Beautifully written, the words have texture, and I like the way Joyce conveys mood and expression. But just as you're building to the climax of the story... just when you are brimming over with eager anticipation... "It's morning. The end."

I'm sure I'm unenlightened and therefore missing the point here. But I call it like I see it! I liked the style enough to give Portraits a go though.


Dubliners   December 12, 2003
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

Joyce’s book depicts episodes of middle-class Catholic life in Dublin at the beginning of last century; “Dubliners” was first published in 1914. The topics related in the opening stories range from the disappointments of childhood, the frustrations of adolescence and the importance of sexual awakening. Joyce was 25 when he wrote this miscellaneous collection of short stories, among which “The Dead” is probably the most famous. Considered at the time as a literary experiment, they are refreshingly original and astonishing ant the beginning of this century as they were at the beginning of last century!


An Absolute Masterpiece   June 25, 2003
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

'Dubliners' begins the work that was later to become 'Ulysses'. Although 'Dubliners' does not include the odyssey through language contained in the latter book (making it both more accessible and less groundbreaking), it is nevertheless a remarkable work. 'Dubliners' is a collection of short stories featuring single events over a few hours in the lives of inhabitants of the title city. Short story writing has traditionally involved sinuous twists or startling contrivances which create the feeling of a completed story, or in which the reader is invited to be thrown or amazed in the last few paragraphs (such as writers like Philip K. Dick or Borges). Joyce eschews this style. Instead his stories are snapshots in the Dubliner's lives, featuring relatively mundane events (a failed trip to the market, an afternoon skipping school) in which nothing remarkable happens. There is very little narrative here, and this may not appeal to readers that like a strong story.
Joyce described each story as an 'epiphany', an event in which a character within the story (and hopefully the reader also) is invited to re-examine the familiar, and re-assess their relationships with the events that make up their lives. Joyce is trying to show that the day that changes your life may not be any different than the one that precedes it, or the ones that may follow, and that the life-changing event may just be an alteration in the way you perceive something that you have encountered a hundred times before. Each story is impressive in its construction, and for most of them I was left amazed by the power of their impact when compared to the banality of their content. Joyce manages to observe human behaviour brilliantly and can seem to extract every drop out of each comment, each gesture. Each is short (with the exception of 'The Dead') and I read this book very quickly (unlike 'Ulysses').
'Dubliners' is a sort of abridged 'Ulysses' and fans of the latter, or anyone looking for a way in to the latter, should definitely read 'Dubliners', likewise anyone who is a fan of this sort of 'epiphanic' short story writing (Camus' 'Exile and the Kingdom' is the closest thing I have read to date). However the lack of a strong narrative and the occasional lapse into (for me) impenetrable archaic Irish jargon, means that this book probably isn't for everyone. As far as I am concerned, it is the archetype of its genre, and an incredible book to have read.


Now Listen to the Book on Tape   April 21, 2001
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I have read this book dozens of times and i cannot add to what has already been said by other readers, However, someone once asked Joyce why his books were so hard to understand, he replied that if you read them out loud in a Dublin accent they would become clear. The penguin edition of Dubliners read by Gerald McSorley perfectly illustrates Joyce's point. I defy anyone to listen to the story 'A Painful Case' and not have a tear in their eye by the end of it.


Honest and moving   April 2, 2001
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Joyce's collection of short stories is one of those books that everyone really should try to read. Even after having to thoroughly analyse the book as an A level text, it is a book that i have no doubt i shall read again and again.

Joyce's accounts of Dublin's overwhelming paralysis upon it's people from all walks of life rings true of many cities today, and even suggets that he himself is a victim of this excruciating paralysis.

I could not recommend any single story within the book, but do look out for astonishingly written epiphanies in 'A little Cloud' and 'The Dead'.

A work that should not be ignored.