challenging but worth it

books:


	• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) James Joyce Penguin Classics, 2003 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 236 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

good intro to joyce

"marooned"--an utterly wrenching and boundlessly suggestive term to describe the situation of the young artist.

Up For A Challenge ?

Joyce lives up to his reputation for being a brilliant yet exceedingly difficult author. In Portrait he gave us a semi-biographical subjective peek into the development of his own thought through the creation of his alter-ego Stephen Dedalus.
Short on plot but full of incredibly beautiful phrasing that makes the reader stop and read certain passages a second or even third time to make sure it's fully absorbed, Portrait follows the intellectual, spiritual and social development of young Stephen as he manuevers through family, church, school and friends relying entirely on his own point of view at the time.
The most intense section of the novel deals with his spiritual struggle and personally, I've never read a more gripping description of a young soul grappling with these questions.
Joyce evolves the style of writing to reflect the subjects growing maturity and the choice of language and the pacing at the end of the book are markedly different from at the beginning.
All in all a bit of a tough read but I felt rewarded in the end and am feeling ready to tackle Ulyses next.

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challenging but worth it

As many do, I read this in preparation for tackling Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus makes a return appearance. This has been called Joyce's most accessible work, however I found Dubliners faster paced reading personally.

The style of the book changes as the title character matures from a young child to a young man. The part that affected me most was the episode at school where, after he has fallen to immoral ways, a speech is given on Hell that is as riveting and detailed as Dante's Inferno. The fiery pits are described as an abomination across all the senses, where not just pain from sensory touch is there but in smell, sight, taste, hearing - and quite effectively described.

Stephen's subsequent change after confession and struggle to achieve harmony with God is inspiring even given the eventual outcome of that attempt.

The latter part of the book bogs down considerably as it falls into philosophical debates on questions that many a young (and old) person ponders. The ending is hopeful but uncertain.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, providing an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive, this coming-of-age story is a tour de force of style and technique.

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