Just finished The Dubliners by James Joyce. I hadn’t read any of his works. This is a good start for anyone thinking of reading real literature. It’s astonishing to think he was 22 years old when he’d completed these stories. But I guess true genius shows up early. I see why he is so revered. I would like to learn the art of short story writing and Joyce is the master.
This book is a series of vignettes, snapshots or sketches. Just the ticket for those who want a brief read before turning out the light, perhaps. But all the stories have a streak of sadness and harsh reality of those years before World War I, so your dreams may not be so sweet. There are fifteen stories but I will refer to just three.
I loved THE BOARDING HOUSE. This covers the life of the boarding house owner, Mrs. Mooney and her daughter Polly. Polly starts a dalliance with one of the boarders—thirty-five-year-old, Mr. Doran—a man with a fairly good job—a decent catch. Madam will deal with matters of emotion ‘like a cleaver to meat’, as Joyce delicately puts it, especially where her daughter’s honor is at stake. No man would be allowed to abuse her hospitality and get away with it under her own roof. Like Polly, now sullied, Mr. Doran stands to lose everything.
ARABY is one of my favorites and tells the story of a boy who falls for the girl across the street, the sister of a friend. He is obsessed with her and she fills his thoughts for every moment, at school, at home. He sits by the parlor window staring at her door across the street. Love is painful. This story is relevant to all of us at that age as boys and girls who become smitten. Puppy love. Eventually the girl speaks to him under the lamp light. He notices every detail about her. Joyce describes the light on her body and her petticoat. She tells him she would love to go the Araby market on Saturday, but she has to go to a church meeting. Thrilled, the boy tells her he is going and will bring her something back. He now has a mission and a reason to get closer to her. He counts the hours until he can go after getting permission from his aunt and promise of money from his uncle. Frustratingly, his uncle comes home late that Saturday evening and has forgotten about his promise. His aunt persuades him to give him the money and let him go. Joyce describes the lonely train journey to the bazaar. He’s been given a florin (two shillings—about twenty-five cents in today’s money) and spends most of it on the train fare and a shilling to get in. Once inside, most of the stalls are now closed. Deflated, he stares at a stall with jars and things and the girl who he’d heard talking with two men asks him if he wants to buy something. He tells her ‘no’. Most of his money is gone now. He notices the accents of the girl and two men are English. Why? It just is. And it makes it all the more real. He storms out feeling angry with himself for what he realizes is a fool’s errand, for his stupidity and pride—one of those coming-of-age moments in a young man’s life.
Joyce makes the complex look simple. He does not explain anything and leaves somethings as a mystery. Why does he mention that they live in a house where a priest had died? Why does the boy live with his uncle and aunt? Where are his mother and father? We must presume they are dead. That is how things are in the boy’s life. And that’s how the best writing is. Things left unexplained.
These are stories like beautifully prepared simple meals. Every bite, every word, delicious. Of course, simple meals aren’t always so simple. Often preparation is complex, resulting in exquisite, memorable taste.
THE DEAD is reckoned to be one of Joyce’s masterpieces and John Huston filmed it beautifully and showed his own genius. The main character, Gabriel, takes his wife to a Christmas celebration at the house of his two aunts with many in attendance. Later that night, he takes his wife home by carriage in the snow and all the while he is feels his love for her, as he’d done all evening, and looks forward to making love to her at their hotel room. Once there, and after chatting with her, he realizes she is distraught. He learns of a previous love she had had for a boy she’d known when she was young and who had died, or willed himself to die when she left to live in another town. Gabriel’s own sadness and crushed spirit are evident as, with tears in his eyes, he looks out into the gently falling snow that must be falling on his wife’s sweetheart’s grave and across all of Ireland. The last paragraphs are said to be some of the greatest writing in English literature. John Huston’s excellent film maybe viewed on Youtube.
On looking back over The Dubliners, I have to ask myself: are these stories and Joyce’s writing so impactful that they could change how you think? Yes, I think so. I’ll read them again and again. The more one delves, the more one sees. It’s not really so much about the dreary lives of people Joyce writes about, but about the writing itself that conjures up emotional experience.
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Reviewed in the Netherlands on June 6, 2024
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Reviewed in the Netherlands on June 6, 2024
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