James Joyce: Dubliners

[Sybarite]

Dubliners by James Joyce

Most of the time, when we come to read a previously unread author, it's because we've seen a specific recommendation – in a newspaper or on a forum like this – or because we see a particular work in a shop and it appeals to us.

But there's another scenario – when you come to an author who has a legendary, almost god-like status; a writer whose place in the literary pantheon is assured. How do you approach the work of such an icon? Can you criticise or say that you don’t like it – is that not heresy? Do you feel under pressure to be impressed – that something must be wrong with you if you aren't?

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce is such a one. You know he's there, waiting. You know that, sometime, you're going to have to give it a go.

But the thought is there too, that you might fail, particularly since Joyce is legendarily 'difficult'.

Dubliners, a cheap Everyman edition, has been sitting on the shelf for a decade and a half, attempting to gather dust. Quentin Crisp claimed that, if you stop housework for four years, no more dust accrues after that time. If that's the case, then this edition, with little more than a gossamer veil of dust on it, had been determindly waiting to be opened.

I don't particularly know what made me pick it up last week beyond a sense of: 'what next? Oh hang on, there's some Joyce here – let's see what it's like'.

So, first impressions: where's the story? It opens with The Sisters, a series of snapshots from a boy's life, as his friend, an elderly priest, has just died. The adult males around him were suspicious of the friendship and, by implication, of intellectual pursuits.

The descriptions of the physical surroundings, of people, their clothes, speech and behaviour, are incredibly detailed, although most definitely not flowery. But Joyce also concentrates great attention on the internal dialogue; on how people think about what is going on around them.

Then there's another snapshot and another. And another. In all, the book is made up of 15 of these snapshots. They include the incredibly poignant A Painful Case, about loneliness, sexual fear and prudery, failed relationships and the restrictions of 'respectability'.

In Counterparts, you can almost feel the violence that is bubbling under the surface of Farrington's character, even before it erupts.

Eveline is heart-wrenching, as a young woman considers running away with a sailor, leaving Ireland and her increasingly abusive father. Can she do it? Is the sailor genuine?

Ivy Day in the Committee Room sees a group of minor politicians fail to live up to the memory of Parnell.

A Mother sees a pushy but posh version of the archetypal stage mother try to boost her pianist daughter's career.

But while on the surface, these are a series of pithy short stories, linked only by the geographic setting of Dublin, there is far more that binds them.

Set at a time of upheaval in Ireland, several of the stories feature the revival of Irish culture.

Others reveal an undercurrent of violence. There is sex here too, and dissatisfied lives, broken relationships, class and social stresses, crime and deceit, religion and sin and guilt. And always the sense of life ebbing away and of happiness fleeting or missed.

So the snapshots come together to create a larger, more complete, and extremely vivid picture.

Is it good? Yes, it's very, very good. Is it difficult? No – neither difficult nor what I expected (although it's difficult in retrospect to know exactly what it was that I expected). Can you see what the fuss is about? Yes – although it's not the most earth-shattering thing I've ever read. Will you read more Joyce? Quite probably. Are you ready for Ulysses just yet? Err, probably not.

[Stewart]

No mention of The Dead, the largest and most famous piece from the collection? I had a shot of Dubliners years and years ago but didn't quite get the snapshots aspect as short story. But then, I try not to read too many short stories because they tend to be more subtle than novels and, as a result, go right over my head. This book was a case in point, although I do love that famous coda to The Dead:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted upon the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly though the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Wonderful.

[Sybarite]

Hi Stewart,

It's almost a case of which to pick to mention specifically – and The Dead didn't really have as great an individual impact for me as some of the others. In many ways, I think it's a linking-together story – bringing together the ideas of death and separation and culture and violence and sex into one story: because all those elements are in The Dead.

I'd absolutely agree that the paragraph that you quote is beautiful – there are several passages that I though exquisite throughout the book.

[k2doggo]

Originally Posted by Sybarite

Will you read more Joyce? Quite probably. Are you ready for Ulysses just yet? Err, probably not.

but you're definitely ready for a portrait of an artist as a young man, and based on your beautifully-felt review of dubliners, and your appreciation for his level of meaningful, emotional detail, you will probably love it. it goes beyond the stories into the level of real novelistic acceptance of opposites within a single character. it's admittedly very tightly controlled and condensed, but there's really nothing avant-garde there. to me it's one of the great novels.

[Sybarite]

Thank you for that, k2doggo.

[Cocko]

I must agree with the symbolism of Joyce. When I started a reading log back in January 2006, I though I would make a point of reading Ulysses as my 100th works. Well, here I am... almost.

At page 740 of the Penguin modern classics version, about page 610 in the original press, I have to say that the book is killing me. I feel like I've been running a marathon having only trained for the 100 metres. That said, every now and then I break through the pain barrier and have a chance to enjoy the scenery, but the rest of the time I'm struggling to keep up to the pack.

It doesn't help that I haven't read the Odyssey. Nor was it wise that I decided to skip over all the introductory essays about the book. For once, I think that may actually be of benefit.

200 pages to go, and I'm hanging out for the famous 'climax'. But I am left wondering if reputation alone is reason to spend 6 weeks reading a book. It might give me some bragging rights and help my literary education, and I must that that I have enjoyed about 5 of the episodes thoroughly, but I'm not sure what it takes to break through Joyce's turn of phrase to fully understand character. Maybe a few years at uni?

[jackdawdle]

probably not what you want to hear right now, but with multiple rereads ulysses gets increasingly better.

it's not a prerequisite to read the odyssey to get at the structure of ulysses. in fact it's very simple. it's the sad and pathetic day in the life a decent and sensitive man whose comings and goings intertwine with that of his voluptuous albeit intellectually vulgar wife and a young man whose intellect is so refined and exquisite as to be superhuman.

people get caught up in the stylistic devices, but they're nothing more than just that, devices: once you get it you get it. the real poetry of the book is how things that seem random and incidental at first are in fact central to the main thread of the storyline.

[David J]

Stewart, I agree with you about the coda of The Dead. Wonderful stuff. Thanks for typing it out.

I love Dubliners because every page is gold. The language is so beautiful and poetic, the stories are like prose poems. They say all art aspires to the condition of music- if this is so, Joyce has perfect pitch. I especially love the realism of the book -I recognise so much in it but also how it anticipates modernism - the thoughts of the individual characters seeping into the narrative. There is realism but also symbolism - the way Joyce unites these opposites is one of the triumphs of the collection.

This is my favourite Joyce work as it is so accessible and the prose is so beautiful and limpid as to rival Kafka. It's a masterpiece.

Happy Bloomsday to all!

[promtbr]

I read Dubliners again last winter. I was a young punk when I first read them and I did not engage. David pretty much sums up my feelings toward these gems now. The coda of The Dead sent chills down my spine and affected me for days. For me, some of the best last lines in all of fiction.
Happy Bloomsday indeed!

---

[Jan Mbali]

[quote=David J;28670]

I love Dubliners because every page is gold. The language is so beautiful and poetic, the stories are like prose poems. They say all art aspires to the condition of music- if this is so, Joyce has perfect pitch.

How very true - he straddles the line between prose and poetry more effectively than any other writer I know. Especially in "Portrait of the artist" where some passages glow with beauty.

[steffee]

This is my favourite of Joyce's works too, due to its accessibility. Despite it being more than ten years since I read Dubliners, which I had to do for A level English Lit., I still remember some of the stories with clarity. An Encounter, I think, is the most vivid in my mind, as I found it extremely shocking, particularly due to reading it as a naive teenager; but others too, such as Eveline (aw, poor Eveline) and Two Gallants. Joyce, I suspect, with Dubliners, was the one who taught me the meaning of a boarding house, among other things. It's remarkable that he conveyed such a range of human emotions into the collection, that it steps through life with the progression of the stories, so expertly. The downside, of course, is that after that, how can there ever be a better, more cleverly done, short story collection?

[Jayaprakash]

Accessible but not lightweight by any means. I always though that VS Naipaul tried to do something similar for his childhood neighborhood with Miguel Street but his lack of sympathy with those elements of the human race that are not named VS Naipaul sort of did it in.

[Jan Mbali]

Just aquired the book to reread the stories and learned fom the introduction that he was 25 when he wrote the Dubliners. Never knew that and am gobsmacked. Truly wonderful to have a talent that mature at that age. By the way, look out in second hand bookshops for Brendan Behans illustrated Sketches and Impressions or Hold your Hour and Have Another vignettes of Irish life. You get the full flavour of the language without the universalising of Joyce, who uses it even better than the Dylan Thomas uses Welsh rythms and Hugh McDiarmid uses Scots in his poetry. Under Milkwood is a great favourite of mine (especially staged or taped) but it is not comparable to Joyce - although Dylan's poetry can be as great. I suspect all three authors are almost impossible to translate into a third language because of the subtle play between strongly idiomatic (in these three cases Celtic-influenced) dialects and more standard English. Is this so?

[Clarissa]

Dubliners and, for me, that wonderful last paragraph of 'The Dead' (quoted by Stewart above) would have made Joyce immortal even if he had not gone on to write Ulysses, I find Joyce is a writer to be read and Dylan Thomas a poet to be listened to. I have a recording of Under Milk Wood, oh the magnificent voice of Richard Burton and all the Welshness of Burton and Dylan Thomas in that recording, and a recording of Dylan Thomas saying his own poems. The energy of the man is astounding. No one, not the greatest actor could match his delivery of the poem for his father 'Do not go gentle into that good night'.
John Huston made a film of 'The Dead' and managed to convey the atmosphere of the time; the Christmas Party was particularly well done, and that magnificent coda was extremely moving in a 'voice off'.
And I shall never tire of Molly's monologue in Ulysses.
Two great Celtish writers.

[Julie]

I'm coming late to Joyce. Having just read Dubliners a few months ago, I'm about to start A Portrait... (Then onto Ulysses...and then maybe one day...)

I think you need the last two paragraphs of "The Dead"--it's one of those things I'll end up doing, rereading the story but savoring the last two paragraphs out loud over and over again. It was actually rereading "The Dead" that turned it into something seriously life changing...that I'm somehow better for having read it.

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, one the treeless hills, falling softly upno the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, to, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickling drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

It's one of those instances when you almost completely inhabit a character; you can see Gabriel's (individual) humanity humbled, his awe in the face of all of humanity, and then how all of us both living and dead are brought together under the image of the snow falling (note the poetic repetition of the word "falling" and all that alliteration (e.g., crooked crosses, soul swooned slowly) in the last paragraph). But what's important is that for as wonderful as the ending is, it would not have the same impact without the rest of the story in which you see Gabriel's self-consciousness, his arrogance, his desire, then his embarrassment, and finally the sort of ineffable understanding that he comes to have at the very end--something of the order of the world?

Though thankfully, Joyce found it very effable

And as for the legendary, almost mythological figures of literature thing (and take this for what it's worth... I'm usually characterized as a generous reader)... I get ridiculously excited, and most of the time I wish I had come upon them sooner, because in that writing is some part of humanity that is waiting to be revealed. It'll be some part of you that is less lonely because you find that at least someone at some point was able to articulate something you suddenly feel like you've always felt or known. That's (part of) what great literature is. I approach these godlike figures as if they are mentors with infinite patience (the pleasure of rereading) and they end up being my soulmates.

[Jan Mbali]

Julie expresses,superbly, what I have felt and not quite thought. Thanks.

[Daniel del Real]

Originally Posted by Julie

It's one of those instances when you almost completely inhabit a character; you can see Gabriel's (individual) humanity humbled, his awe in the face of all of humanity, and then how all of us both living and dead are brought together under the image of the snow falling (note the poetic repetition of the word "falling" and all that alliteration (e.g., crooked crosses, soul swooned slowly) in the last paragraph). But what's important is that for as wonderful as the ending is, it would not have the same impact without the rest of the story in which you see Gabriel's self-consciousness, his arrogance, his desire, then his embarrassment, and finally the sort of ineffable understanding that he comes to have at the very end--something of the order of the world?

I read Dubliners while ago in a Spanish translation and didn't excite me that much. Now I see why. I have to read it in English, Bingo!

[K., the land surveyor]

I've read it a month ago or so, Penguin Popular Classics edition, the one printed on soft recycled paper, with a greenish sleeve. I was particularly curious to give it a go, having read some analysis of the work for my fifth year exam; the concepts of paralysis and failed escape have always interested me, and plus I just couldn't resist those grey pages of recycled paper, mellow to the touch. eheh.

Anyway, I think your previous posts have already given quite a good smattering of the main features of the book. Being confined in a small humdrum town, I totally appreciated the representation of a bleak, inertiatic Dublin, where the protagonists waste themselves in vicious circles of ennui and foolish ambitions, feeding desires and longings which they are too weak-willed to achieve. Joyce provides his paralysed crowd of inepts, like sleepwalkers who are not able to wake up from the lame perspective of their Dublin-bound half-sleep.

The short stories that impressed me most were:

An encounter - the old man the two children meet on the beach is simply disturbing, with his raving speeches about physical punishments, his disquieting attitude towards the young protagonist and his implied masturbation (and in this case Joyce also illustrates a perfect example of the art of depicting a gross and insane action by means of simply vaguely suggesting it is happening). He somehow reminds me of serial killer Albert Fish. Creepy.

Counterparts - I was almost developing an affection towards the protagonist, when in the last pages he vented his frustration on his poor child.

"The boy uttered a squeal of pain as the stick cut his thigh. He clasped his hands together in the air and his voice shook with fright.
<<O, pa!>> he cried. <<Don't beat me, pa! And I'll... I'll say a Hail Mary for you... I'll say a Hail Mary for you, pa, if you don't beat me... I'll say a Hail Mary...>>"

Appalling. I could almost hear the stripling's feeble voice desperately pronouncing these last words. I simply love Joyce's way of describing scenes of domestic squalor and violence.

A Mother - the portrait of the neurotic mother madly struggling for her daughter's career (and maybe with not exactly positive reasons for doing it) is oustanding.

The Dead - as Sybarite has already written, it sums up all of the elements of the book. The dinner, the shallow talks and contacts between the characters, Gabriel's uncertainty and ambivalent speech, and the climax of his musings in the end, are all depicted with the brilliance of a Genius. I was also quite impressed by Miss Ivor's portrait (the Irish nationalist), I think it was perfect in the way of highlighting the mentality of a fanatic in its "quiet" extent.

read it myself for the first time a few months ago, was impressive. Will have to read more later.......

[Jan Mbali]

Just reread "Two Gallants". Not the greatest story in the collection, but very revealing of the life and times of Joyce and Ireland. Wonderful capturing of character in a short line and the interaction between the two men. But there is the somewhat unsubtle trick of leading on the reader to think the scoundrels are after a domestic worker's virtue when they are really after a bit of her hard earned cash. However, it does expose in a flash what is revealed in the story using other much more nuanced techniques: an entire threadbare subculture of skint middle class wastrels that Joyse obviously detested and yet still saw humanity in. Undercurrents include sexual predation and oppression pointing to a "lost generation"; and the most powerful theme of all, the loss suffered and damge done to what we should value in emotion and intellect and ethics.