A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics)

Book Description

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, providing an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive, this coming-of-age story is a tour de force of style and technique.

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Published in 1916 to immediate acclaim, James Joyce's semi-autobiographical tale of his alterego, Stephen Dedalus, is a coming-of-age story like no other. A bold, innovative experiment with both language and structure, the work has exerted a lasting influence on the contemporary novel.

Customer Reviews:

Have a good measure of patience ready to exchange for keen insight and impeccable writing.......2007-06-18

Actually, I listened to an audio version of this book - it was the only way I was able to finish it. Even so, it still took me quite a while to get through it. The writing is very dense, and self-absorbed. The book offers many rewarding insights into stream of consciousness thought processes, and typical youthful struggles with issues like religion, good and evil, aesthetics, books and learning, family relations, nationalism and politics, sex and love, asserting one's independence, and getting along with teachers and peers. The detailed accounts of Roman Catholic dogma were a bit tedious, yet I ran into references to them in other works soon after finishing those sections. Having been brought up Protestant, I was spared a lot of the gory details created by the human imagination regarding what hell must be like.

A rather profound insight that came in handy one day while teaching was that people who work hard to live pious lives often end up with a short temper, impatient with the visible weaknesses of others. That also was confirmed in a separate context soon after I listened to that part.

I had to give this work five stars - it is acknowledged great literature - but I wasn't so sure I liked the narrator that much the further I got into it. I guess anybody can be hard to like when they make an effort to be brutally honest about their thoughts and feelings. The narrator's ambivalence about things like his teachers and his interactions with them were sometimes disorienting, but that was certainly his purpose - to show that there are many possible views of the same interaction, and you have to make your own calls. The question posed to the narrator toward the end, about whether he had actually ever loved anyone in his life so far, put the entire work in a perspective worth pondering.

I think for the razor-sharp insights and the utterly lucid writing, this work is eminently worth reading. But you may have to push yourself to make it to the end - I did, anyway.

Highly moving coming of age story.......2007-05-25

This is the semi-autobiographical coming of age story of Stephen Dedalus. I read it about 10 years ago when I was an undergraduate and found it fairly hard to get through, so I thought I'd give it another go. On my second reading I found I was able to relate far more closely with the protagonist and appreciate the quality of Joyce's prose. The story, which is told mainly in the third person, recounts several stages of Stephen's youth. The beginning of the book is written in almost childlike prose as it depicts Stephen's experiences as a schoolchild at a Catholic boarding school. I was able to relate to Joyce's depiction of a very precocious yet sensitive young boy, full of childlike curiosity and terrified of the harsh discipline meted out by the priests. The latter part of this chapter also contains an interesting discussion between Stephen's father and his colleagues about Parnell and Irish politics. Not being an expert on Irish history, I couldn't follow this debate as intelligently as many readers will be able to, yet through it Joyce depicted the sharp political cleavages dividing Ireland at the time.

The next two chapters follow Stephen at a Catholic high school. He has become increasingly alienated from society and emotionally withdrawn. He also begins visiting prostitutes, which leaves him feeling disgusted with his sinful nature. Perhaps the most amazing part of the book is in chapter three, which details Stephen's religious conversion and subsequent renunciation of his faith. This chapter contains a sermon on the torments of hell which terrorizes Stephen and leads to his initial spiritual immersion. This sermon carries on for about 15 pages and is given in the most lurid, evocative prose that one can imagine. The sermon is explicitly designed to terrorize young minds and lead them to renounce their sinful ways. It really resonated with me, as I myself grew up in a conservative church where I was reminded every Sunday of the unimaginable horrors that awaited me if I did not turn my back on the sinful world. While Stephen, shaken with guilt and terror after this sermon, initially tries to immerse himself in the rites of the church, he continues to be assailed by doubts and skepticism, which ultimately lead him to renounce his faith. Joyce vividly describes the joy and freedom that Stephen feels upon freeing himself from the reins of religious doctrine and proclaiming his independence from all such confining systems of thought.

The last part of the book shows Stephen as a university student. There were parts of this chapter that were hard for me to relate to. First, there is about a ten page section in which Stephen elaborates to a friend his theory of aesthetics. Art scholars and philosophers might find this fascinating, but it was somewhat hard for me to follow. There is also a very peripheral romantic interest that is never fully fleshed out. Joyce's ultimate aim here, though, was to depict Stephen as a highly independent young man. Stephen refuses to lend his support to the various faddish social and political movements of the day, whether it be Marxism or Irish nationalism. In the end, Stephen makes the decision to leave Ireland, finding that his artistic aspirations will never be fulfilled if he stays.

Overall, this book clearly deserves its reputation as one of the best works of literature in the English language. Although several aspects of the story are hard to relate to for those who are either not Irish or experts on Irish history, there are also a number of universal themes that resonate more widely. First, this story can be read as a sort of free-thinker's manifesto. While it is admittedly hard at times to fully relate to Stephen (he is depicted as elitist and anti-social), many will be able to relate to his feelings of alienation and his independence of thought. Finally, one cannot properly review this work without noting Joyce's prose. Joyce reminds me of Nabokov in the sense that, although he is often longwinded, one can forgive him his longwindedness because it is simply a pleasure to read his beautiful prose. This is one of those books that contains passages that I will go back and read over and over again.

Education Book.......2007-05-13

Required reading for daughter. Book took too long to arrive. MysticBleu

Being James Joyce.......2007-02-07

Several years ago a movie came out called "Being John Malkovich." I didn't see the movie, but the title was always intriguing to me. Essentially, this book is as close as one could come to "being" James Joyce as a young man.

As other reviewers have noted, the book starts slowly. I did not find the storyline to be particularly compelling, but the revolutionary "stream of consciousness" style introduced by Joyce to the literary world in this book was quite compelling. While I could not call this book a "page turner," make no mistake: it is well worth the effort to persevere to the end. There is a reason why some books are considered "literature." This is one of them.

My Viking Press edition contained no notes or explanations...just the simple, unadorned manuscript without someone's notes telling me what I should extract from the book, what I should think, why it was great literature, etc. Nothing to "coach" me in a particular direction. Now that I have finished reading it, I would enjoy exposing myself to notes and essays on this work, to compare my own impressions with those of others.

The plot of the book is simple enough: a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story featuring Stephen Daedelus, Joyce's alter ego - hence, the title of the book. We follow Daedelus through his formative years, first as the young son of a wealthy family sent off to boarding school, then as the adolescent whose family has fallen from political grace and is now struggling to make ends meet as young Stephen changes to another school that while different, is still as much about religious instruction (Catholicism) as about secular topics. Then, we find him in his mid-teens undergoing a stage in which he abandons himself to lust and then swings the pendulum to the other extreme by attempting something approaching mortal perfection in his religious devotion and briefly even considers entering the priesthood. At the close of the book we find Daedelus in college demonstrating his clearly formidable intellect as he ponders and debates subjects with his professors and peers such as the meaning of beauty and the responsibility of the artist. Ultimately, Daedelus gives us his conclusion on how he intends to live his life that is at once both profound and cliché: to express himself through his art (his writing) as freely and wholly as he can, even if it means being spurned by society and making mistakes. In today's vernacular, it would probably come out as something like, "I gotta be me." But of course Joyce leads us to this conclusion not as some airhead MTV-generation pronouncement, but as the result of his coming-of-age experiences and his deep philosophical ponderings about the meaning of life, the role of religion, and his purpose on this earth.

The stream-of-consciousness style pioneered by Joyce in this book is remarkable, both in its originality to the literary world, and in its ability to give us the events of the story not just through the eyes of Daedelus, but almost through his subconscious. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to read someone's thoughts, right down to the sometimes erratic ways in which one thought leads to another or the impressions that occur somewhat randomly, this is what Joyce delivers. In these pages, he delivers not what it would be like to observe James Joyce, but what it would be like to actually be James Joyce.

The language throughout is beautiful, many times a form of prose poetry. Often described as a novella rather than a novel, the rather sparse page count is rather deceptive: this is a dense book and will take as long for most people to read as a book three times its length. One thing in my edition of the book that was unconventional was Joyce's refusal to use quotation marks to distinguish dialog. He set off dialog with elongated dashes at the beginning of dialog sentences instead. Occasionally, I had to read passages several times to understand who was speaking because Joyce depars entirely from the convention we are all used to.

All in all, this is an excellent starting place for those new to Joyce such as myself, both because it gives insight into the author, and because it introduces the character Daedelus who apparently figures prominently in other books by Joyce such as "Ulysses."

Charting your own course in life.......2007-02-06

The narrative point of view of this book was very innovative for its day. Its not a traditional driving narrative where the author weaves together elements of a plot that leads the characters to a telling conclusion. The point of view is interior to the main character, but in the third person not the first, and the language changes as the character changes.

The narrative follows the growing up and coming to age of Stephen Dedalus from his earliest memories. It shifts from exterior events to interior reflections and fades in a disconnected way into dream events. Some of the exterior events are quite striking and memorable, such as Stephen getting whipped for something he did not do, the bird-girl on the shore, and a long priestly harangue about going to hell. Many signs along the way acquire a mythic or symbolic significance. There are frequent references to birds and flying, which signify Stephen's growing intention to leave Ireland.

The heart of the book is the story about a struggle against authority. The ability to rebel against dire warnings of everlasting punishment from disobeying a religious order requires considerable strength of mind from a lone individual. It requires inner resources, a constant source of solace that gives one an unwavering resolve. Stephen experiences the travails of youth, the giving into lust and subsequent shame, and then turning to the Church. He realizes that by becoming a priest all his material cares would be taken care of and the Church would allay his security anxieties. But his artistic temperament is awakened, most notably in the epiphany of seeing the girl on the shore; and he knows that he cannot endure the kind of sick drudgery that he would feel in the labors of renunciation of his self. Instead of having others chart his course, he awakens to the freedom of charting his own course.

Joyce Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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Great Joyce Notes

Joyce Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Don Gifford
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520046102

Customer Reviews:

Great Joyce Notes.......2006-02-28

This book provides excellent and clear references to otherwise obscure persons, locales, Irish slang, and turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th) Dublin culture that are so integral to the Joyce stories. Well worth the purchase.

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

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Casebook was a good guide
A good guide

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195150767

Book Description

This casebook offers a comprehensive introduction to this landmark in modern fiction. The essays collected here will help first-time readers, teachers, and advanced scholars gain new insight into Joyce's semi-autobiographical story of an Irish boy's slow and difficult discovery of his artistic vocation. Mark Wollaeger's introduction provides an overview of the composition and early reception of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as well as a survey of some of the recurrent issues debated by literary critics. Essays by Hugh Kenner and Patrick Parrinder offer both indispensable overviews of the entire novel-its themes, structure, and idiom-and close attention to specific interpretive cruxes. Other essays include classic responses by Wayne Booth, Fritz Senn, Michael Levenson, Helene Cixous, and a newly revised and expanded version of Maud Ellmann's groundbreaking "Polytropic Man." Together the essays bring into focus the wide range of questions that have kept A Portrait fresh for the new millennium.

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Casebook was a good guide.......2006-03-09

The casebook on Portrait was very helpful to me. I had to use if for a project in my English class and it was nice to have such a wide variety of criticisms in one place. I also liked that each cricicism was labeled so I didn't have to scan through it to know what it focused on.

A good guide.......2003-11-13

James Joyce's A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN is arguably one of the defining works of 20th century modernism. It set the standard that many writers who employed stream of consciousness narration (Woolf, Faulkner, et al.) would follow. This collection of essays is a good way to familiarize yourself, not only with the novel, but with the Joycean scholarship that followed. Some essays are better than others: Ellman's stands out as particularly good. Some essays drag. Still, I would recommend this to anyone embarking on "A Portrait".

Reading Alcoholisms: Theorizing Character and Narrative in Selected Novels of Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf

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An important book from a number of angles.

Reading Alcoholisms: Theorizing Character and Narrative in Selected Novels of Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf
Jane Lilienfeld
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312217099

Book Description

With Reading Alcoholisms, Jane Lilienfeld has produced a ground-breaking cross-disciplinary study using the social, psychological, and scientific literature on alcoholism and family alcoholism to examine the novels of Hardy, Joyce, and Woolf. Each of these authors was directly affected by the alcoholism of a family member or mentor, and Lilienfeld shows how the effects of alcoholism organized their texts: through the portrayal of a protagonist in The Mayor of Casterbridge, through the denial of parental alcoholism and its silent presence in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and through codependent reactive patterns of Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. With the remarkable empathy Lilienfeld has for human dimensions of alcoholism, she demonstrates that "the narrative strategies in each of these novels at times mimic the behaviors and feeling states often arising from alcoholism." Without an understanding of the multidimensional nature of alcoholism and the transmission of its effects across generations, any analysis of the work of these three literary giants is incomplete.

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An important book from a number of angles........1999-08-12

What Shays did for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in *Achilles in Vietnam,* Dr. Jane Lilienfeld does for alcoholism in her new book, *Reading Alcoholisms.* Lilienfeld's book reviews some familiar works of English literature dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries through the lens of what we have come to know about alcoholism, both the "disease process" itself and its somewhat predictable effects upon alcoholics, their families, and others close to them. At the time the works Lilienfeld focuses upon were written, there was no body of alcoholism theory; nevertheless, the authors of these works reproduced in painful detail what would later become familiar trajectories of personal and familial decline. One of the points Lilienfeld scores is to show that alcoholism as we understand it existed BEFORE we understood it. However crude and ineffective present treatments for them might be, alcoholism (and, by extension, other addictions) are hardly the iatrogenic diseases some occasionally claim. Lilienfeld allows her readers to think inductively about evidence in the texts. One might sometimes wish for her to validate our thinking by drawing more conclusions for us. But that's a small gripe. This is a fine book.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Signet Classics)

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The Hobo Philosopher
An Impressive Display of Writing Genius

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Signet Classics)
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451530152

Book Description

Joyce's semi-autobiographical first novel follows Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and creative youth who rebels against his family, his education, and his country by committing himself to the artist's life.

Customer Reviews:

The Hobo Philosopher.......2007-09-14

I bought this book but it took me a long time to get into it. The "Moo-cow" business I didn't get. It seemed so silly and trivial and I, of course, was very, very serious. But one day I don't know why I just sat down and started reading it. Being Irish and Catholic the book became very pertinent in a short number of pages. At the time I read this book I was shocked that somebody should know my personal story and personal thoughts so vividly. I realize now that this is the personal story of a myriad of young Irish Catholic boys. This was a very good book and it tackled some very serious issues regarding faith, religion, and the Catholic Church.
This book was partially responsible for my life long interest in reading. Once I understood that the people who wrote books were the people who were speaking my language and translating my thoughts, I was hooked. Books were not all Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland.

An Impressive Display of Writing Genius.......2006-07-22

This is a very entertaining book and not difficult to read. Most book lovers will love the book. In my review below I do not give away the plot. That is left for the reader to discover.

I read "Dubliners" and then read the present 250 page book as a warm up to ease into "Ulysses." This is a better book than "Dubliners" and we see the genius of Joyce without being intimidated - as the reader can be with "Ulysses." As a side note, the protagonist Stephen Dedalus has the same name and is similar to one of the three main characters in "Ulysses."

If you are looking for a lot of analysis this is probably not the only book to buy. This Signet version contains the story plus Langdon Hammer's 18 page introduction. I avoided reading that first, because it seems to give away most of the key parts, or at least enough that one does not want to read it until later. Overall, I loved the book and thought the analysis was good but short.

The book starts with Joyce recalling a few childhood memories, and it will probably stir some memories in the reader as well. He has very colourful descriptions of his parents, relatives, and his teachers, especially various Irish Catholic priests.

Is Joyce a genius or just crazy? He seems to have a bit of the crazy streak in him, and perhaps that why the novel is so creative. The prose and writing is among the most impressive that most will ever see. The book contains beautiful descriptions of his childhood, then Catholic schools, and then his college days. The prose and vocabulary is Joyce's own. It is laced with Irish expressions and phrases - not the lengthy descriptive phrases of a Hemingway, but dense, and expressive, sometimes quickly changing as we read. Sometimes it is long and rambling as he describes a scene beside the ocean or brings us into one of his dreams. It is a wonderful experience, and I found myself being thankful that I had decided to read this Joyce novel. It is probably in the top 10 for writing and creativity, weak on structure.

People looking for a story and structure will be annoyed as was the person who rejected the first publishing. It is a superb mixture of memories, dreams, and fiction, all blended together.

Joyce provides no narration; he writes as if we are watching a movie, mostly going forward in time but not always. The reader is left to sort out the time and place or if it is real or just a dream as we travel from scene to scene through the book. As noted in the analysis, Joyce is in direct contact with the reader. There is nobody in between to guide the reader and explain what it means. You determine that from the dialogue. In any case, we follow him from a young school lad to his college days. We learn of his struggle to whether embrace the Catholic Church and be a priest, or whether to take another path.

This is superb writing, and one appreciates why Joyce is famous. As a novel it is a bit lacking but few will notice any flaws.

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism)

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A Portait Whose Time Has Come and Gone..
a good book if you can get past a long section on hell

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism)
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Bedford/St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312061706

Book Description

Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especially for students, that approach the work from several contemporary critical perspectives, such as gender criticism and cultural studies. Each essay is accompanied by an introduction (with bibliography) to the history, principles, and practice of its critical perspective. Every volume also surveys the biographical, historical, and critical contexts of the literary work and concludes with a glossary of critical terms. New editions reprint cultural documents that contextualize the literary works and feature essays that show how critical perspectives can be combined.

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A Portait Whose Time Has Come and Gone.........2004-01-31

It is remarkable that such a well-crafted novel manages, as a story, to resonate so poorly. When was the last time someone referenced Stephen Dedalus in a conversation? Moby Dick, Holden Caufield, "the old man in Nabokov," Heller's Yosarian: all already have or will continue to enjoy an iconic status long after Portrait becomes the exclusive domain of a specialized readership. Portrait struck me less as a work of art to be experienced than a puzzle to be solved. Fraught with literary antecedents and allusions and word play it exemplifies the artist as cryptographer. On the plane of a puzzle, it's remarkably good fun. So, this puzzled me, and I'm sure that there is minor, obscure commentary either to answer or dismiss it as a question: When Mr. Dedalus claims that "silence, exile and cunning" shall be his weapons, what, if anything, in Portrait, with its extended conversation with the great books of the western canon, prepares us for the role of "silence" in the arsenal?

a good book if you can get past a long section on hell.......1999-02-12

Joyce's classic was required reading for my english class. This edition, especially the deconstruction essay included in it, promotes a better underatnding of the novel. The first 90 pages of the book keep the reader wanting more, the mind of this artist is looked into from a fascinating perspcetive. However, as the story progresses, religion and the Jesuit Church play such a large role in Stephen Dedalus' consciousness that the book becomes more about hell and confession than the about the art and the maturity of a semi-neurotic youth. The ending brings the book back to life and proves that the main character really is capable of being an artist--for he "writes" the last few pages of his own "portrait."

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Naxos AudioBooks)

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Joyce's portrait
Bad sound quality
Enriches the prose considerably
An Astonishing Reading

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Naxos AudioBooks)
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Naxos Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 9626343664

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Joyce's portrait.......2007-05-07

Actor Jim Norton did a wonderful job creating a special voice for each of the book's characters. I could see how the chapter three sermon on hell would be terrifying to young Stephen and yet come across as ironic and manipulative to someone more mature. I've read this book numerous times, but Norton helped me discover a whole new way of enjoying Joyce.

Bad sound quality.......2007-05-07

Although the box/cd quality of the item was superb, the audio quality of the recording itself is far from perfect. The audio gain is very low so that even when you listen to the various segments, the sound is very low and disturbing. I wish I could return the product back to the manufacturer.

Enriches the prose considerably.......2006-10-27

Those of us, Irish or otherwise, today lack the ability to hear English as spoken a hundred years and a bit more in Dublin by--here at least mostly--the educated classes of the time. Joyce's musical and allusive prose, difficult for many newcomers to his books, is perfect to be listened to when read aloud with intelligence and sensitivity--and a bit of needed humor especially to counter its protagonist's Thomistic cogitations and mental or spiritual convolutions. Now, this panoply of inner and outer voices can be imitated in part, thanks to one man's many tones.

I've been uploading this collection from the CDs to make audio files, and it sounds great. Snips of period music or a bit of ambiance often begin the episodes, headed on the CD by general phrases related to the contents of the sub-sections of the five book chapters. The box comes with a bit of introductory material, although on the discs themselves no supplemental explanations are included. I have heard Jim Norton read Counterparts for the Caedmon tapes of Dubliners, and Norton's own Naxos tapes of the same. (His later effort, a full Ulysses, is a bit beyond my budget, but in an abridged form of 4 CDs it, and another 4 of Finnegans Wake, also are read by Norton for Naxos.)

He does not sound always that 'Irish' as the theatrical stereotypes would render voices; rather, a register of British and various upper and middle classes of Irish voices must be conveyed, no easy task for one man before not an audience or camera but only a microphone. Banter, philosophizing, boasting, sermons, and jokes: much needs dramatization. The cast of characters, more male than female given the nature of the story Joyce tells, allow for as much animation as can be granted by the limits of the rather earnest, dour, and/or intellectual ruminations that for large portions of this novel replace more conventional notions or action, plot, or suspense. But, such was the task Joyce took on, and Norton remains faithful to it as well as any actor interpreting such difficult prose can do, a century apart from its author. It's no fault of Norton if once in a while the burdens of expressing the moods of such a challenging character as Dedalus seem to overwhelm the listener-- this may be Joyce's intent on the page, to mimic how the mind of Dedalus and his soul are entangled.

A good refresher, or a fine appetizer, that enriches your tackling the text with renewed vigor. It's not an easy read. On the page, lassitude can set in for many contemporary readers, but when heard, Norton's variety of pacings and emotions makes dramatic and sympathetic many of the more priggish postures taken on by the young Stephen Dedalus.

An Astonishing Reading.......2005-10-13

This review is of the Naxos unabridged audiobook of Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".

Joyce is formidable, especially for those who think they should know and be familiar with his works but just can't muster the enthusiasm for it. An audiotape reading of his early, more-coherent "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" seemed as painless a way to dip one's toe in as any available. I was correct. While I didn't find the book enjoyable, I did find the reading to be miraculous. Jim Norton has remarkable talent and obviously prepared well for this reading. It is a pleasure to listen to someone who does his part so well!
If only Joyce had done better -- he did not "find me" with this book. I dread the following works.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Modern Classics)

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To forge in the smithy of his soul a masterpiece

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Modern Classics)
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0141182660

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To forge in the smithy of his soul a masterpiece.......2005-01-21

It begins with "there was a moocow comin down the road" and ends with the famous declaration of the artist's intention," to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race". Its language changes and develops in the course of the telling with the age of the hero and with the situations in which he finds himself. The development in language , the stylistic development externally marks out the internal development of the artist. Through exile, silence and cunning Joyce forged this work a bildungsroman story of his own artistic and spiritual development. It is the story of his rejection of family, of religion, of homeland to find himself in his one true home the vocation of writing of creation in literature in art. There is much memorable brilliance in the work many moving movements the child with the broken glasses before the cruel schoolmaster or the too proud young man denying his mother's religious last wish. All of this tells the story of the artificer Daedalaus and how he will move toward the making of a world of his own in literature.
This book is often difficult to read ( Consider the lower world scene) is complicated in its style but it announces a new and private revelation the great artist's discovery and invention of his own vocation.
Along with Dubliners and in a sense Ulysses, one of Joyce's readable masterpieces.

James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

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James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
James Joyce
Manufacturer: The Viking Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000FOKU1U

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A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Digireads.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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