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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

by James Joyce

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9,48154110 (3.79)183
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Showing 1-5 of 52 (next | show all)
Definitely a disappointment, after the glowing reports I'd gotten from reviews and from friends' recommendations who've read the book. There were some inspiring passages that I really resonated with, like Stephen Dedaelus's conversion experience, eventually disinherited.. or his walk along the coast where he describes the scene in such detail that you know James Joyce is speaking out of personal experience... But if you don't identify with the author at any point, how can you even want to suffer through it? In general, this book is a rambling exercise in pointless intellectual thoughts, which is anticlimactic enough to feel entirely purposeless. What IS the story, anyway? Ok, a boy grows up... and fantasizes about girls and sex a lot. Where's the story there? I've rarely been this hard on a proven "classic" before, but I'll make an exception.

Note to editors: please don't put footnotes in your novels, it's incredible annoying no matter how much you might think it illuminates the text. Repeatedly suggesting that the reader isn't understanding something in a book SO vague that, clearly, NOTHING should be understood, and then only citing irrelevant history, dates & all, behind the song or the building or the person just mentioned, is infuriating. I mean, I take all this trouble to page ALL the way to the back of the book for an explanation that may somehow transform this whole tiresome reading experience for me, and you're giving me a 3-paragraph long HISTORY LESSON? How about making your first and only footnote about the elusive point of this book? ( )
  KendraRenee | Oct 30, 2009 |
The 1920s Modern Library edition I read - thus the plain green cover shown here - had no ISBN or LC classification, so I've kept the Penguin Classics paperback data. Someone donated the yellowed volume to the library where I work - with excellent penciled-in margin notes, part of a class assignment of yore no doubt.

I read this - or I think I read it - years ago. Maybe I just read parts of it. This time around (2009) most of it seemed new to me. I might as well have not read it at all before. So I've had the interesting experience of, effectively speaking, getting introduced to it after having spent years with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

The very pleasing result of that is to accept it on its own merits, and not simply as a stepping stone on Joyce's way to those later works. According to Joyce's own aesthetics as explained herein, it is a lyric work, really not to be compared to the epic Ulyssess and the dramatic FW. Unquestionably his "stream of consciousness" technique expanded in scope after the Portrait. But those later developments of the technique wouldn't have fit appropriately into this earlier lyric world.

The book itself, then, considered as it is by itself, is a masterpiece. The power and beauty of the writing, the devastating honesty of the author's self-portrait, the marvels of style as we hear Stephen's language change through the years, the surging presentations of religious excess, the daring temporal jump-cuts, the substitution of hyphens for quotation marks that further interiorizes each page - superb!

Except for my praise, I have nothing new to add to the thousands of reviews written through the decades about this book. I keep the book on my desk. I pick it up regularly, opening it at random to a page, and deriving great pleasure from it. It's so rare to be able to enjoy craftsmanship at this level of inspired excellence. ( )
  danielclark | Sep 25, 2009 |
My first venture into Joyce, making my way to Ulysses. I look forward to continuing. ( )
  KelliRowe | Aug 14, 2009 |
remarkable: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man relates the mental growth of Stephen Dedalus, who represents the author James Joyce. Very little actually happens in this book. It is almost completely a reference to the changes that occur in Dedalus as he grows from an innocent, somewhat oblivious boy, to the psychologically restless young man all too aware of the forces that buffet the Ireland of his day. It is a remarkable work that should not be missed by the serious reader.

The notes at the end by Seamus Deane do present points of clarification and interest, but for anyone who can't pass on a footnote without reading it (ahem), it does interrupt the flow of the narrative a great deal.
2 vote iayork | Aug 9, 2009 |
I don't know what to say to people who don't like this book. It took me a few tries to get through it, but I can't think of another book so magical. ( )
  falc0n2600 | May 3, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 52 (next | show all)
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
"Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes." ~ ovid, metamorphoses VIII, 188
Dedication
First words
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Canonical titleA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Original publication date1916
People/CharactersStephen Dedalus
Important placesDublin, Ireland
Awards and honorsThe Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (The Board's List, 3), The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (The Reader's List, 57), Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (14), Larry McCaffery's 20th Century Greatest Hits (21), 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006/2008 Edition), Guardian 1000 (Family and self)
Epigraph"Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes." ~ ovid, metamorphoses VIII, 188
First wordsOnce upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....
Last words(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0142437344, Paperback)

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.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:11 -0400)

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Legacy Library: James Joyce

James Joyce has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the I See Dead People's Books group.

See James Joyce's legacy profile.

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