jakepcole 's review for:

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

5.0

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My first full-length Joyce. I had feared approaching him, but soon discovered that the rhythmic movement of his prose more than compensated for the density of his polyglot deconstruction and reconstruction of language. Joyce finds the best way to write one's autobiography, evolving not along a narrative but through style. The book opens with a children's story told in words a child can grasp, and ends with the protagonist ironing out his artistic manifesto (then recording his thoughts in even more literal terms via a sudden jump into journal entries). Given that the portrait it paints is of an iconoclastic-to-the-point-of-potential-annoyance youth coming to terms with his talent and worldview, I'm surprised more don't mention the novel alongside Catcher in the Rye. But Joyce probes areas Salinger never even glanced into, adding layers of meaning and self-expression I've not seen in any other bildungsroman. It's a masterpiece, to be sure, but also so engaging I'm kicking myself for allowing my fear of Joyce's reputation to keep me from him for so long.