A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
Only the bravest of the brave can handle James Joyce. Unfortunately, I’m not that brave.
Joyce is a classic writer, but for some reason, I feel about his writings the way I feel about Shakespeare: it’s like they’re written in a foreign language. I have no problem with Charles Dickens, who can be at times very complicated, but Joyce’s style is just too antiquated for me to wrap my mind around. Even the plot synopsis on Amazon confuses me!
I actually did read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man all the way through; it was required reading in high school. I flunked the test, though.
It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak. When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys earing in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was!
If you can understand what he’s talking about, maybe you can make it through the entire book without going insane. All I was able to get out of the novel was the main character, Stephen Dedalus, goes to a terrible Irish Catholic school as a boy and has some rotten, scarring experiences; and when he grows up, he struggles with his faith because of these experiences. If you like that type of book, give it a try. I’ll stick with Angela’s Ashes.
Joyce is a classic writer, but for some reason, I feel about his writings the way I feel about Shakespeare: it’s like they’re written in a foreign language. I have no problem with Charles Dickens, who can be at times very complicated, but Joyce’s style is just too antiquated for me to wrap my mind around. Even the plot synopsis on Amazon confuses me!
I actually did read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man all the way through; it was required reading in high school. I flunked the test, though.
It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak. When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys earing in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was!
If you can understand what he’s talking about, maybe you can make it through the entire book without going insane. All I was able to get out of the novel was the main character, Stephen Dedalus, goes to a terrible Irish Catholic school as a boy and has some rotten, scarring experiences; and when he grows up, he struggles with his faith because of these experiences. If you like that type of book, give it a try. I’ll stick with Angela’s Ashes.