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3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Densely allusive. Enormously ambitious and pretentious. This round of reading Portrait clearly demonstrates his path to writing the labyrinthine Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The endnotes are essential. Stephen Daedelus struggles under the weight of Irish history, of the Catholic dogmas, and his own brilliant mind.
I maybe love Dubliners most as an act of crystalline pure writing skill, of capturing the city in the literary mode. But Portrait is perhaps the most essential Joyce - the bridge between the narrative and the experimental.
"It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve." Daedelus must leave Catholicism, must leave Ireland, in order to understand them. It is this attitude of alienation, the exile's viewpoint, that points to the contradiction of being human - we are both of this natural world and driven to transcend it.
I maybe love Dubliners most as an act of crystalline pure writing skill, of capturing the city in the literary mode. But Portrait is perhaps the most essential Joyce - the bridge between the narrative and the experimental.
"It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve." Daedelus must leave Catholicism, must leave Ireland, in order to understand them. It is this attitude of alienation, the exile's viewpoint, that points to the contradiction of being human - we are both of this natural world and driven to transcend it.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was particularly interested in reading this because I remember hearing that Alasdair Gray described the thought process behind part of Lanark as being his own take on it. I'm wondering now if that just means "semi-autobiographical".
I'm sorry, this is a novel? Because it seems much more like a thinly veiled, long-winded, dull as hell essay. James Joyce uses Stephen as an empty vessel to dump all his philosophies and theological musings. UGH.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Stephen is a pixie manic boy. He is dark and broody and he thinks he knows the world best, like any artist. His poetry is shit except maybe the latin ones i couldn’t read.
