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3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
I read this before going to Dublin to visit an (ex-)boyfriend. I have never tried to read Ulysses, but this book was fairly easy to read for me. I ended up leaving the book with the ex.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Fantastic. Much more enjoyable than the first time I read it. With so much more life behind me, I can better appreciate Joyce's artistry.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A much more accessible Joyce read than Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, but still has some of the elements that made him a legend in the literary canon.
I think it's safe to say that Potrait is a novel one appreciates, not necessarily enjoys.
I liked this book enough, even though "coming of age" is not usually something that compels me. In retrospect, after reading Virginia Woolf, I would not go back to this one. Her style is similar, but more polished and more emotionally effective.
I'm ok with the stream of consciousness writing and the main character is interesting enough to be sure but I never found it engrossing. While I can appreciate the style, and word mastery, I don't find it the pinnacle coming of age story. It all sort of comes down to a pretentious intellectual banter that isn't very enjoyable reading.
(I also think it is amusing that when people voice negative reviews of the book, pompous literary snobs come in with comments like "you don't get it" or "try 50 shades for easier reading". Because as we all know, there is no difference between enjoying and understanding. Just like if you're beautiful you must be stupid to boot.)
Oh well. For the record, The Sun Also Rises is also on my "100 best literary classics" list and I didn't care for it much, but was totally swept away by The Old Man and the Sea. So I'm still willing to give other Joyce a go.
Also, started as an audiobook and I've since learned that I can't stand the narrator (John Lee). He adds some lilting intonation to the books that make it hard to follow or enjoy.
(I also think it is amusing that when people voice negative reviews of the book, pompous literary snobs come in with comments like "you don't get it" or "try 50 shades for easier reading". Because as we all know, there is no difference between enjoying and understanding. Just like if you're beautiful you must be stupid to boot.)
Oh well. For the record, The Sun Also Rises is also on my "100 best literary classics" list and I didn't care for it much, but was totally swept away by The Old Man and the Sea. So I'm still willing to give other Joyce a go.
Also, started as an audiobook and I've since learned that I can't stand the narrator (John Lee). He adds some lilting intonation to the books that make it hard to follow or enjoy.
The book between Dubliners and Ulysses starts of breathtakingly and excitingly experimental and ends up as a somewhat dull autobiographical novel. Still a major influence on many writers, I found it to be somewhat interminable.
"How pale the light was at the window! But that was nice. The fire rose and fell on the wall. It was like waves. Someone had put coal on and he heard voices. They were talking. It was the noise of the waves. Or the waves were talking among themselves as they rose and fell."
A beautiful mess of a book, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a Künstlerroman featuring young Stephen Dedalus — whose surname immediately brings forth visions of Daedalus, the skilled craftsman of Greek mythology and creator of the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete — does exactly what the title sets out to accomplish.
"What is that beauty which the artist struggles to express from lumps of earth . . . ."
Laying forth a string of instances from Stephen's life, the style of the narrative maturing alongside the protagonist. Taken apart from one another, many stops along Stephen's timeline seem insignificant.
"Art . . . is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end."
But taken at the end, or near so, when Stephen's artistic mind feels more fully developed and closer to being an artist, it becomes a collection of the everyday instances of us all — and yet wholly and only Stephen — that must be considered when examining the person he was, is, and will be.
"Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause."
Audiobook, as narrated by [a:Colin Farrell|365010|Colin Farrell|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]: Farrell has a rich, straightforward loveliness to his voice and is an incredibly interesting choice for this book. I found his delivery to be easy, casual and yet increasingly heavy with feeling — following Stephen's own journey. There's a weightiness to his performance that I loved and kept me anchored to this story that seems to constantly want to float away.
"But a man's country comes first. Ireland first . . . . You can be a poet or mystic after."