A review by jayisreading
Dubliners by James Joyce

reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

I don’t think there’s much I can say that hasn’t been said already about this short story collection, both good and bad. I have a soft spot for this collection as a result of having studied a fair bit of Irish literature as an undergrad. It’s also interesting to think about this collection in relation to Joyce’s writing career, knowing that this was essentially a stepping stone.

I love the way these stories capture the everyday lives of Dubliners at the time and the bittersweetness of life with such intimacy. To me, there’s something powerful about the inconclusiveness of these stories, instead, leaving the reader to sit with each protagonist’s thoughts by the end of the story. It’s also interesting to reread this collection nearly ten years later. The rose-tinted glasses are now off, and I see that it’s not perfect by any means (not that I thought it was perfect before, but I certainly was enamored with twentieth-century Irish literature).

Like most (if not all) short stories, some I loved, while others… not so much. Some of my favorites were: “Araby,” “A Little Cloud,” “A Painful Case,” and, of course, “The Dead.”
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