Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Ik heb dit eerder per ongeluk gelezen omdat mijn partner erover aan het schrijven was, en mijn god wat een hoogtepunt van korte fictie, echt niet te geloven
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is certainly the most accessible from his bibliography
Like the rest of Joyce's work there is a constant sense of layers upon layers, and of a master at work. Each story offers rather bleak but excellent prospect of his vision of Dublin, but suffused with deep humanity. The Dead is worth the price of admission alone, but each story feels like a perfectly formed idea
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I’ll start up front by saying that I used Chat GPT throughout reading this book, getting full analysis, feedback, symbolism, background, on each story as I read was invaluable. If I didn’t have that, it would’ve been a difficult to understand slog. But having a “computer professor” to explain things as I went made it a great experience. I learned so much about my own Irish background and what Joyce was saying/critiquing about Dublin and its people.
In short, Dubliners is a masterpiece. You just may need some extra info to help understand it.
In short, Dubliners is a masterpiece. You just may need some extra info to help understand it.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
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
Here’s my ranking:
1. Eveline
2. The Dead
3. An Encounter
4. A Painful Case
5. Araby
6. Clay
7. Counterparts
8. Ivy Day in the Committee Room
9. The Sisters
10. Two Gallants
11. Grace
12. After the Race
13. The Boarding House
14. A Little Cloud
15. The Boarding House
Although some were better than others, each of these stories are gems in their own right, written with an understated tone that never pretends to know: THIS is what this story means, THIS is what you must take from me. Joyce gives his reader full freedom to take what you will from his narratives and characters, and that kind of world is one I love and revel in. The Dublin he paints may not be flattering at face value, but this collection’s hyperspecificities, its attention to detail, its commitment to painting fully-fleshed characters, shows the passion Joyce had for Dublin and for Ireland, his need to set to paper the truth and beauty of his homeland.
I love how the polyphony of this collection urges the reader to kill their own ego, or to face the truth of its nonexistence, that “self” is only constructed, and that the snow covers all, living and dead. Doubles abound here, the gallants and their coin in “Two Gallants,” Gabriel and Lily in “The Dead,” for example, and although these are all individuals, their place in society replicates situations that play themselves out again and again through different vessels in the collective, and where some may grow bored of these repeated scenes, I was completely spellbound. I loved how the collapse of first-person in “The Sisters” was repeated in the collection as a whole, with the younger stories stridently told in first person and with the older stories firmly set in third. Just as Gabriel’s ego and sexual drive are deflated in “The Dead,” the unnamed narrator in “Araby” concludes, in the final line told from a first-person story in the collection—“Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity: and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Anguish and anger are the driving forces of this collection, both coming from the intense sadness of the occupied, of a people torn from their own culture and heritage, ceaselessly trying to find it again—be it in themselves, in pleasure, in the refuge of others, or by replicating imperial dynamics in their own lives. Fantastic book.
1. Eveline
2. The Dead
3. An Encounter
4. A Painful Case
5. Araby
6. Clay
7. Counterparts
8. Ivy Day in the Committee Room
9. The Sisters
10. Two Gallants
11. Grace
12. After the Race
13. The Boarding House
14. A Little Cloud
15. The Boarding House
Although some were better than others, each of these stories are gems in their own right, written with an understated tone that never pretends to know: THIS is what this story means, THIS is what you must take from me. Joyce gives his reader full freedom to take what you will from his narratives and characters, and that kind of world is one I love and revel in. The Dublin he paints may not be flattering at face value, but this collection’s hyperspecificities, its attention to detail, its commitment to painting fully-fleshed characters, shows the passion Joyce had for Dublin and for Ireland, his need to set to paper the truth and beauty of his homeland.
I love how the polyphony of this collection urges the reader to kill their own ego, or to face the truth of its nonexistence, that “self” is only constructed, and that the snow covers all, living and dead. Doubles abound here, the gallants and their coin in “Two Gallants,” Gabriel and Lily in “The Dead,” for example, and although these are all individuals, their place in society replicates situations that play themselves out again and again through different vessels in the collective, and where some may grow bored of these repeated scenes, I was completely spellbound. I loved how the collapse of first-person in “The Sisters” was repeated in the collection as a whole, with the younger stories stridently told in first person and with the older stories firmly set in third. Just as Gabriel’s ego and sexual drive are deflated in “The Dead,” the unnamed narrator in “Araby” concludes, in the final line told from a first-person story in the collection—“Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity: and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Anguish and anger are the driving forces of this collection, both coming from the intense sadness of the occupied, of a people torn from their own culture and heritage, ceaselessly trying to find it again—be it in themselves, in pleasure, in the refuge of others, or by replicating imperial dynamics in their own lives. Fantastic book.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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:
Yes