James "The Modernist Marvel" Joyce. It took me a long time to appreciate Joyce. It took growing up, reading, re-reading, and reflecting. I'll be honest, in high school symoblism and motifs in The Dubliners didn't do it for me. Ulysses was like the product of literary mad scientist bent on destroying the young fragile mind. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young man was a tad dull. Looking back on it thought I've come to recognize Joyce's outstanding control over the English language. I use the word "control" because I feel he is like a master painter-possessing a mastery of any literary tool in order to invoke a particular emotion or connection in the reader.



I reread His A Portrait of theArtist as a Young man during the summer of my college graduation and entrance into the real world. I could go on and on about how Joyce wa a genuis for adapting his literary techniques to fit the age of the narrator. I could identify with his fearful devotion to religion than later its rejection in favor academics. I could even identify with the narrator's own awkwardness, conflict with his relatives, and social ineptitude. However, what really gripped me this second time around was the main character's own struggle for indepedence-through religion, academics, and finally by becoming a struggling artist. In a way I read the book at just the right time in my life and it struck more of a chord than it did five years ago.