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.
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.
