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Andrew Scott is a great Stephen Daedalus, as tiresome as Stephen can be. Nevertheless, Scott plays the role beautifully, and especially so in the careful abridgement of Ulysses. This collection also includes the whole of Dubliners read by Stephen Rea. It is a fine reading, but Jim Norton's reading for Naxos is more to my taste. This BBC collection is capped off with a brief but entertaining biography of Joyce. All told, this collection is an excellent dramatization of works which demand an almost monastically studious and silent reading.
Audiobook was available at the library without a wait so I checked out this collection and what a gem it is. I could not imagine how a book that includes phrases such as "ineluctable modality of the visible" could possibly be dramatized but the BBC pulled it off beautifully. Ulysses is abridged, of course (although they retained the aforementioned phrase!), and dramatized by excellent narrators. Listening to it is very different from reading the book. For example, I never much cared for Molly Bloom but when listening to her soliloquy at the the end of the book, I was struck by what a refreshing force of life she is.
Both "Portrait" and "Dubliners" are also abridged and I'm not sure why but perhaps this has to do with funding at the BBC. In addition, while multiple narrators dramatized "Ulysses," the other two works had only a single narrator for all the voices, which resulted in some rather demented-sounding female characters but both books are beautiful in their own way. Both Ireland and particularly Dublin are major characters in all three books. Highly recommend this audiobook, which does make "Ulysses" accessible to people who have neither the time nor the desire to read the entire book (understandably so).
Both "Portrait" and "Dubliners" are also abridged and I'm not sure why but perhaps this has to do with funding at the BBC. In addition, while multiple narrators dramatized "Ulysses," the other two works had only a single narrator for all the voices, which resulted in some rather demented-sounding female characters but both books are beautiful in their own way. Both Ireland and particularly Dublin are major characters in all three books. Highly recommend this audiobook, which does make "Ulysses" accessible to people who have neither the time nor the desire to read the entire book (understandably so).
I only listened to Portrait of the Artist. It was beautifully read, especially for bedtime listening, but difficult to hear if you were doing anything else. I remember enjoying this book more when I was younger. A young man's coming of age and escaping the Catholic Church is not as appealing nowadays.