A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) Paperback – March 25, 2003

A classic. Well done in this paperback.

I read Dubliners years ago, but it didn’t make much of an impression. A trip to Dublin and the James Joyce Museum convinced me of the author’s importance so I decided to try A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In it, we see a largely autobiographical account. There’s young Joyce in the form of the character Stephen Dedalus attending the boarding school of Clongowes, where he comes up against authority; there he is drinking and whoring in Cork; next, see him wrestling with and rejecting Catholicism; finally, we witness him talking about art with one of his learned friends in a lengthy conversation that doesn’t really mean much. In short, not a whole lot happens, but the writing is exquisite. Nearly every sentence is poetry in prose and so the novel is worth reading just for the sheer quality of Joyce’s penmanship. And so, to sum up a piece of classic literature that took the writer a decade to assemble and goodness knows what to get published (the story of Joyce’s struggle to get Dubliners published is amazing): excellent writing, but a story that’s just all right. However, it seems Dubliners and Portrait were mere warm-ups for his Magnus Opus, so perhaps I’ll try that next.Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World as well as War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada.

As an adult in the middle of my 30s, this book represents me.I had a similar experience, to Stephen.The final chapter gets me every time and I want to share my favorite quotes from the book."Do you disbelieve then? I neither believe in it nor disbelieve in it...""I was not myself as I am now, as I had to become.""Look here, Cranly, he said. You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use silence, exile, and cunning.""But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity too. "I am 35 years old and these quotes resonate deeply with my current stage of life.I am not afraid, well, maybe I am, a little bit, a lot.

"Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as his father and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past . An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind seemed older than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon a younger earth. No life or youth stirred in him as it had stirred in them. He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filial piety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel and loveless lust. His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon."PROs:* Excellent and engaging writing* Some parts can be quite interesting* Nice look into how it was like to grow up around like 19th/early 20th century IrelandCONs:* Some parts can be very boring and monotonous* Very long chapters (only 6 in whole book)* Not a book most people would want to read twice* Author seems to often get distracted with things that, to me, seemed pointless (such as spending pages trying to guess how many birds are flying in the air)"--Look here, Cranly, he said. You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use-- silence, exile, and cunning."A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-biographical novel by James Joyce that showcases his rise from a timid and pious young man to an intelligent, skeptical college student. His transformation is at time very interesting, such as his conversations and activities during school, and at other times very dull, such as him reminiscing about things that may only be important to him.It is simply amazing how much Joyce remembers about his childhood and to the degree to which he remembers it. For examples, he provides a terrifying sermon about the horrors of the Christian Hell that goes on for nearly an entire chapter, a sermon which seemed to have left deep scars on his youth. (Luckily he was able to break free from this religious fear instilled upon him as a boy.) I particularly enjoyed him conversations with his classmates and his philosophical discussions. It is obvious that Joyce is extremely intelligent, from his numerous inclusions of people ranging from Aristotle and Plato to Praxiteles and Percy Shelley. Although the ride was at times very boring, I'd say completing the book was worth it, but I wouldn't be interested in a second reading, at least not for a while."What was after the universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began?"

Joyce is a favourite writer who reconciled me, as a troubled teenager, to being Irish. The early 20th-century Irish-Catholic soul is here revealed as perhaps in no other work, as the path of Joyce's alter-ego, Stephen Dedelus, is traced from childhood to maturity.One marvellous set-piece after another is presented, the family home, the fierce Christmas argument over Parnell, the playing fields of Clongowes, the Hellfire sermon, the epiphany of the transcendent girl on the strand, the creation of a poem, the worshipful encounter with the nighttown prostitute... Until finally Stephen is ready to flee the nets that trammel the Soul, and forge the "uncreated conscience of his Race"...It is of course beautifully written as only Joyce can with the total beauty of language held in his mind and heart and hands. As his genius first shines then glows then bursts into flame... Here is his flight to the Sun.While not normally enamoured of the "Preface" I did find Seamus Deane's to be insightful and of interest...But read this for a vision of early 20th-century Catholic Ireland, the unique account of the growth of the artistic mind, and the beauty of Joyce's language shimmering across the veil of the world.