Reviews

Dubliners by James Joyce

cham0haz's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

trhodg's review against another edition

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3.0

Perhaps I’m missing the contemporaneous social and political context of Joyce, but I couldn’t really get into this. As a whole, the book does paint an interesting and bleak picture of Dublin, but many of the individual stories felt inconsequential. “The Dead” was great, though.

sarah_dietrich's review against another edition

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4.0

The final story, 'The Dead', made me cry. It was my favourite. 
The afterword gives context that ties all the stories together. Read the afterword first next time.

fineadjustment's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

castlerocktronix's review against another edition

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challenging funny inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

iqra_saif's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

miagw962's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

...and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul’s incurable loneliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.

James slayed with some of these but not all. I feel like I understand Irish culture now.

deannamartin113's review against another edition

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3.0

http://knitgirl2013.com/2013/06/10/bookshelf-dubliners/

readerziyya's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

emeraldgarnet's review against another edition

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4.0

Joyce's prose is beautiful. Although I did not connect with all of the stories, I found 'The Dead' to be exceptionally harrowing and sad.

The following paragraph speaks for itself:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.