Dubliners

by James Joyce

'When you remember that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years,' James Joyce once wrote to his brother, 'that it is the "second" city of the British Empire, that it is nearly three times as big as Venice it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world'

In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only twenty-five, he produced a definitive group portrait. It is a book, as Terence Brown suggests in his stimulating Introduction, 'rooted in an intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life.' Extensive notes to this new edition fill in the rich network of local and historical references. And yet, beyond its brilliant and almost brutal realism, it is also a book full of enigmas, ambiguities and symbolic resonances. Dubliners remains an undisputed masterpiece, a work that, in Brown's words, 'compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world, its controlling sense of the truths of human experience as its author discerned them in a defeated, colonial city'.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Ireland, Literature, Irish Literature, 20th Century

317 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 1914

About the author

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and a pivotal figure in 20th-century modernist literature, renowned for his highly experimental approach to language and narrative structure, particularly his pioneering mastery and popularization of the stream-of-consciousness technique. Born into a middle-class Catholic family in the Rathgar suburb of Dublin in 1882, Joyce spent the majority of his adult life in self-imposed exile across continental Europe—living in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris—yet his entire, meticulous body of work remained obsessively and comprehensively focused on the minutiae of his native city, making Dublin both the meticulously detailed setting and a central, inescapable character in his literary universe. His work is consistently characterized by its technical complexity, rich literary allusion, intricate symbolism, and an unflinching examination of the spectrum of human consciousness. Joyce began his published career with Dubliners (1914), a collection of fifteen short stories offering a naturalistic, often stark, depiction of middle-class Irish life and the moral and spiritual paralysis he observed in its inhabitants, concluding each story with a moment of crucial, sudden self-understanding he termed an "epiphany." This collection was followed by the highly autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), a Bildungsroman that meticulously chronicled the intellectual and artistic awakening of its protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, who would become Joyce's recurring alter ego and intellectual stand-in throughout his major works.
His magnum opus, Ulysses (1922), is universally regarded as a landmark work of fiction that fundamentally revolutionized the novel form. It compressed the events of a single, ordinary day—June 16, 1904, a date now globally celebrated by literary enthusiasts as "Bloomsday"—into a sprawling, epic narrative that structurally and symbolically paralleled Homer's Odyssey, using a dazzling array of distinct styles and linguistic invention across its eighteen episodes to explore the lives of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus in hyper-minute detail. The novel's explicit content and innovative, challenging structure led to its initial banning for obscenity in the United States and the United Kingdom, turning Joyce into a cause célèbre for artistic freedom and the boundaries of literary expression. His final, most challenging work, Finnegans Wake (1939), pushed the boundaries of language and conventional narrative even further, employing a dense, dream-like prose filled with multilingual puns, invented portmanteau words, and layered allusions that continues to divide and challenge readers and scholars to this day. A dedicated polyglot who reportedly learned several languages, including Norwegian simply to read Ibsen in the original, Joyce approached the English language not as a fixed entity with rigid rules, but as a malleable medium capable of infinite reinvention and expression. His personal life was marked by an unwavering dedication to his literary craft, a complex, devoted relationship with his wife Nora Barnacle, and chronic, debilitating eye problems that necessitated numerous painful surgeries throughout his life, sometimes forcing him to write with crayons on large white paper. Despite these severe physical ailments and financial struggles, his singular literary vision remained sharp, focused, and profoundly revolutionary. Joyce passed away in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1941, shortly after undergoing one of his many eye operations. Today, he is widely regarded as perhaps the most significant and challenging writer of the 20th century. His immense, complex legacy is robustly maintained by global academic study and institutions such as the James Joyce Centre in Dublin, which ensures his complex, demanding, and utterly brilliant work endures, inviting new generations of readers to explore the very essence of what it means to be hum

Reviews

[Sean Barrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life is full of missed opportunities and hard decisions. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to actually do. Dubliners creates an image of an ever movie city, of an ever moving exchange of people who experience the reality of life. And that’s the whole point: realism. Not everything goes well, not everything is perfectly constructed. Life is random and unpredictable. If we’re not careful it may escape from us entirely.

There are two types of stories in Dubliners. The first, and by far the most effective, are those associated with despair, nihilism and death. The second type deals with more ordinary aspects of modern life, the representation of the city and social exchanges. As a collection they provide an image of dark, murky city struggling to cope with the problems associated with rapid urbanisation. The stories do not intertwine, but you are left with the impression that they are not that far from each other: their proximity feels close as you read further into each one.

The true mastery of Joyce’s writing reveals itself in what he doesn’t say, the subtle suggestions, the lingering questions, as each story closes without any sense of full resolution. And, again, is this not true of real life? In narrative tradition there is a structured beginning, middle and end, but in the reality of existence it doesn’t quite work this way. Life carries on. It doesn’t have a form of narrative closure, a convenient wrapping up of plot, after each wound we take in life. It carries on. We carry on. And for the Dubliners isolation carries on.

“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

[Federico DN · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnfable Collection.

A collection of short stories by renowned James Joyce.

Boy this collection sucked! This guy is seriously depressing, and the few times something good was built he killed it with a dismal ending. Unremarkable characters, mundane plots, outstandingly boring storytelling; nearly all of them utterly forgettable, and skimmable. I definitely had worse, but not a lot. This should’ve been a dnf, but stubborn idiot that I am, I didn’t.

Go for the Best, consider the Good, whatever the Meh.

The Good :
★★★☆☆ “A Painful Case.”
★★★☆☆ "The Dead." [2.5]

The Meh :
★★☆☆☆ "Araby."
★★☆☆☆ “The Boarding House.”
★★☆☆☆ "Eveline."
★☆☆☆☆ “A Mother.” [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ “Two Gallants.” [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ “Clay.”
★☆☆☆☆ “A Little Cloud.”
★☆☆☆☆ “After the Race.”
★☆☆☆☆ “An Encounter.”
★☆☆☆☆ “The Sisters.”
☆☆☆☆☆ “Counterparts.” [0.5]
☆☆☆☆☆ “Grace.”
☆☆☆☆☆ “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.”

It's public domain, you can find it HERE.

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PERSONAL NOTE : Please note my review is not a personal attack on Dublin or Ireland; I'd have felt exactly the same way if this book was written about any city, or even my hometown Buenos Aires, which I also 1-starred.
[1914] [207p] [Collection] [Not Recommendable]
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★★★☆☆ The Dead. [2.5]
★★☆☆☆ Araby.
★★☆☆☆ Eveline.
★☆☆☆☆ Dubliners.

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Colección Dnfeable.

Una colección de cuentos cortos por el renombrado James Joyce.

¡Vaya que esta colección apesta! Este tipo es seriamente depresivo, y las pocas veces que arma algo bueno lo destruye con un final abismal. Personajes miserables, tramas mundanas, increíblemente aburrida narración; casi todos ellos terriblemente olvidables, y salteables. Definitivamente tuve peor, pero no tantas. Esto debería haber sido dnf, pero idiota testarudo que soy, no lo hice.

Ir por lo Mejor, considerar lo Bueno, loquesea lo Meh.

Lo Bueno :
★★★☆☆ “Un Triste Caso.”
★★★☆☆ “Los Muertos.” [2.5]

Lo Meh :
★★☆☆☆ “Arabia.”
★★☆☆☆ “La Casa de Huéspedes.”
★★☆☆☆ “Eveline.” [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ “Una Madre.” [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ “Dos Galanes.” [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ “Polvo y Ceniza.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Una Nubecilla.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Después de la Carrera.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Un Encuentro.”
★☆☆☆☆ “Las Hermanas.”
☆☆☆☆☆ “Duplicados.” [0.5]
☆☆☆☆☆ “A Mayor Gracia de Dios.”
☆☆☆☆☆ “Efemérides en el comité.”

Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.

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NOTA PERSONAL : Por favor tener en cuenta que mi reseña no es un ataque personal a Dublín o Irlanda; habría sentido exactamente lo mismo si este libro hubiera sido escrito sobre cualquier ciudad, o incluso de mi natal Buenos Aires, que por cierto también califiqué con 1 estrella.
[1914] [207p] [Colección] [No Recomendable]
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[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dubliners is a collection of short stories published in 1914. The concluding story is The Dead, which the blurb on GR cites as “the best short story ever written.”

We are told in a brief introduction that Joyce was a pioneer in popularizing the structure of the modern short story as focused on “a fleeting but decisive episode.” Elsewhere I’ve read of the focus of the modern short story described as 'the moment.'



So, is The Dead the greatest short story ever written? I’ll add my two cents: I first read it 50 years ago in college. I’ve always remembered it as if I read it yesterday. How many of the hundreds of short stories I have read since then can I say that about?

Many of the stories are very short - only four or five pages. Here are a few samples:

In The Sisters, their brother, a priest, dies at home. Was it because he broke a chalice during mass shortly before his death?

In An Encounter, two boys play hooky from school and encounter a strange man. His conversation is such that it seems he might be a molester.

In Araby, a young boy lives in a house in which a priest died a short time ago. The young boy is frustrated in trying to buy a present at a bazaar for his puppy love.

In Eveline, a young woman debates leaving her father and running off to Buenos Aires with her lover.



In Two Gallants, a young man waits to see the result of his best friend’s visit to a young woman they assume is a prostitute.

In A Little Cloud, a man is jealous of his friend’s success in London. He determines that you have to 'go away' for success. He feels trapped in Ireland by his wife and baby.

In A Painful Case, a man frequently visits a married woman and her daughter at home. The husband thinks he’s visiting because he’s interested in the daughter. He’s not.



Some of the stories are modern in outlook, bringing up issues of feminism and racism. The Dead touches on both issues during conversation around the Christmas table. An elderly aunt is furious about boys getting preference over girls in a choir. A man around the table raises the issue of no one appreciating a great tenor. “Is it because he’s only a black?”

The story, A Mother, focuses on a dispute over a payment for her daughter singing in a choir. “They wouldn’t have dared to have treated her like that if she had been a man.”



Top photo: Grafton Street, Dublin, early 1900s from vintag.es
A still from a movie made of The Dead, (Anjelica Huston and Donal McCann) from irishcentral.com
Postcard of Dublin in the 1920s from monksbarn.wordpress.com
The author from theculturetrip.com

[Pictures added 11/15/2021; edited 8/11/23]

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Dead, the last story in this collection, Gabriel Conroy recounts an anecdote about his grandfather and his horse, Johnny, who used to walk in circles to drive the grinding stone in a mill. One day, the grandfather harnessed the horse and took him out to a military review. But Johnny, disoriented as he passed by a statue of William III, started circling the monument stubbornly as if he were back at the mill. This little tale within a tale encapsulates perfectly the spirit and essence of Joyce’s Dubliners.

At first glance, Joyce’s stories could be read as a series of naturalistic vignettes, “slices of life” depicting the insignificant day-to-day misfortunes of a few random Irish characters at the turn of the 20th century. Children playing in the street, young girls playing the piano, working men getting drunk and mouthing off at the pub… In a way, that is indeed what Dubliners is about: the shabby neighbourhoods, the outdated manière d’être, the constricted lives, the frustrated yearnings and the spiritual bleakness of those times. Dubliners is also a twin of A Portrait of the Artist, where Joyce focuses on minor characters rather than on Stephen Dedalus.

Of course, there is more to these tales than meets the eye. Firstly, most of these trivial stories hark back to deeper cultural, even archetypal models: the Arthurian quest (Araby), or the voyage from Hell to Heaven (Grace) – Johnny, the horse, as an eternal and hopeless Sisyphus, etc. Secondly, Joyce also infuses these tales with the political arguments of his time: the debates around Irish identity, Protestantism and the influence of the Catholic Church, the unionist and the separatist movements (still topical today), and the general opinion that Ireland was being strangled by the crown of England – again, old Johnny going round and round at the foot of King Billy.

Further still, the overarching structure of these tales takes the reader through the different stages of life, like a disjointed Bildungsroman. Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age and death. Indeed, the motif of death frames the entire collection, from the remains of Father Flynn at the very beginning, to the distant loss of Michael Furey at the end, and the eternal snow falling over an ever-darkening universe. This recurring theme makes Dubliners, at the core, a sort of literary vanitas, and the fifteen stories, taken as a whole, reveal a poignant picture of the transience of life and the circularity of time.

John Huston’s last film, an adaptation of The Dead, is an underrated and heart-breaking masterpiece that captures exactly the nostalgic atmosphere of Joyce’s novella.

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was James Joyce the greatest English language writer in modern times?

I don’t know, maybe, but Dubliners helps to make his case.

Brilliant in it’s subtle, realistic way.

Fifteen stories that paint a portrait of Dublin at the turn of last century. "The Dead" is the final story and the most poignant and powerful but several stand out as exceptional, and they are all good.

“Counterparts” is a disturbing close up look at the old drunken Irish family stereotype that fails to be humorous. “A Mother” though epitomizes the stereotype of a blusterous, stubborn as a mule Irish mother. And about those Irish stereotype? Might they have been given voice by Joyce through Dubliners?

A highly influential work from a respected, inspiring author - this is great reading.

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Childhood… Old age… Ages in between… Coming of age… Dying…

“Oh, quite peacefully, ma’am, said Eliza. You couldn’t tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised.”

The first amorous admiration from afar…

I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

Dubliners is an opulent gallery of colourful personages and kaleidoscopic images… Truant schoolboys encounter an erudite vagabond… A young girl afraid of changes destroys her future happiness… Motorcar races… A penniless beau begging for money… A boarding house proprietress catching a husband for her seduced daughter… A reunion of two old friends who become just strangers now…

The adventure of meeting Gallaher after eight years, of finding himself with Gallaher in Corless’s surrounded by lights and noise, of listening to Gallaher’s stories and of sharing for a brief space Gallaher’s vagrant and triumphant life, upset the equipoise of his sensitive nature. He felt acutely the contrast between his own life and his friend’s, and it seemed to him unjust.

A rogue of an incompetent petty clerk whose only pleasure is drinking… A timorous service girl’s day off… A lonely man frightened of any human relationship… Empty talks and idle drinking… A despotic mother’s foolish behaviour… Drunkenness and piety… The Christmas celebration as a culmination of the year…

A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef.

Celebrations end… Life continues…
Infants are born… The aged die… And traditions are kept from generation to generation.

[Adina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book from my project (quite successful until now) to read more classics. When I was in college and Uni I was all about contemporary literature (Marquez, Reverte, Murakami) and I missed many of the "must read" authors. I am trying to redeem myself now.

I chose the Dubliners because I knew I would never have the will and patience to finish Ulysses. I have to admit that although I understand the value of the volume and its structure, I did not like it. It bore me terribly. I fell asleep while reading many times and it was a struggle to follow the stories. Some stories were really good but the majority were just boring. I also read a couple of analysis for the stories which were far more interesting than the stories themselves.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Joyce is best known for his works of fiction, including the obscure Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and is also the author of this collection of short stories, Dubliners. It would not be easy to speak of enhancement since Joyce does not idealize his compatriots. In rich and neat language, Joyce describes the Irish capital at the beginning of the 20th century through stories that plunge into rampant bourgeois daily life.
From schoolchildren who left to skip school to supporters of Charles Parnell, the hero of independence, Joyce is more attached to the inhabitants than the city itself. The author describes the frustrations of social conventions that are impossible to eliminate: lost loves and desires for elsewhere—a genuine literary portrait of the city.

[Garima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before embarking towards my maiden Joyce read, I prepared myself to pour in as much effort required on my part to understand Dubliners. I didn’t assume them to be incomprehensible or distant, but an anxiety akin to meeting a known stranger for the first time was definitely present. The said anxiety shortly materialized into a much-awaited prospect after reading the opening story and finally transformed into a confident and gentle companion who led me through the sepia streets of an unassuming city. Dublin, as I soon realized, was just around the corner.

I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monotonous child’s play.

Calmly engaged within the secure air of its daily affairs, the people of Dublin were also ostensibly calm and secure and yet a moment reflection about a dormant or potential life managed to extract stories which were snuggled in simple form and simpler titles but traced intricate and at times, unheeded emotions. An aimless walk concluded in cheap happiness and an embarrassing accident convinced someone to search for an elusive redemption. A death unveiled the value of oblivious living while a motherly conduct was driven by frustrations and misplaced ambitions. Most of these characters were representative, not whole but of a remarkable fragment of lives that we either experience ourselves or witness in others during the time we live.

She sat amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, waiting for some suitor to brave it and offer her a brilliant life.

A perpetual struggle for attention between past and present was an integral part of these stories sans any violent clashes. Some of them appeared as if being viewed from a neighbor’s window and some welcomed me through a cordial door and took their time to introduce every element of the household. I admired how well the majority of people were coping with the consequences of their choices and how easily they found humor in the ironies of life. And I quailed on seeing the suffocation of the negligible minority on being caught in the web of their inhibitions. I understood that even after getting a crystal clear view of their circumstances from a vantage point, they still refused to adopt a different course, to sail away to a different country, to a dreamy world.

It was hard work – a hard life – but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.

With every subsequent narration, I imagined Joyce to be in deep contemplation about everything and everyone around him. I imagined him to carefully select an appropriate frame for his various thoughts and placing each one of them at their desirous place. I imagined how he must have wanted to capture an epiphanic moment among the melancholic tune of Irish songs, when he wanted to paint a picture with decided title but undecided colors; or when he simply wished to write about the approachable beauty of that girl on other side of the pavement. I imagined his joy for the love and pain at the criticism for his native place. I was left in awe of the virtuosity of this young man and the several portraits he created with his words.

He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense.

And when I reached the end, I simply wished to possess a literary talent like this for a very short time to write a story of my own and discreetly slip it into this collection. Dublin and Dubliners felt that close to me.

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como no se me ocurre nada que decirles que esté mínimamente a la altura de la obra, y aunque esto no sea algo que me haya frenado nunca, he decidido que lo mejor será transcribir aquí el prólogo de Vargas Llosa de casi diez páginas que acompaña a mi edición (para facilitar su lectura, me he permitido eliminar las partes pedantes, incomprensibles, exageradas, erradas y, claro está, todo aquello que he juzgado superfluo):

«bla, bla, bla… La abrumadora importancia de Ulises y de Finnegans Wake, experimentos literarios que revolucionaron la narrativa moderna, hace olvidar a veces que aquel libro de cuentos, de hechura más tradicional y tributario, en apariencia al menos, de un realismo naturalista que ya para la fecha en que fue publicado (1914) era algo arcaico, no es un libro menor, de aprendizaje, sino la primera obra maestra que Joyce escribió… bla bla bla»

P.S. Naturalmente, esto no es más que una torpe broma, el prólogo de Llosa, también recogido en su libro “La verdad de las mentiras”, está realmente bien.

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I Would Do Differently:

1) Read the stories starting from the back and work my way forward.

Before starting to read Dubliners (which I thought was pronounced Dub – line – ers. Oops!), I looked up this title in James Mustich’s 1,000 Books. It said that the best story was at the very end of the book.

However, the last story is also the longest in the collection. By that time, I was bored, disenchanted, and had relatively no focus.

In my opinion, the stories don’t build on one another or have repeat characters, and I wish I went into the best story more refreshed.

2) Created a list of characters for each story

These short stories almost felt like they were ripped from a longer book. There are many characters in the stories, and Joyce didn’t make them memorable enough to remember.

3) Planned to read only one story at a time

Initially, I picked up this book because it has a relatively low page count, and it was recommended by James Mustich (whose taste I greatly respect). When I read the first story, I felt extremely lost. Then, I read it again, figuring I was just tired the first time.

Um no.

I still had no clue what was going on after the second reading. I cracked open SparkNotes, and, apparently, there was religious symbolism about being paralyzed that I just didn’t get even after 2 readings.

I ended up spending more time in the research materials than in the source materials.

Confession Time:

This collection of short stories was really rough. Between the (at times) very long sentence structure of Joyce to some of the archaic language to the many unneeded characters in a short period of time to the extremely subtle symbolism to the uniquely Irish words (like stirabout), I didn’t really understand what was going on, and I didn’t enjoy the experience of reading this.

Here’s hoping that Ulysses will be a better experience.

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[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was put off by reading James Joyce because I was scared of reading him — that I wouldn’t understand a damn thing he said although I knew he was a brilliant writer…one for the ages. I think it was ‘Ulysses’ that scared me off, and I made a massive generalization (if I don’t understand that book, I won’t understand anything by Joyce). My mistake.

I remember a Goodreads friend recommended I read it, because I think I or they had read a short story collection (whose author escapes me right now), and they said there was some similarity of ‘Dubliners’ to the short story collection we were discussing. So, I procured a copy and was blown away. My copy was an issue by Oxford World’s Classics. There were oodles of footnotes to each story near the back of the book, and after I read a short story I would then go the back of the book and read the footnotes (not every footnote but a large number of them). I learned a lot via the footnotes, and found them to be very interesting.

There were 15 stories, and as I read, I took notes and rated each story — I’ll just list the ratings next to the stories (average is 3.8 stars but add in the Introduction, an alternative translation of ‘Sisters’, and the footnotes and it adds up to 5 by my reckoning. 😊 ).
• Sisters: 4 stars
• An Encounter: 3.5 stars
• Araby: 4 stars
• Eveline: 4.5 stars
• After the Race: 2 stars
• Two Gallants: 3 stars
• The Boarding House: 5 stars
• A Little Cloud: 4 stars
• Counterparts: 4.5 stars
• Clay: 3.5 stars
• A Painful Case: 5 stars
• Ivy Day in the Committee Room: 2 stars
• A Mother: 3.5 stars
• Grace: 4 stars
• The Dead: 5 stars

That last story ‘The Dead’ has to be one of the best short stories I have read in a long time. So much to pack in it (it was about 40 pages long). The last page in which the husband Gabriel is thinking about the young man who once loved his wife, and she him, before Gabriel came onto the scene was just … so sad, so beautifully written. What a wonderful way to end the short story collection… “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

I learned where “beyond the pale” came from. Up until today, I was clueless.
• ‘The pale’ was the name given in the 14th century to that part of Ireland over which England exercised jurisdiction before the whole was conquered; centered on Dublin, it varied in extent at different times from the reign of Henry II until full conquest under Elizabeth I’ in ‘in the pale’, ‘pale’ connotes ‘civilization’ or ‘civilized behavior’; here, it means specifically ‘conceding in his behavior the authority of the Church’ and ironically inverts the historical meaning where the ‘wild’ Irish Catholic native population existed ‘beyond the pale’; they now, of course, figuratively represent ‘the pale’ itself (referred to in ‘Grace’).

I didn’t know in Catholicism that The Immaculate Conception (mother of Jesus having conceived although a virgin), though a generally held belief from the time of the Middle Ages, did not become dogma until 1854 (from ‘Grace’).

There was one part of a short story I found to be quite humorous (‘The Dead’): several Catholics are conversing with a Protestant. Mr. Browne, about monks who put people up who visit them at the monastery and do not charge room and board, and the kind of ascetic lifestyle the monks live:
He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.
— “That’s the rule of the order,” said Aunt Katie firmly.
— “Yes, but why?” asked Mr. Browne.
— Aunt Katie repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr. Browne still seemed not to understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he could, that the monks were trying to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the outside world, The explanation was not very clear for Mr. Browne grinned and said:
— “I like that idea very much but wouldn’t a comfortable spring bed do them as well as a coffin?”

One final observation from me and then I’ll shut my piehole. There were a number of stories in which people were alcoholic, or were drunk, or their family wished they would stay abstinent. In the majority of cases the alcoholism centered on male characters. (The cover illustration shows a man at a pub with a beer mug in his hand (‘Porter at the Fair’ by Jack B. Yeats, 1910).

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

(*)


This is a collection of short stories. Or are they one single long story? “A Portrait of the City as an Old and Stultifying Enclave.”?

This story fashions a kaleidoscopic vision of Dublin in the early 1900s. This is a city enclosed in a gray cylinder that a hand turns periodically and new scenes are conjured up for the contemplation of a single (male) eye. The same components reappear, falling in different places playing different relationships with each other; some others disappear forever or stay hidden in the corners to may be reappear again after all. One cannot know how the elements will place themselves on the next turn.

Rich collection of elements: youth and adulthood – money matters – trapping marriages – trapping love – ill-conceived duties – Mary – temptations for youth – the ghost of England – the public house – chattered dreams – Jesuits – alcohol – nationalism – unfeminine women – dreams of change – school ploys – Death – Parnell – liberating escape – topographical anchorage of the streets of Dublin.

Another turn. And there is Dublin again.

And each time we recognize the narrow spaces, the sombre, the dreary, the faded, the routine, and the bleak prospects.

The drabness of many of these hovering elements is however transformed by a play of incantation. The desolation is perplexingly denatured into elegance and the stark absence of sentimentality blooms because what it renders is so very genuine. There is a magic wand in the form of a pen of wizardry that by the clothing with words, precisely chosen words, carefully written words, encapsulates the dreariness and creates tales that captivate and enchant us.

And may be there is also an additional light in this kaleidoscope that makes these sorry elements shine through those inner reflecting mirrors.

The humour of a sparkling and luminous mind.




(**)


----------------

(*) Citiscape. Rachel Simonson, US.

(**) Anthropocene. David Thomas Smith, Ireland.

[Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Irlanda es un gran país. Lo llaman la Isla Esmeralda. Después de siglos de estrangulamiento, el gobierno metropolitano la ha dejado desierta y es ahora un campo de barbecho. El gobierno sembró hambre, sífilis, superstición y alcoholismo: puritanos, jesuitas y reaccionarios crecen ahora." James Joyce

Cuando uno recorre la lista de los más grandes escritores que dio la literatura y pone especial atención en aquellos que amaron en el real sentido de la palabra a su tierra natal, la cantidad de autores se acorta notablemente.
Además de los aedos griegos, que le escribían a su terruño en forma inevitable descubriremos que ciertos autores tuvieron el concepto de pertenencia muy claro.
Muchos escritores sintieron una especialísima afición por su país: García Márquez por Colombia, Balzac, Hugo y Flaubert por Francia, Hawthorne y su naturaleza americana por nombrar algunos.
Pero cuando se habla de amor por una ciudad, pocos, muy pocos son los que rescatamos. Creo que junto a Fiódor Dostoievski, un apasionado de su querida San Petersburgo y a Julio Cortázar, desdoblado entre la urbanidad de Buenos Aires y la cosmopolita París, sólo James Joyce es un devoto y fiel amante de su ciudad natal, Dublín, una de las principales ciudades de Irlanda junto a Belfast y Kilkenny.
Los quince cuentos y relatos de “Dublineses” se impregnan de esa mística irlandesa en sus calles, su gente y edificios. Nuevamente recuerdo a Julio Cortázar porque creo que estos dos autores supieron ahondar profundamente en la idiosincrasia de sus ciudades logrando mostrarnos con firmes pinceladas cómo era la naturaleza real de sus habitantes y de esos submundos descriptos en bares, oficinas, casas, parques, calles, ciudades, muelles y plazas.
Joyce retrata en cada cuento la frustración y la soledad de muchos dublineses. La gran mayoría de ellos son simples oficinistas, mucamas, señoras mayores, alcohólicos, políticos de poca monta, jóvenes desempleados. Joyce quiso retratar la “parálisis” dublinesa. Los relatos como vienen se van, algunos de ellos quedan abiertos a las múltiples interpretaciones de los lectores y siempre nos dejan un sabor agridulce.
La muerte sobrevuela omnipresente y poderosa en muchos de estos cuentos y el desasosiego se instala en los personajes. En la mayoría de estos cuentos los intentos de estos son fútiles, no alcanzan para cubrir sus necesidades, anhelos o esperanzas. No encontraremos aquí pasajes divertidos. Tal vez alguna anécdota cuasi graciosa, pero el ambiente de los cuentos es el de un leve flotar de almas en suspenso.
De todos los cuentos y además de “Los Muertos”, del cual ya hice la reseña correspondiente, los que más me gustaron fueron “Eveline”, “Copias” y “Un caso doloroso”. Son tres cuentos profundos, escritos con suma fineza y bellísima precisión literaria y creo además que el trato que Joyce le da al contexto psicológico de los personajes es realmente maravilloso.
Releer “Dublineses” reafirma mi profunda devoción por Joyce, un genial escritor del que supe vencer el “miedo literario” a la hora de afrontar su obra más difícil como lo fue el “Ulises” y como será en breve leer su “Finnegan’s Wake”.
Mientras tanto, la lectura de este libro, “Los Muertos” y “Retrato del artista adolescente”, que constituyen la parte más accesible de su obra definen lo que escribí previamente: que cada día quiero más a James Joyce.

[Duane Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Joyce once said; "If Dublin suddenly disappeared from the Earth it could be reconstructed out of my book Ulysses". I have never been to Dublin so I have no idea what it's like today, but through Joyce's writings I have a sense of what it was like in the early 20th century. It’s not so much that he describes the physical city, but his descriptions of its establishments, its social and political atmosphere, and especially its people, is so detailed and complete that the physical picture just "pops up", like in one of those children's pop up books. It is so in Ulysses and it certainly is true in this book, Dubliners.

Dubliners, this collection of 15 short stories, was published in 1914, two years before A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and eight years before Ulysses. These stories lay the groundwork for his later novels, a primer, if you will. I think it's good advice to anyone just starting on James Joyce works, to start with Dubliners. Like all short story collections some are better than others, but they are all good, all consistent, and they never stray from Joyce's verbal painting of his beloved Dublin.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precise gems. Extremely lyrical and poetic. For those who have trouble getting through Ulysses or Finnegans Wake they will find works like Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man infinitely more accessible.

I’m certain I’ll always remember the last lines of The Dead:

❄️ ❄️ Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.


Recommended. The Dead has its movie version.

[Mark André · Rating 5 out of 5]

As powerful a commitment to the form to be found in English. The original fourteen stories should be read as a set piece: as they portray the evolution of thought from childhood to adulthood: from dogmatic belief to reasoned denial. The Dead should be viewed separately. Five-stars!

[Taufiq Yves · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is a novel, and what makes a novel great? These are 2 separate questions. The first - what counts as a novel - depends on who you ask, and there are all kinds of ways to categorize it. But the second - what makes a novel truly good - comes down to 1 essential thing: its ability to capture the subtlety and complexity of human nature. In my view, the greatest, most exceptional, and timeless novels also share 1 killer trait: a remarkable sense of foresight.

Dubliners checks all those boxes - and then some. It’s got 2 standout qualities: clean, concise language and a kind of quiet warmth that still resonates nearly a century later. Reading it today feels effortless, like there’s no distance at all between us and the people in it. The Dubliners become a kind of eternal tribe - always relatable, always present. It makes me wonder: who’s preserving the emotional essence of the people who once lived here, where I am?

James Joyce did that for Dublin. Even though publishers there treated his book with indifference or even cruelty, he didn’t respond with a cold or bitter work. He created something alive - an organic, breathing portrait of Dublin itself.

There’s a mountain of scholarship on Joyce and his role as a pioneer of modern Western literature, but Dubliners is something else entirely - it’s a strange, living book.

It opens with death. The first story is about a paralyzed priest who dies, tormented by guilt after accidentally breaking a sacred chalice. That guilt eats away at him, changing him slowly until his body gives out. The final story also deals with death, but this time it’s a young man who dies too soon. Yet his deep, unforgettable love leaves a mark on the woman he loved - almost like he’s reborn through her, or summoned back in some spiritual way.

The simplicity of the language and the themes reminded me of some writers I’ve read. In my reading journey, the latest links in the chain include J.M. Coetzee, a master and a bit of a spiritual extremist; Orhan Pamuk, whose imagery of trees instantly brought to mind (I dare say) his best work My Name is Red - though his hurried brilliance always makes me a little suspicious. Then there’s Herta Müller, known for her dense, suffocating blocks of consciousness and obsessive detail. (Reading Nobel laureates is kind of a time-saving strategy - it’s like jumping straight to the semifinals instead of slogging through the auditions.)

Of course, themes like love, accidents, missed chances, randomness, death, and youth are everywhere. And one of the closest inheritors of this tradition - who’s also managed to break into mainstream popularity - is Haruki Murakami, But even Murakami’s warm, uplifting energy doesn’t quite surpass the emotional heat Joyce brings in Dubliners.

What amazes me is how the collection of characters in this book somehow fuses into 1 composite figure. From witnessing death as a boy, to first love, youthful wandering, workplace struggles, proposals, engagements, marriage, regret, possible affairs, parenthood, aging, and finally death and peace - this person’s name is “The Dubliner.” It’s like the final conclusion of a deep excavation into human nature, the way we might talk about “Peking Man” or “Hemudu Man.”

It’s also like a pixelated portrait, built dot by dot until it forms a grayscale image: black top hat, pince-nez glasses, a little mustache, and gray-green eyes - eyes that are going blind, but somehow growing more perceptive inside.

Even after a hundred years, this book can still spark something in the soul, still call out to us. Its fire and force pull “humanity” out from under the umbrella of religion and stretch it across that entire territory. I see silent figures in the shadows of the century - people who, through loneliness or hardship, are with me. Through misfortune or sudden clarity, they’re with me. No matter the time, place, or name.

Whether it’s A Painful Case or The Dead, these stories play out every day. In the first, someone misses the feast of life chasing false holiness and fantasy. In the second, a man dies, but his fierce love lives on inside a woman’s spirit - like a kind of emotional parasitism. Through her, he continues to exist, becoming someone even her husband can’t fully grasp.

It makes me think: maybe reincarnation isn’t just meaningless repetition. Maybe it’s more like a DNA spiral - each turn involves choices, gains and losses, and that’s what gives life its energy and vitality. It reflects the compassion of the original creator. And of course, there are those fleeting, slightly absurd moments of shock and confusion - like in An Encounter or A Little Cloud - that feel like comic interludes in a grand opera.

4.6 / 5 stars

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Joyce. The right choice. A collection of stories that some may describe as beautiful, others as boring, maybe even brilliant, but that I want to describe as “apt”. Dublin is richer, I am sure, due to the fact that it has Dubliners to represent it. From the first story, The Sisters, to the last, The Dead, each story is apt – it is perfectly appropriate, perfectly suitable and fitting for the occasion which it describes. Not a word is out of place. No character does or says anything that is alarming. There are many pieces of praise and criticism that are widely available, all concerning themselves with the careful dissection of this collection, down to a word-by-word level. Lots of these pieces mention the 4-way split in overarching themes for these stories: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life. With these 4 pieces, you dive into Dublin, seeing the interaction of trials and tribulations across a variety of ages. Class, caste, gender, societal issues, all apparent in a manner that does not take away from the main point of any story.

With Dubliners, I got a little bit of everything. Some stories were interesting to witness from a third-party perspective (I wonder if saying that is arbitrary, seeing as most stories are experienced as such). For instance, An Encounter, where two boys skip out on school for a day, seeing what life brings them. They come across a strange, weird, shady character… an older gentleman that is weirdly obsessed with “beating” little boys. Yeah… I got as creeped out as the main character of this story. Some of the tales were boring. Ivy Day in the Committee Room, a story about a collection of people canvassing in preparation for the mayoral elections, had lots of elements about Irish nationalism and independence. I am sure it would have meant much more to someone for whom these issues are a matter of pride and blood. Where this collection was at its strongest, however, was when it was conveying the pathos of everyday life – this is a phenomenon that is similar across nations, time, and class structure. Counterparts, a story that brings to a sharp focus the problem(s) of alcoholism, does much more than just present a set of stereotypes about the Irish. It characterizes the ailment in a person, Farrington, who is not going about life willy-nilly. He is trying, he really is. You find yourself caring for his life, holding a moment of silence for his troubles, and accepting his massive flaws as a human. A Painful Case, a story that shows the depth of loneliness, the abyss that becomes a leech to certain people’s personalities, as they become increasingly unable to shake off the narcissism surrounding solitude in favour of a genuine human connection. And finally, who can read Dubliners without commenting on The Dead? The climax of the collection, a story that highlights the relativity of all of our lesser or greater concerns in relation to mortality. If you read nothing else but one story from this book, let it be this.

I have learned more about Dublin and the Irish with this one book than I may ever have done. Any city would be lucky to have such a candid encyclopedia to its name.

[Kevin Kuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first reading of Joyce’s “Dubliners.” I know, shocking, everyone else read it in high school or collegiate undergraduate literature courses and were forced to author papers on Joyce’s themes and symbolism. I read it for pleasure and for background on a project I’m working on. It’s considered one of Joyce’s more accessible works, certainly when compared with “Ulysses” which has a reputation for everyone claiming to have read it, but no one actually does. Anyways, I did find it readable, even with it being over a hundred years old and full of references to cultural and colloquial phrases which are beyond me. Anyway, I’ll try my hand at a short analysis of this collection of fifteen short stories.

The first thing that strikes me is how pedestrian and mundane the characters and even the plots of these tales are. This is the dreary, everyday life of Dublin commoners. It’s also largely filled with horrible people – thieves, drunks, and abusers to name a few. Most of the tales either end tragically (e.g., suicide) or at best – an unresolved melancholy stalemate. As I was reading it, I wasn’t sure if Joyce was going for a realistic expose of Dublin (sort of a 107-year-old version of a modern reality show) or something else. But when you step back and look at the whole of the book, it shows a stunted Dublin filled with people going nowhere and unable to break out of their gloomy routines and lives. And knowing a little of the history of Ireland, it makes me wonder if this was a delicate cut on the impact of English colonialism and maybe even to a lesser extent the restraints of the Catholic Church. About the only positive you’ll take away from 1914 Dublin is the pride in Irish hospitality.

Still, despite the dismal subject matter, Joyce writes with beauty. His ability to rapidly create complex characters with realistic needs and desires is extraordinary. He describes everyday life, but with such a fine blend of place, dialog, and narration, it feels all too real. Character’s display little notions, quirks, and thoughts that feel authentic, like Joyce is reporting on what’s going on around him, but able to jump in everyone’s head. The last story is particularly beautifully told, about an annual dance, that spins characters and motivations and songs, food, and drink until you’re dizzy. The prose is lush and vivid, but still with the same underlying sadness and cold themes. Although I probably don’t have the proper context of 1914 Ireland and Joyce’s intentions, I was still able to appreciate this impressive classic.

[Francesc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta novela es pura poesía. La narración de un episodio ordinario escrita de manera extraordinaria.
Parece imposible escribir algo tan bueno de algo tan cotidiano.
Si después se refuerza la lectura con la película de John Houston, se crea una alianza perfecta.

This novel is pure poetry. The narration of an ordinary episode written in an extraordinary way.
It seems impossible to write something so good about something so everyday.
If the reading is then reinforced with John Huston's film, a perfect alliance is created.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone thinking of putting James Joyce on your “must read this year” list for 2019 here are my suggestions.

BY

1. Dubliners

Brilliantly atmospheric scraps of Irish miserablism – must read to get where JJ is coming from.

2. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Strangely – tiresome and inessential. Bangs on about religion and more Irish miserablism and a bit too much like a portrait of the author as an insufferable young genius.

3. Ulysses

The essential book out of all of these. Difficult but also very funny and not impossible. FWIW my short bluffer’s guide to this truly astonishing book is here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and my long review of it (chapter by chapter) is here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and here

https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

(it’s very long)

4. Finnegans Wake

This is really not recommended. But this is – a 10 minute excerpt (“Anna Livia Plurabelle”) read by JJ himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grJC1...

I had thought, this small part being so beautiful, that FW would be another masterpiece, but the rest of it isn’t one tenth as fascinating or linguistically lovely, and it will do your brain in. The only thing I’ve been able to do with FW is parody it, rather lamely

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

which was unnervingly easy to do once you get into the swing of it. The reader who can gain enjoyment on any level from the great mapless madhouse that is FW has my undying respect.

ABOUT

1. The Most Dangerous Book : The Battle For James Joyce’s Ulysses By Kevin Birmingham

By far the best book on JJ and Ulysses I ever read – you almost don’t need a real biography after this. It’s a total page turner. It’s not an analysis, it’s the story of how it was written and how it was published – long, painful and thrilling.

2. James Joyce : Richard Ellman

But if you do want a big biography, this is the one.

3. My Brother’s Keeper : Stanislaus Joyce

Or you could stick to this memoir by JJ’s faithful brother. It will make you love JJ (and Stanny) a lot more than most books will.

4. The New Bloomsday Book : Harry Blamires

I liked this not-too-scholarly voyage round & through & about Ulysses better than any other analysis/interpretation

5. The Finnegans Wake Experience : Roland McHugh

I only read one book about FW. It was this. It’s hilarious. Mr McHugh is a total obsessive with a screw loose & dedicated his whole waking being to reading FW correctly and then explaining how to read FW correctly. Elastic bands are an important part of the process as I recall. I think it was self published so might be hard to track down.

6. James Joyce’s Odyssey : Frank Delaney
7. James Joyce’s Dublin : Edward Quinn

These two are luxury items - gorgeous photo books full of black & white pix of dear dirty Dublin as it was and I don’t think is anymore. Not essential but just a delight.

AVOID

1. Ulysses and Us : Declan Kiberd
2. Ulysses on the Liffey : Richard Ellman

These two do exactly the same thing – with their jawbreakin pontificatin somnambulatin ramblin they like to make you want to find the English Literature department in your nearest university and burn it down.

3. Ulysses Annotated : Don Gifford

Proving that the more you know the less you understand.


***

Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping, soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting from his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a calf’s gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog’s bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody’s body.
—Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!





"How many roads must a man walk down...."

Sorry JJ, couldn't resist.

[StefanP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zagledan naviše u tamu vidjeh sebe kao biće koje je taština zavela i narugala mu se; i moje oči planuše od muke i gnjeva.

Prvi susret sa Džojsom. Oko njega sam samo okolišao, osluškivao priče i nisam znao šta da očekujem. Neki ga na mnoga vrata hvale, drugi kažu da je sumoran, a treći govore da treba hronološki čitati njegova djela, jer jedna vuku druga, i hvata nit sa svakom sljedećom. Doduše pokušao sam Portret umjetnika u mladosti, i misaono nisam bio spremn za nju. Pa sam tako tražio preludijum za istu. Odlučih se za ove kratke priče, jer bih svaki dan po jednu priču pročitao te tako pokušao da držim kakav-takav fokus. I ova zbirka priča me je zaista dirnula, kad sam je završio, poželih još.

Umjetničke odlike ovih priča nisu samo po snazi već i po obuhvatnosti spremne da oslikaju sopstveni put, religijsko-konzervativni, sa primjesama piščevih afiniteta ogledanih u skrivenim poukama, u nerazjašnjenim i čudnovatim okolnostima. Svaki junak u priči je rastrzan nemirima, izgubljen u stvarima koje ga neprestano opkoljavaju, i kao takav grabi spas u nevidljivom. Džojsov senzibilitet je nesavremen, on hvata zalet za ono što krije ispod površine svog poetskog narativa. Svojim pričama Džojs kao da želi potonjim generacijama nešto da saopšti, da pomene i ukaže na trag predaka i tradicionalnog Dablina, sa svim svojim prednostima i manama. Džojs posvećuje svoje neumorno pregnuće ne bi li osokolio čitaoca ma koliko se nekada činilo da sve to provejava u nekim svojim unutrašnjim jazbinama.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin”--Joyce

"Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.”

Dubliners is, by reputation (among English professors and scholars, at least) one of the greatest collections of short stories ever produced. Of course, as they say, them’s fightin’ words, so have it your own way, but I vote with that crowd of high admirers, and always have, having read it or stories from it, many times. This is the first time I am hearing it read aloud, in the appropriately Irish voice of Connor Sheridan, that somehow captures the dry and at sometimes mournful wit the ex-patriate Joyce brings to this tribute to the Dubliners he left behind. Some have found it maudlin, even grim, primarily a critique of the people Joyce left behind, but I found it at turns gently satirical, sometimes melancholy, and always loving, portraits of a time and place, filled with local politics and religion and (especially) finely sketched characters, some stories focused on lost opportunities for love or leaving.

In 2000 Time Magazine listed the greatest novels of the twentieth century and listed the difficult English major Everest of Ulysses as the worthiest literary mountain to climb, #1, which prompted thousands of Americans who may never have read 100 novels to read the first three pages and promptly declare Joyce a boring and inscrutable idiot. Though I do think Ulysses is one of the greatest novels ever written, I don’t think it would be particularly enjoyable for the general population; nor do I think most people “should” read it. But Joyce is an amazing writer; he wrote four works of fiction, in increasing levels of difficulty and formal experimentalism. If you like short stories and want to try Joyce I would try Dubliners, the most recognizably traditional stories he wrote. If you like that, I might then try the somewhat more formally challenging A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. If you decide to go to graduate school, then consider Ulysses, sure, but only then, which owes something mock-epic to Homer’s Odyssey, and each chapter in a literary style of different periods/centuries. Finnegan’s Wake, which took him twenty years to write, almost no one reads, for good reason. It is so experimental most people can’t make heads or tails of a single paragraph. (No, I have not yet finished it, and probably never will).

Dubliners, published in 1914 (after nearly ten years of his trying to get it published!), is short, as story collections go. I have my favorites: “Eveline,” about a young shop girl conflicted about leaving her widowed father to live life with a sailor:

“He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.”

And “Araby,” about a shy young man’s fruitless pursuit of a young woman, dooming them both to loneliness.

“. . . and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.”

“Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascent to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul's incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.”

He’s ambitious for her, but at the same time, he sees himself clearly and sadly: “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

Some of the deft observations of character in the writing are beautiful. Of one woman: “She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.”

And about Mr. Duffy: “He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.”

The true gem of the collection may be the magnificent and mournful closing long story, “The Dead,” which features Gabriel, asked to give a short speech in honor of his aunts at a holiday party, who is disappointed not to “experience intimacy” with his wife Greta after the party, seeing her sadly draped on the bed. A song that was sung at the party reminded her of a time when she was seventeen when she had loved a boy, Michael Furey, who lost his life in the war. Gabriel is jealous of a love she sees Greta had for this boy, a love that he and Greta have perhaps never had themselves. And then, this reflection, using snow to punctuate Gabriel's sense of himself and maybe Joyce's view of Dublin:

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

Proust wrote: "In reality, when he reads, each reader is actually the reader of his own self. The work of the writer is nothing more than a kind of optical instrument that the writer offers. It allows the reader to discern that which, without the book, he might not have been able to see in himself."

Do we not in our empathetic reading of Gabriel, see ourselves and reflect on our own lives?

Many characters in Dubliners experience the struggle about whether to stay or leave, or to just act passionately, facing a kind of paralysis that Joyce refers to in the opening story, “The Sisters”:

“I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.” One must act, one must move, one must engage with the world, one must break free from provincial beliefs.

Dubliners is a wonderful collection, short enough to read in a few hours. It’s full of self-reflection and "inwardness." Listen to it, read it. Some of the stories have been made into films, like John Huston’s The Dead.

Here’s the whole story “The Dead” for you to read. (You’re welcome):

http://english-learners.com/wp-conten...


.

[Rakhi Dalal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do we wish to live this life; life, which at times seem to accompany the vague impressions we have long since been comfortable to carry along; the ideas, the choices, which have become a second nature to us. How many times do we stop and think about them? Particularly, as readers, as the ones who have been challenged, and hence in a way made aware by written word; how many times do we stop and think - life cannot always be a search, it cannot always be a constant exploration into unknown, a desperate call to something which is striven for, for the attainment of something decisive. Or is it? Perhaps. But what when the decisive is attained, is conquered? Where does one go from there? Surely, in search of something still unknown, still unconquered! But we forget to stop in between. Or we rather choose to ignore that which comes in between, because we are too afraid to stop. And that is life. I remember this very beautiful quote by Allan Saunders:

“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”

We forget that sometimes, life is also the acceptance of that which is presented to us by mere chances, or more than that, by the long witnessed “usual”.

So, when I picked up Dubliners, while still continuing with The Rebel, I was at first annoyed because nothing seemed unusual or interesting there. But then, I just strove ahead because I had loved “A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” and so I wanted to give this a chance. Some more stories and I realized the simple idea with which these stories might have been penned. I realized that author might have wanted to portray life, as actually experienced and lived by the characters, who might in fact had been real people around him. People, who had lived a life, set by routine patterns and where nothing out of ordinary had ever happened. This realization made me sit straight and question myself. How many right ways can be there to live a life? One or two or more; Is it ours or theirs or still, somewhere between the two? I don’t even know if these are the right options. But what I do understand is that, either way it is life we are talking about. Life which is lived, both consciously and unconsciously, which may be different in living but which in the end culminates into the same. Oh, but by this I do not undermine one way or the other but simply wish to express the value of understanding both.

It was the last story of the collection i.e. “The Dead” which deeply touched and gave me more food for thought. It actually brought to eyes something unusual from the rest of the stories :) [See, the incorrigible me!] Gabriel, the protagonist of the story realized one day after a party that he didn’t know much about his wife Gretta, who seemed to have been in love with someone else all along. The story is not only about this awareness but also about love which gets shattered, even when the man in question has been long dead, and signifies the end of life as lived by Gabriel.

The story ends with snow falling:

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the Universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

I do not doubt Joyce’s genius as a writer. After reading “Portrait” and few pages of “Ulysses”, this collection seemed just way too simplistic. But the thoughts it provoked after reading, is what makes it so readable.

Definitely recommended.

[Georgia Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ireland hurt you into poetry" Auden wrote of Yeats. The same could be said of Joyce. Hurt fuels his pen. Though the writing is spare and controlled, it lingers nonetheless. Think fish on a Friday. It permeates the air even after the dishes are put away.

Two of my favorites in this collection are "Eveline" and "The Boarding House." The first takes as its subject immigration. The second is about an indiscretion that changes two lives. Temptation and desire motivate their characters. So does fear.

Exile from or within Ireland is the devil here. Leave . . . and Ireland is lost. Breach her rules and she'll spurn you. Joyce, the self imposed exile himself, writes well of this tug o' war.

So when a young girl says her candle went out and asks you for a light, be warned. It won't end well. You say you know your Puccini and love La Boheme? I don't doubt it. But this is Dublin not Paris, the girl's name is Polly not Mimi. Keep that in mind before you open this book like that door into a darkened hall.

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect with this collection of vignettes. It turns out, for me anyway, that they read as a more modern style that the date they were written (1904-07) or published (1914). They are reasonably 'gritty' with swearing and bad behaviour on display in a way I wouldn't have expected. I think this is probably what made it an interesting read.

The stories are (mostly) short snapshots of everyday live in Dublin's poorer classes - the way they live their lives, interact with each other. They scheme and double cross, they find ways to work around the law and the morals expected of them. There are also lots of sayings and idioms that are still in use nowadays in Dublin (specifically) and probably all of Ireland - another factor which contributed to me generally enjoying this. Personally I can't help getting a kick out of recognising a street name, or even a suburb from the few years I lived in Dublin.

4 stars.

[Agnieszka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin .

The stories that make up Dubliners open with death and death ends it as well. And somewhere in between there is a life. The first truancy, the first timid amorous sighs and all shades of greyness, whole stretches of the usual humdrum reality. People caught up in the daily routine, whom life was withheld.

The workers, petty crooks and freeloaders, seamstresses, scullery maids, servants, scriveners, salesmen, union activists - the whole cross-section of Irish middle and lower-middle class. Some of them crave for money, some for other places, some for love while others for another times. And the more they’re yearning the bigger is their disillusionment and discontent. Outcasts from life’s feast.

Boy from Araby , enamoured of friend’s sister wants to visit a charity bazaar and buy something for the girl to find finally the bazaar closed, hero of Counterparts having pawned his watch, wants only to drink himself up but ends up with empty pockets and does not even feel drunk or Chandler, hero of A little cloud who’s eagerly awaiting his old friend to find him only vulgar and patronizing. People unfulfilled, for whom an intemperance is something as inevitable as climate changes, who take out all their failures, pathetic fate and frustration on children and weaker than themselves. Who feel that if they want to achieve anything in life they have to leave this town behind, that in Dublin actually there is no life.

And so Joyce did. But no matter how much had he abandoned Dublin, after all he took this city with himself forever. He loved and hated it, became a bard of Dublin and its inhabitants, a great admirer but its stern critic at the same time. The same sentiments had he for his homeland, often in his works called Errorland .

The main theme of Dubliners that ties together all stories is the breakdown of all values, embodied in drunkenness, decadent debauchery, obscurantism of clergy, hypocrisy, intellectual primitivism of bourgeoisie, and finally paralysis of the Irish political scene after the death of Parnell.

Joyce, chronicler of Dublin, alternately realistic and nostalgic, depicts city of lost hopes and failing chances to end this collection with absolutely brilliant story The Dead in which Gabriel counts on some pleasant moments with his wife, while she’s yearning for her dead lover, and finally falling snow reconciles everything, covering equally the living and the dead.

[د.سيد (نصر برشومي) · Rating 4 out of 5]

للمدن عشاق
وللبشر أشواق
ولكل لحظة علامة في الإدراك
وللجمال أوراق
وأنت تركت من نفسك أشباحا
تسري في خيالات ممتدة بلا نهاية
لكنها مغلقة
هناك
قراءة قصة قصيرة رحلة معرفية رائعة عميقة ثرية إذا كانت القصة لجيمس جويس
فن جويس في الكتابة ينطلق من استقراء تفاصيل موقف
لكن انتقاء التكوين الدرامي عملية دقيقة للغاية عند جويس
هذا التكوين بمجاله ومفرداته وتطوّر أحداثة القولية المتتابعة وظهور عناصره من خفاء الصمت المحايد المظلم لكهوف الكلام المنعكسة فيها مقاطع من
مساحات مادية غير منتظمة ورواسب من متخيّلات وهمية عير متجانسة ورغبات فضول فظ أخطبوطي التشكّل، هذا التكوين الخاص بجيمس جويس
يقيم علاقة جدلية بين الظاهر والخفي، أو بين الحسيّات المتراصة بسكينة والمشاعر المكتومة التي لا تفصح عنها الشخصيات بخاصة الراوي
جويس يضع في الفضاء التشكيلي نقاطا ارتكازية لمنطلقات اكتساب المعرفة في العالم
ليلاحظها القارئ ويقف عند أسلوب القاص في فتح جرابه الفني ليستخرج منه ما يمكن توقعه وما لا يرد في ذهن المار داخل مضمار الكلمات
العالم صامت، أو الظاهرة لا تعلن عن نفسها
هناك الشخصيات التي تظن أنها تدرك وتعرف
وهناك الراوي الشاهد الذي يرى الجهل ويتجاهله
ويرى الضعف ويتجاوزه تاركا الأصوات تستبطن مرئيات غير واضحة في الذاكرة
رحلة الذات من المواضعة المسبقة إلى التجريب المغامر
ومن الحدس الغامض إلى أضواء العلم التي تظل شحيحة حتى في مطلع الحداثة
واحتفاظ بأنثربولوجيا المدن التي تكاد تختفي في متواليات الغبار التي يثيرها قطار يحمل التقاليد إلى متاحف العصور
ويلقي بالعقول في مراكب عابرة للأرصفة التي تتجدد فتمحو آثار العابرين
تقابل الأجيال، هذا التقابل وتلك المقابلة
لقاء فيه التعلم والرغبة في التحرر
محاولة الخروج من أسر المكان بتقاليده الراسخة
نهايات تولد منها بدايات وعي جديد
لأساليب سردية تعرف كيف تبني نفسها
وهي تستغرق في تحليل جيولوجيا ثقافية مثقلة بخبرات تقاوم الفناء

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

review update – 5/15/17

The first twelve stories of Dubliners were submitted to a publisher in 1905, when Joyce was 22. They were accepted, but squeamishness on the publisher’s part kept delaying publication. Over the next three years Joyce submitted three additional stories. Finally he took the collection to a second publisher. Again it was accepted, and again it was held back. Finally, in 1914, the original publisher overcame his fears and released the volume to the public.

By now, however, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist was appearing in a serialized version, and the novel overshadowed the short stories; as did, or course, Joyce’s two modern masterpieces, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.

So it was only slowly, over the course of many years, that Dubliners gained recognition for both the modernism and the rather brute realism of its stories.

In the previous update, I chose to use the word dreary in describing the stories. That they are. But this time let’s try “resignation” – stories of resignation. This is perhaps better, since it’s less ambiguous. Joyce writes about the people of Dublin as resigned to the lives they have – controlled by the Church (to some extent), controlled by the British (to the extent the British give a damn), prey to the simple pleasures of drink, having children, and pretending that life’s not really so bad. And of course there are classes in this society, so that those of any class except the bottom can always compare themselves pridefully to those below them, should they care to.

I scanned through the last, longest story (The Dead), looking for a good quotation. Alas, they were few and far between, and too long to bother with. But this story is a fit capstone to the collection. It’s about a traditional New Year’s Eve celebration that a few dozen of Dublin’s better off citizens partake of, an evening of music, dancing, feasting. Nothing about anyone’s death, though the protagonist, Gabriel, has rather morose thoughts often during the evening.

Then in the last few pages, a tale of death finds its way into the story, a death that occurred long ago, but is newly revealed to Gabriel and causes him to have very quotable thoughts as he falls asleep. But, it occurred to me that the story’s title refers not just to these last few pages, but to all the people celebrating that evening - Joyce suggesting that even these well fed, happy people, in failing to recognize the resignation with which they accept their lives, are in their own way, though “living”, part of The Dead.


review update - 3/17/15

obviously in celebration of a certain day

Just a few thoughts on these stories a couple years later.

When I said below that the stories aren't "exciting" ... yes, well, first I didn't mean that they were not very affecting stories, because some of them are. One could use the word "depressing"? But more, I think the atmosphere of the stories is probably much like the weather that I associate with the Emerald Isle. Damp, cloudy, hints of rain, chill in most parts of the year, maybe summerlike for a couple weeks in July. Gloomy. Weather that makes you seek out a pub and the warm comfort of a pint with friends. Then there's that Catholic haze that looms over everything, the haze and the weather and maybe even the people such that Joyce himself had to flee.

Whenever you feel like subjecting yourself to this sort of dreariness, which should be often, read one of the stories, it will suit your yearning.


original review

These aren't the most exciting short stories ever written. They were written by Joyce, though, so that sets them on a level of Literature that most writers can only dream of. It also means that they are worthy of study, and that the time spent studying them will be well spent.

Terence Brown's Introduction shows that he has studied these stories for a long time, and his Notes make it apparent that there is not a word, a slang term, a Dublin location, nor a historical reference in the stories that he does not know most everything about. (The footnoting is at times a bit distracting - "of course, everyone knows that" you think - but of course those things that "everyone knows" vary from reader to reader.) All in all, this is a very good edition of Dubliners.

I was once an English lit. major in college (only for a year), and still have infrequent yearnings in that direction. One of those I have had in recent years is to take the time to write a long essay on these stories. I do think they are worth that kind of effort.