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

4.0

The first four chapters honestly thrilled me, they are evocative and remarkable – superbly well written. But the final chapter feels like a drastic and unsatisfactory shift. The portrait of this artist paints a sorry image indeed and as semiautobiographical as it is, I would not have enjoyed knowing Joyce in the real life at this age. What an uncompromising jerk! My frustrations about the story aside, the language and style of the novel are so skillful – some passages literally had me staring at a blank wall for several minutes just to take in how beautifully written they were and the clever and visionary observations of the world around Stephen and the vibrance and saturation of the writing pulls you in like very few books can – that anything less than 4 stars would be unfair. Four stars for the four chapters I liked. No fifth star for then obvious reasons.