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

5.0

This book so far has been terrific. However, I just finished the second to last chapter (ch IV) and my mind was blown. Stephen Dedalus' growth out of religion into a type of aestheticism parallels his growth from a child to a man, however it parallels something greater happening in the western world. Intellectual modernism, the pinnacle of the Enlightenment, is at its apex and beginning to confront the precursors of serious critiques. Aestheticism via Nietzsche (a major Joyce influence) and others is beginning to suggest that artistic capacity instead of the capacity for reason is the most important attribute of humanity. Regardless of whether you agree, James Joyce is predating a massive intellectual movement that emphasize creativity and freedom over reason & truth and includes people from camus, sartre to derrida & foucault. Essentially Dedalus has decided to stop trying to understand the meaning of life and now is ready to create his own meaning in life, taking from his name's reference to the greatest artist, artificer and inventor of greek mythology: Daedalus. Absolutely beautiful.

(finished now)