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3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
challenging
lighthearted
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
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
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
There is something there, but the mid-parts with all the religious talk were so hard to wade through. Possibly I could have enjoyed more if I was so sick while reading this.
challenging
emotional
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
Time to make a fool of myself, *trying* to comment on the literature of James Joyce... sigh... all I can give are my own thoughts.
This is the first novel of his I've read. A couple of weeks after giving up, midway through Chapter 5 (due to otherwise-sourced impatience on my part), I returned and read the whole thing over. I'm REALLY glad I did. The languid, painstakingly observant quality of Joyce's language is easier to savour a second time around. And, when I got there at last, I liked the ending (which wasn't actually an ending, it was a beginning - but that's all the better).
The 5 star-rating, however, counts primarily for about the last half of chapter four. The rest of the book can get its stars somewhere else. After reading these pages, I was enraptured. This section is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. All glory, laud and honour be to Joyce, forever and ever, amen.
Since this part appealed to me so much, I'll discuss why. I love the ways devised by Joyce to subtly show us what an artist Stephen is, well before he accepts it himself. He perceives life in a very dramatic way and internalizes his experiences to such an extent that, mentally/emotionally, it affects him more deeply than those around him. In the book's very opening, his father soothes him with the story of "baby tuckoo" – and Stephen realizes that he is baby tuckoo. "He sang that song. It was his song" (Joyce 1). The continuing story is, in many ways, Stephen's grappling with the question of whether he is the creator of his own story, or merely its subject. (Insight derived from the Wordsworth Classic introduction; I can't claim thinking of it, but find it intriguing all the same.)
So Stephen's life goes on, not remarkably; yet this central struggle between subjection and creation adds an anxiety that kept me turning the pages. It's a question that everyone who's ever tried to create has to ask themselves, the question of loyalty and freedom, and in what way a would-be creator has any right to lay claim to either.
To shorten a long, clumsy analysis, the peak of Stephen's belief in his own subject-ness appears near the close of Chapter 3. At this point, the kid is just about trembling out of his trousers with the realization not of how far he's strayed from God's path – he knew that already – but of how dearly he's doomed to pay for it. (Thanks, Joyce, for 14 small-print pages of the preacher's St. Francis' feast day sermon. Was ALL of it really necessary?) Classic religious-institution technique of fear to trap the vulnerable human soul. And it's worse for Stephen, with his wide melodramatic streak. (The unseasoned artist is a very gullible creature indeed.) Moreover, he can't bear to imagine "a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost. The end: black, cold, void waste" (Joyce 108). His shame is based on egotism, not reverence for God: "A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul ... to feel that those [unfallen:] souls were dearer to God than his" (Joyce 108). And his deeper fear is based on the snuffing-out of his human experience, in that realm of "black, cold, void waste." In my opinion, artists' motivations tend to include a search for immortality. In what sense? Yes, we want our creations to be remembered. But it's also that we are in love with the details of life. If Joyce's prose represents Stephen's consciousness, then Stephen revels in his every sensual experience, even at the times we wouldn't expect him to. He utterly fails to re-align his thoughts and become as single-minded as he feels God wishes him to be. The endless subtle wonders and mysteries of the world call too strongly for him to focus his eyes on heaven for long.
Which brings me to my favorite section, following his chat with the priest who wants him to join the High Ranks of the Mortified. There is something immensely appealing to me in the awakening Stephen feels, that of "some instinct... stronger than education or piety.... The chill and order of the life repelled him" (Joyce 123). In his choice not to turn away from the joy of sensual beauty, Stephen chooses to be a creator of sensual beauty as well. I doubt there is a more "holy" act conceivable: the choice for oneself to be truly awake, aware of the world in which we love and suffer. Oh, never mind, I can't say it better than Joyce does: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!" (Joyce 132). The independence and courage and bittersweetness and love, and humility (for Stephen worships the sacred experience of life wholeheartedly, as he never worshipped God) ... and the socially-perceived wrongness, and the essential rightness of this decision grips me. It is complicated, and yet so simple. I want to relive it and re-think it again and again.
This is the first novel of his I've read. A couple of weeks after giving up, midway through Chapter 5 (due to otherwise-sourced impatience on my part), I returned and read the whole thing over. I'm REALLY glad I did. The languid, painstakingly observant quality of Joyce's language is easier to savour a second time around. And, when I got there at last, I liked the ending (which wasn't actually an ending, it was a beginning - but that's all the better).
The 5 star-rating, however, counts primarily for about the last half of chapter four. The rest of the book can get its stars somewhere else. After reading these pages, I was enraptured. This section is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. All glory, laud and honour be to Joyce, forever and ever, amen.
Since this part appealed to me so much, I'll discuss why. I love the ways devised by Joyce to subtly show us what an artist Stephen is, well before he accepts it himself. He perceives life in a very dramatic way and internalizes his experiences to such an extent that, mentally/emotionally, it affects him more deeply than those around him. In the book's very opening, his father soothes him with the story of "baby tuckoo" – and Stephen realizes that he is baby tuckoo. "He sang that song. It was his song" (Joyce 1). The continuing story is, in many ways, Stephen's grappling with the question of whether he is the creator of his own story, or merely its subject. (Insight derived from the Wordsworth Classic introduction; I can't claim thinking of it, but find it intriguing all the same.)
So Stephen's life goes on, not remarkably; yet this central struggle between subjection and creation adds an anxiety that kept me turning the pages. It's a question that everyone who's ever tried to create has to ask themselves, the question of loyalty and freedom, and in what way a would-be creator has any right to lay claim to either.
To shorten a long, clumsy analysis, the peak of Stephen's belief in his own subject-ness appears near the close of Chapter 3. At this point, the kid is just about trembling out of his trousers with the realization not of how far he's strayed from God's path – he knew that already – but of how dearly he's doomed to pay for it. (Thanks, Joyce, for 14 small-print pages of the preacher's St. Francis' feast day sermon. Was ALL of it really necessary?) Classic religious-institution technique of fear to trap the vulnerable human soul. And it's worse for Stephen, with his wide melodramatic streak. (The unseasoned artist is a very gullible creature indeed.) Moreover, he can't bear to imagine "a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost. The end: black, cold, void waste" (Joyce 108). His shame is based on egotism, not reverence for God: "A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul ... to feel that those [unfallen:] souls were dearer to God than his" (Joyce 108). And his deeper fear is based on the snuffing-out of his human experience, in that realm of "black, cold, void waste." In my opinion, artists' motivations tend to include a search for immortality. In what sense? Yes, we want our creations to be remembered. But it's also that we are in love with the details of life. If Joyce's prose represents Stephen's consciousness, then Stephen revels in his every sensual experience, even at the times we wouldn't expect him to. He utterly fails to re-align his thoughts and become as single-minded as he feels God wishes him to be. The endless subtle wonders and mysteries of the world call too strongly for him to focus his eyes on heaven for long.
Which brings me to my favorite section, following his chat with the priest who wants him to join the High Ranks of the Mortified. There is something immensely appealing to me in the awakening Stephen feels, that of "some instinct... stronger than education or piety.... The chill and order of the life repelled him" (Joyce 123). In his choice not to turn away from the joy of sensual beauty, Stephen chooses to be a creator of sensual beauty as well. I doubt there is a more "holy" act conceivable: the choice for oneself to be truly awake, aware of the world in which we love and suffer. Oh, never mind, I can't say it better than Joyce does: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!" (Joyce 132). The independence and courage and bittersweetness and love, and humility (for Stephen worships the sacred experience of life wholeheartedly, as he never worshipped God) ... and the socially-perceived wrongness, and the essential rightness of this decision grips me. It is complicated, and yet so simple. I want to relive it and re-think it again and again.
A beautifully written book with wonderful concepts!
challenging
reflective
slow-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
reflective
slow-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