karen_lipkey 's review for:

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

2.0

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I tried... I really, really tried... but it was like reading a book in a language you just got through studying your sophomore year in high school; slow and headachy. Joyce kind of skipped around - or perhaps he didn't but the way he wrote threw me off so much that it just felt to me like he was skipping around. The dated language was ultimately what killed my appetite for the book and made me give up about half way through. For example, he would talk about going to what we would call the "Principal's office," but it would come out something like this: "The quad rule of student habit called Stephen to attach his good intention to the callus understanding of the statement." Me: "Goddamnit! What the HELL is he TALKING about?!" From what little I could understand of the introduction to the book Joyce's writing style was shocking and apparently new and flashy at the time he wrote it, which maybe why it was thought of as a classic. But I just think of it as frustrating.