Exiles

by
James Joyce

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Exiles (Collected Works of James Joyce)

by James Joyce

3.31 of 5 stars 3.31 · rating details · 472 ratings · 26 reviews

This 3-act play was first published in 1918; and like much of Joyce's other works, it is an imaginative reconstruction of his own life. In it, Richard Rowan, an Irish writer who has spent much time abroad, feels estranged from Irish society when he returns to Dublin.

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Published 2000 by Classic Books (first published 1918)

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Mar 08, 2009 Reza added it · review of another edition

نمایشنامه تبعیدی ها: جیمز جویس
شخصيت ها
ريچارد روان: نويسنده
برتا: همسر ریچارد
آرچي: پسر آنها، هشت ساله
رابرت هَند: روزنامه نگار
بئاتريس جاستيس: دختر دايي رابرت، معلم موسيقي
بريجيد: خدمتكار مسن خانواده روان
يك زن ماهي فروش
جیمز آگوستین آلوی ژیوس جویس، مشهور به جیمز جویس در ۲ فوریه ( ۱۳ بهمن) ۱۸۸۲ در دوبلین پایتخت ایرلند چشم به جهان گشود. وی در ۱۳ ژانویه ۱۹۴۱ در حالی که از درد چشم و فقر و بیماری رنج می برد، در زوریخ چشم از جهان فروبست.
سیر روایی نمایشنامه :
ریچارد که خود را به تبعیدی خود خواسته وا داشته است...more نمایشنامه تبعیدی ها: جیمز جویس
شخصيت ها
ريچارد روان: نويسنده
برتا: همسر ریچارد
آرچي: پسر آنها، هشت ساله
رابرت هَند: روزنامه نگار
بئاتريس جاستيس: دختر دايي رابرت، معلم موسيقي
بريجيد: خدمتكار مسن خانواده روان
يك زن ماهي فروش
جیمز آگوستین آلوی ژیوس جویس، مشهور به جیمز جویس در ۲ فوریه ( ۱۳ بهمن) ۱۸۸۲ در دوبلین پایتخت ایرلند چشم به جهان گشود. وی در ۱۳ ژانویه ۱۹۴۱ در حالی که از درد چشم و فقر و بیماری رنج می برد، در زوریخ چشم از جهان فروبست.
سیر روایی نمایشنامه :
ریچارد که خود را به تبعیدی خود خواسته وا داشته است و از دوبلین سرزمین مادریش به فرانسه پناه برده است آن هم به دلیل مشکلاتی که کشورش داشته .بعد از مدتی با همسرش برتا که از خانواده ای سطح پائین بود به دوبلین باز میگردد به دلیل مرگ مادرش.در این میان دوست ریچارد که رابرت نام دارد بعد از شکست عاطفی که با بئاتریس داشته است عشق خود را به همسر ریچارد ابراز می کند.برتا موافقتش با عشق رابرت را با رفتارش نشان می دهد.و این موضوع را با همسرش ریچارد در میان می گذارد.زیرا به همدیگر قول داده اند که هیچ چیز را در زندگی از همدیگر پنهان نکنند. ریچارد که به گونه ای گوشه گیر و کم حرف است مخالفتی با رفتار همسرش نشان نمی دهد و از او می خواهد که اگر مایل می باشد به عشق رابرت جواب مثبت بدهد.در ضمن خود ریچارد هم با شخصی روابط پنهانی دارد .برتا که در عمق جان ریچارد را دوست دارد و همچنین پسری نیز به نام آرچی حاصل زندگی اش می باشد سر می گذارد به مخالفت کردن و این که نباید تا این حد از آزادی به او و خودش را بدهد.اما ریچارد باور دارد که اگر آنها به یکدیگر علاقه دارند چیزی و کسی نباید مانع آنها باشد.برتا می خواهد حس حسادت ریچارد را برانگیزد تا بدین واسطه بر خودش ثابت کند که هنوز برای ریچارد ارزشمند است اما ریچارد حسادت خود را بروز نمی دهد.تا اینکه در شبی که برتا با رابرت قرار ملاقات داشت به دلیل اصرار برتا ریچارد هم در آنجا حاضر می شود و شروع می کنند به توجیح و اعتراف به تمام کاستی ها و دردهایشان.البته به دید من به صورت مونولوگ.رابرت عقب می نشیند و در یک لحظه رابطهاش با تمام دوبلین از بین میرود پس قصد میکند که کشور را ترک کند و به تبعیدی خودخواسته گردن نهد.و از ریچارد می خواهد که در دوبلین بماند زیرا بسیار به او احتیاج دارند.
درونمایه:
جویس بسیار به شخصیت ریچارد نزدیک است و اگر نخواهیم اغراق کنیم دقیقا نشان دهنده زندگی زناشویی خود اوست زیرا جویس هم مانند ریچارد با دختری ازدواج کرد که از لحاظ مرتبه فرهنگی یا شاید هم اجتماعی با او بسیار فاصله داشت.در جایی خواننده بودم که وقتی در سن چهل سالگی جویس بیشتر بینایی خود را از دست می دهد از همسرش می خواهد که کتابهایش را برایش بخواند و همسر جویس که از آثار او هیچ نمی فهمیده به او می گوید چرا چیزی نمی نویسی که به در د بخوره و همه بفهمند؟یعنی این چرت و پرت ها رو مردم می خونن؟
جویس به دلیل علاقه بسیاری که به آثار ایبسن داشته دست به خلق این اثر نمایشی می زند که اگر با ایبسن آشنا باشیم این نمایش بسیار شبیه آثار او و نگاه او به زندگی ست.به خصوص نمایشنامه «بانوی دریائی :هنریک ایبسن».
جویس نیز مانند ریچارد به تبعید تن می دهد ودر کشورهای بسیاری مانند ایتالیا و آلمان سرگشتگی را تجربه می کند.
جویس برخلاف بسیاری از نمایشنامه ها که تماشاگر و یا خواننده را وادار به همزاد پنداری می کند.دست به این کار نمیزند زیرا نمایشنامه جویس و خواننده در روی دو خط مجزا در حال حرکت هستند که هیچگاه به یکدیگر نمی رسند مگر اینکه از دور به این دو خط نظرکنیم که آن هم تنها تصوری و سرابی است از به هم رسیدن.این دو خط هرگز در عالم واقع همدیگر را لمس نخواهند کرد.
برداشت:
زندگی به اندازه کافی دارای قید و بندهای ست که دیگر لزومی به افزودن گره ای بر پیگره پر گره آن نیست.ناب ترین روابط میسر نخواهد شد مگر در سایه اعتماد و آزادی.هیچ یک از ما دوست نداریم به اسارت چیزی یا کسی در آئیم.هر کس باید در نگاه خود رشد کند و نتایج و باورهایش را به تنهایی به دست آورد.البته این به معنای نیاموختن از دیگران نیست.
این گونه زندگی کردن بسیار دشوار است ولی اگر گوشه ای از گرمای آن را لمس کنیم(که ان هم تنها به واسطه خواندن و دیدن و لمس کردن واقعیت های زندگی مان به وقوع خواهد پیوست) دیگر هیچگاه خود را از آن دور نخواهیم کرد.
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Nov 10, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in May 2001.

Of all Joyce's mature writing, his only play is probably the least well known. It is also one of his least successful pieces, never having had much success on the stage. Displaying an unusual lack of confidence, it shows its influences strongly.

The Exiles manages to simultaneously be dull enough to seem longer than it is and unsatisfying enough to seem shorter. This is because Joyce gives all the real character to the part of Richard; neither he n...more

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Apr 15, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not a fan of Joyce, which probably explains why I really liked this play. Exiles is much more straightforward than any of his novels, and far more dramatic and interesting than any of the short stories in The Dubliners. I decided to give it a try after hearing that it was by far his most "conventional" work, a term which appeals to me in respect to authors like James Joyce and William Faulkner. If you like stories where you have to wrestle with every sentence in order to appreciate their sub...more

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Apr 04, 2009 Baiocco added it · review of another edition

Do you have to read Ulysses? No. But you shouldn't be scared of it either. Just jump right in and quit being a pussy. Joyce was an Aquarius and if the fruit of his labor was Ulysses than it is genuinely the work of the Water Bearer: it just keeps giving, giving, giving to parched lips. Don't expect anything from it and you'll be rewarded 10 fold. But don't try to quantify it either, because it was designed to reject that kind of thinking--a truly unique spirit. There is a lot going on in there,...more Do you have to read Ulysses? No. But you shouldn't be scared of it either. Just jump right in and quit being a pussy. Joyce was an Aquarius and if the fruit of his labor was Ulysses than it is genuinely the work of the Water Bearer: it just keeps giving, giving, giving to parched lips. Don't expect anything from it and you'll be rewarded 10 fold. But don't try to quantify it either, because it was designed to reject that kind of thinking--a truly unique spirit. There is a lot going on in there, but there's really something for everyone. English majors, English minors, history buffs, scientists, mathemeticians, one chapter is in play form, humanists, clowns, cynics, blowhards, romantics...its all there. My suggestion as always: take what you want and leave the rest to rot. The beauty of Ulysses is that its not what you miss, its what you get.

If however, you are interested in being a pussy and/or pussyfooting around Ulysses by reading Joyce's shorter works like Portrait of an Artist (something like Catcher In The Rye, you should really read before you graduate high school, unless you're having a mid-life crisis and need a character with which to vent your newfound, bratty individualistic liberties) and The Dubliners, you should really consider the play Exiles.

I think its probably Joyce's least known work, but its almost as good as Chekov and even though it works through the tired theme of Adultery, its still pretty stunning, and even more its kind of autobiographical. At the point in which Exiles was composed, Joyce just published Portrait of an Artist and was in self-imposed Exile after flying the coop of Ireland in search of his ideals. The characters in Exiles, a writer and his wife and son, and their family friend are, you guessed it, in self-imposed Exile and the writer is having a spiritual crisis. My unfounded guess is that in the process of writing Exiles James Joyce tapped into a tip of wealth of artistic drive which he hesitated to exploit until the time was right. That time was right as soon as he finished Exiles and began in on Ulysses, where his artistic drive exploded all over the page (leading, I guess to keep this metaphor going, to the runny inkblot known as Finnegan's Wake, which No, you do not need to read).

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Nov 06, 2011 Ivana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel this play could have been better but I cannot define precisely how. I cannot picture it on stage, but that does not bother me, I've loved many "only to read" plays. Perhaps with some editing and rewriting Exiles could have been really great. ( Here I go with the maybes: If it had been a great success would it have been edited and improved? Ah, questions, questions) It has the potential without doubt, it has some wonderful dialogues but I feel something is missing. It may be that Joyce's t...more I feel this play could have been better but I cannot define precisely how. I cannot picture it on stage, but that does not bother me, I've loved many "only to read" plays. Perhaps with some editing and rewriting Exiles could have been really great. ( Here I go with the maybes: If it had been a great success would it have been edited and improved? Ah, questions, questions) It has the potential without doubt, it has some wonderful dialogues but I feel something is missing. It may be that Joyce's talent was principally that of a novelist. Drama needs tragedy, confrontation...even in its more modern forms it needs a conflict, a moment of intensive feeling.
The Ibsen influence in drama is obvious, but it is not natural in sense that it fits the story. By that I mean that the feminist issues are a bit unfinished. I do not mind Joyce looking up to Ibsen but he should have worked on his dramatist skills a bit more…There are many themes in Exiles and perhaps too many…liberation, feminism, Ireland, religion, autobiographical things, morality…list goes on. Joyce is too analytic to be a great dramatist in my opinion. Dramatist should not explain, he should show. That being said, I believe that anyone who is a fan of Joyce will look besides things like that and be attracted to the suppleness behind Joyce words.

I can help wondering what it was that the cticis of the time resented to this play. Could it have been the liberal ideas? Although there is nothing shocking about Exiles for today’s standards, there are lines that will make moralist dislike it, such as:

ROBERT: I am shore that no law made by man is sacred before the impulse of passion. Who made us for one only? It is a crime against our won being if we are so. There is no law before impulses. Laws are for slaves…

To me, Exiles were enchanting to read, even if I did not understand the characters all the time, even if I had to read it more than once to sort of understand what was going on, even if there are some faults in it. There are lines in the play that are so good that the reading of the play can be justified even if the rest was utter rubbish- and it is not. Joyce is not afraid to criticize himself in Richard. The character of Richard is so clearly biographical (and in that sense similar to Stephen and other semiautobiographical characters) that I have to wonder has he reproached himself with words he put in Bertha’s mouth:

BERTHA : “ All is to be for you. I am to appear false and cruel to everyone except to you. Because you take advantage of my simplicity as you did- the first time.”

There are parts in the dialogue between Richard and Stephen where the influence of Ibsen is obvious such as:

ROBERT: There are moment of sheer madness when we feel an intense passion for women.
We see nothing. We thing of nothing. Only to posses her. Call it brutal, bestial, what you will.
RICHARD: I am afraid that longing to posses a women is not love.

However, there are dialogues that are true to Joyce, that in other words raise difficult questions, cruel truths and make you think. Ah, those thoughts that make his writing wonderful, I don't even mind the fact that I'm feeling sad when and after I read them. The exiles is not without pathos, it is not a play that should have not been a play but rather a play that could have been better.
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Dec 05, 2012 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plays-and-dramas, relationships, in-my-library, read-2012, fiction-in-english, classics-and-modern-classics, irish-fiction

Jag kan förstå de kritiker som hävdar att Exiles är Joyces mest misslyckade verk. Pjäsen jämförs med Ibsen och, till viss del, kan jag hålla med om det. Exiles har onekligen en likartad utformning men saknar Ibsens anspel på människans inre liv. Pjäsen har även jämförts med Joyces egna verk och man menar med detta att den saknar mycket av hans riklighet, bredd och förtrollning. Det är jättetrist men jag kan inget annat än att hålla med. Exiles är en intressant pjäs, naturalismen var en mycket sp...more

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Oct 03, 2010 Steve rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plays

Disclaimer: I hate Ibsen.

Tedious. Please. No one make me read this again. Please. Please.

How could someone make such a juicy soap-opera-type story so boring? There were a couple of good lines, but even Joyce's notes on Exiles in the back are a bunch of nonsense. It's too bad he didn't make this into a novel; it might've been good.

Has he ever heard of editing? Of cutting? I mean, I like Eugene O'Neill--he overwrites. This makes O'Neill look like Beckett. Except if Beckett sucked. It's hard to fi...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Yair Bezalel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was going to start this with a 'Joyce is to English and world literature what x is to y...' but, I'll go one better and just say that Joyce just IS literature. The man embodied so much of what's great and horrible about writers, about the craft, about the simplicity of telling a story versus the herculean nonsense that is the extracting of meaning, new, old, completely invented or absolute truth, from that writing. Joyce was brilliant and revolutionary. He completely shifted the course of Engl...more I was going to start this with a 'Joyce is to English and world literature what x is to y...' but, I'll go one better and just say that Joyce just IS literature. The man embodied so much of what's great and horrible about writers, about the craft, about the simplicity of telling a story versus the herculean nonsense that is the extracting of meaning, new, old, completely invented or absolute truth, from that writing. Joyce was brilliant and revolutionary. He completely shifted the course of English and, by extension, world literature with his high modernist works daring the world to unravel or cut the Gordian knots he was presenting. The only author I can compare him to based on the scope of his achievement would be Shakespeare. But he also, from what I've been able to glean, may have been an insufferably pompous and even self-hating possibly self-torturing ass. He was as great as he was greatly flawed. He was, in short, a man.

I picked this up in a used bookshop in Tel Aviv along with Faulkner's Light in August from a bookseller anxious to close. It was not long before I left Israel and the title and the presumed content and my own life history all coalesced into me picking up the book with a mixture of melancholy and slight, god help me, exaltation.

Going into this play I had a host of expectations based on what I've read from and about Joyce in the past. I wasn't expecting the magnitude of Ulysses or the internal maze wandering that was Portrait of the Artist, not having read too many plays recently (save Faust a year ago and Ibsen a little before that). Maybe something more along the lines of Dubliners but, to be honest, I had in my mind this image of a play about an Irish expatriate returning to 'the homeland' after an extended stay abroad, only to be confronted by everything that has happened while he was gone; this confrontation would be epitomized by the returnee facing his opposite, the Irishman who stayed behind that, while denying himself the riches and despair of knowing the rest of the world, would set himself up as the moral superior to the returnee and, attempt, to shame the returnee about his absence and possibly attempt to shift him to his own way of thinking. The conclusion to this in my mind would be, from what little I've shaped together resembling assumptions regarding Joyce, both characters secure in their choices yet internally destroyed by the confrontation.

This isn't what I read. And I'm glad because what's there is good. But I'm a bit disappointed at wasn't there or just barely alluded to. The play itself is a good story with wonderful details and visual clues suffused throughout but, with my edition, it was the author's copious notes and elaborations on his characters and general story that really disconcert with those three dreadful words: what could've been. In the end I'm reminded of what Charles Bukowski once said about Truman Capote, that the latter never actually wrote, only ice-skated on the surface of things, never good enough, smart enough, perhaps writer enough to go deeper.

More than worth it for the Joyce completionists out there, and certainly the work is loaded down with his talent, but not quite enough. Read it as a promise of the paradigm shifting to come, the moment between the cannon being lit and the wall coming down.(less)

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Jan 15, 2008 Frederick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Actors

Shelves: plays, joyce

I am recommending this for two reasons.
The first is that the introduction is by Conor McPherson, a playwright whose works (among them THE SEAFARER, which is currently on Broadway) take a cue from Joyce and Yeats.
The second reason is that this volume contains a twelve-page set of notes by Joyce himself.
It's handy to have EXILES by itself. I've only noticed it previously contained in THE PORTABLE JOYCE, which, I think, has gone out of print. [It hasn't. It's even been corrected to show dashes ins...more

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Oct 29, 2009 Henry added it · review of another edition

Shelves: drama

"I have wounded my soul for you -- a deep wound of doubt which can never be healed. I can never know, never in this world. I do not wish to know or to believe. I do not care. It is not in the darkness of belief that I desire you. But in restless living wounding doubt. To hold you by no bonds, even of love, to be united with you in body and soul in utter nakedness -- for this I longed. And now I am tired for a while, Bertha. My wound tires me."

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Apr 04, 2013 Wes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although this play draws upon 'The Dead,' I felt that Exiles had far less of an emotional impact than the stories in Dubliners, in general. I only gradually developed a mental picture of the set and the characters, which I could finally visualize by about halfway through the Second Act; I'd really love to see the work performed.

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Oct 20, 2010 Everett Darling rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

A decent play in its own right, though apparently a nod to Ibsen and with that in mind, it doesn´t stand close to that kind of genius for capturing life´s simple and complex circumstances.

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Mar 02, 2013 Omar Shamsi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of Joyce's least favored works, Exiles is a story of a love triangle and the cat and mouse games that are born of that and the people that were, in fact, exiled on various different occasions. A good work, if not the best.

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Feb 08, 2012 Greg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-1900-1965

After reading Ulysses, this was a calm reading from James Joyce. The story is compelling and the impact from the characters is resounding. A great play by a great author.

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Jan 28, 2011 Jackee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed the play, even though it was really different from the other Joyce writings I've read.

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Mar 13, 2013 Basila rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i enjoyed it alot!

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Feb 09, 2013 Velvetink marked it as to-read · review of another edition

ebook version

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Apr 21, 2012 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

got a rare book edition from my brother for my birthday, Joyce always good

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May 30, 2007 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Exiles is worth reading, if you happen to be a James Joyce devotee, but it catches one offguard: written between Portrait and Ulysses, it has none of the stylistic innovation. In fact, it is very plain, perhaps to the point of making it not interesting. But, upon further reflection, it is not bad, so much as different from those grand brackets.

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Jun 08, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Much of James Joyce's literature is based on his own life and/or memories of his life in Ireland while he "self imposed exile" on himself, living in Paris or Trieste.

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Apr 03, 2011 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very good. Much better than I expected.

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Mar 11, 2007 Cody rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modernism, the-irish-question

It is interesting to see Joyce work within the confines of playwriting, but I found this text inferior to the rest of his body of work. To see Joyce in superior playwright form, seek out the "Circe" episode in *Ulysses.*

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Aug 15, 2007 Jacob rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: completists

With Exiles, Joyce worked out his debt to Ibsen by writing an awful play. Read the fiction; this is not of interest to anyone but students and scholars of Joyce.

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Jun 18, 2007 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: theater, undergrad

I really liked this short "play" by Joyce. It's his easiest read. While the play is unstageable, it's a good story, and the dialogue is well done.

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Apr 17, 2007 Soodaroo rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Too idealist, too much good for thinking . . . or Mr. Joyce own life?

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May 21, 2008 Nicolas Brannon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

He imitates Ibsen. Just read Ibsen instead.

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Jun 16, 2013 Via Suksantinunt marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jun 15, 2013 Michelle marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jun 14, 2013 Joshua Maust marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jun 13, 2013 Brent rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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About James Joyce

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist, noted for his experimental use of language in such works as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Joyce's technical innovations in the art of the novel include an extensive use of interior monologue; he used a complex network of s...more

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avg rating	preview: Exiles Goodreads rating: 3.31 (472 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/597114.Exiles?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]/assets/nocover/111x148.png[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/597114.Exiles?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Exiles by James Joyce[/url]

Exiles (Collected Works of James Joyce)

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