and give him all the glory he deserves. However, having said that, I f More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Samantha rated it:

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1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Emma rated it:

I never finished reading this book of short stories by James Joyce, but reading the first story changed my life. I read part of this book during the summer before or after my Senior year of high school. I was amazed by the way Joyce constructed his sentences and described ordinary things. The line "as the evening invaded the avenue" has always struck me as beautiful and I now actively seek authors who don't describe things in ordinary terms. While I had always been an active reader More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jessica rated it:

My displeasure with Dubliners, and my general distaste for James Joyce, is a long-standing fact. I won't waste space here by trash-talking "The Dead" like I usually do. The only story I really like in this collection is "Eveline."

I know, I'm the worst English major ever.

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2011

Michael G. rated it:

I was not at all familiar with this work. When I opened the book, I did not know it was a book of short stories. As I read what I supposed were chapters, I kept beating myself up mentally because I could not tie them together. Then I saw the light and enjoyed the reading.

I was in Dublin in 2006 on holiday. In that short span of time, I couldn't see that much of the city, so I thought I'd read about it. I found pleasure in Joyce's tales of a Dublin many years ago. I found it sim More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2007

Nathaniel rated it:

I started this book on the plane to Dublin and finished it a day after I had arrived. It was an excellent complement to the city itself and a great introduction to the early writing and thinking of Joyce, and definitely an easier task than starting by jumping head-first into Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

My recommendation for the order of Joyce books to read: Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegan's Wake (in order of difficulty and chronologically too, I t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This collection of short stories set in Dublin was written by an immature, youthful Joyce. He is not yet the man who wrote Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. He's young, and he's seeding the ground with what will make him famous. I actually adore these kinds of novels. The young work of a great master. Showing him in his process, and watching the maturity grow as you read over his work. I think perhaps it reminds me that these men were not luminous beings who were gifted naturally to pour out the page More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 26, 2007

Christopher rated it:

Genius. I do not use that word lightly. Yet Dubliners certainly earns Joyce this title, even if he had never gone on to write Ulysses. Easily the most accessible of Joyce's works, this short story cycle serves as a "how-to" manual for crafting amazing stories. All readers of English should be made to read this volume.

Every story in Dubliners has some sort of epiphany or moment of enlightenment. Joyce actually coined the word "epiphany" as it is used in litera More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2009

Stacie rated it:

This book just wasn't doing it for me. I was about half-way through when I decided to put it down, so am giving it 2.5 stars for what I read. Maybe one day I will come back to it. But, it just isn't representative of the Joyce that I love. You know, the crazy one that writes about dirty things.

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2011

Brad rated it:

This collection of fifteen short stories set around Dublin, Ireland, was my first exposure to Joyce. Some of the stories are better than others. Some of the stories haunt my mind like boyhood tales told around a campfire.

In each story the main character experiences a moment of self-realization in which the rest of the story takes a sudden turn of sadness. (Tolkien talked about moments of eucatastrophe, when at the saddest part of the story it takes a sudden turn for joy. My impression with these More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Jimmy rated it:

Unassuming stories of everyday life, and from every phase of life. Some are vignettes, some almost feel underwhelming... but intentionally so.

I have to say, though, that 'The Dead' is a GREAT story. It is one of the best stories I've ever read, and touches on the themes of all the other stories for a powerful and resonating close. And it starts out so much like the other ones, like a vignette, but then it continues past that vignette and goes deep into the character's psyches.
More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 26, 2010

James rated it:

Rereading Dubliners was a real joy, particularly due to Joyce's command of language. The variety within the collection is due to Joyce's Irish experiences, which constitute an essential element of his writings. This early volume of short stories is a penetrating analysis of the stagnation and paralysis of Dublin society. The stories were written at the time when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 26, 2008

Tim rated it:

I've always been curious about James Joyce's Ulysses (a.k.a. the greatest novel in the English language) and Finnegan's Wake (a.k.a. the greatest novel in made-up dream language). A beloved math teacher from high school raved about Finnegan, saying he read two lines a night--with a ruler and a Gaelic-to-English dictionary--and loved every word.

Still, it would seem reading Ulysses is not the sort of thing you just jump into -- rather you need to ramp up, to somehow gain a head of stea More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2007

Daniel rated it:

While I realize this book is well respected generally, and remains (in addition to Portrait of the Artist) one of Joyce's more accessible works, I still fail to see any great staying power in it, and that is either my particular failing or the specific Irish culture to which I feel Joyce addressed his longing and expectations. If in forging that uncreated conscience of his race he was caught in a great an obsessive rumination of the failings of the past, then the future laid out for that fledgin More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Karen rated it:

Before reading this book, I wanted to love Joyce. Portrait of the Artist kinda worked for me. Ulysses impressed me, but I never in a million years would have made it through without the guidance of an enthusiastic professor.

Dubliners displays just as much genius as Ulysses, I think. But while Ulysses' styling is obvious, painted over with a broad brush, unavoidable, Dubliners' is subtle, detailed, painted with fine brushes. You notice the artistry more with each story.

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1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Jeremy added it

These stories are wonderful. Joyce is brilliant at evoking both the feel of Dublin, with its grimy backstreets and wet weather, and the inner lives of its residents. The overriding tone of these is melancholic, and what beautiful melancholy he weaves. Whether it comes from poverty, class/religious tensions, or just good old fashioned death, there is a beautiful wistfulness that suffuses these peoples lives and reminiscences. And the intense, psychological intimacy of these peoples lives would re More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2011

Erik rated it:

By 1976 I was pretty thoroughly immersed in wading through the Collected Works of C.G. Jung as well as those books which appeared to have been most influential in his thinking. Joyce, whose daughter Jung analyzed, was repeatedly referenced, usually to his Ulysses. I had tried that one in high school and found it too difficult, but a friend recommended his first publication, Dubliners, a collection of fourteen short stories and one novella depicting Irish life prior to independence.
The More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Koen rated it:

Joyce is a tedious git. I already don't care much for slice-of-life human-condition type fiction, but the fact that it's Joyce makes it just that tiny bit worse. At least the stories are short (though The Dead is pushing it) and there aren't too many of them.
Dubliners isn't as bad as the Byzantine pretention of Ulysses or the self-indulgent waste of paper that is Finnegans Wake, but other than the odd St.-Patrick's-Day faux-Irish American who wants to pretend these stories are about His Pe More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2008

Linda rated it:

Although James Joyce lived outside of his native Ireland for most of his life, his work is as Irish as peat smoke. His story collection Dubliners, published in 1914, consists of fifteen slices of early 20th century life in the city where Joyce was born. Dublin itself is a detailed backdrop, and the self-awareness of the characters plays out on Dublin's streets and interiors. The reader doesn't find rollicking plots here, but the character sketches are rewarding and somewhat open-ended. Many of t More...

1 comment like

Jan 07, 2012

Jenny rated it:

Compared to Ulysses, which took me months to read with critical aids, the short stories of James Joyce are easy to understand and enjoyable on multiple levels. He wrote them while he was quite young, and I noticed several references to characters thinking about how they hoped they accomplished a certain thing in their lives by age 31 or 33 (Joyce was in his 20s).

The stories go by theme, although I have seen some scholars indicate that only the last story has the death theme, and o More...

12 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

Patrice rated it:

"He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues. He would be thirty-one in November. Would he never get a good job? Would he never have a home of his own? He thought how pleasant it would be to have a warm fire to sit by and a good dinner to sit down to. He had walked the streets long enough with friends and with girls. He knew what those friends were worth: he knew the girls two. Experience had embittered his heart against the worst. But all hope More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Catherine rated it:

Three stars, really, but an extra star just for The Dead.

You hear so much about The Dead before you read it. Or, at least, I did. My dad urged me to read it, years ago, pressing a hardback copy of Dubliners into my hands. I procrastinated and dithered and ignored the book until it came to the stage when I finally, skeptically, opened the book, and couldn't remember which story he'd recommended so strongly. I began with A Painful Case, then, which is the way you should do it. Because th More...

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Nov 01, 2011

Arlie rated it:

Joyce's collections of short stories set in Dublin around the turn of the century are beautifully crafted. He creates each sentence with care, giving the reader some beautiful metaphors and creating clear and distinct images in his portraits of characters in a variety of settings. The stories range over the young and in love to the alcoholic, the elderly, and the educated. The one thing all of the stories have in common is the theme of stagnation - each character is stuck somewhere unpleasant (a More...

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Sep 20, 2011

Samantha rated it:

During:
So far I really like this novel. Joyce is wise in making each chapter a different story with no relationship to previous stories. Although I contiune trying to find some connection. I find this style efficent because it is less painful than reading a 50 page chapter. The stories are really interesting and have ways for us to connect to them due to the diversity of different characters. Some stories have been harder to follow than others. "Araby" is humorous because the li More...

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Aug 29, 2011

Scott rated it:

Masterfully brings to life an entire people. An extremely grim and negative side of these people to be sure, but nonetheless accurate and unapologetically honest. Given the context of the times (The aftermath of the potato famine, the political turmoil that dominated daily Irish live throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to say nothing of today) it is hardly surprising.

One failing I can see for Dubliners is that it's inextricably linked to the time it was writte More...

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