It's the first time I've read a short story collection, period, as well as my first Joyce reading, so for the first few stories I was floundering since the plot seemingly goes nowhere (The Sisters is most egregious for this), but eventually I found myself a groove and began taking them as they come, being slice-of-life vignettes that don't necessarily have to develop toward some narrative climax, or at least whatever climax they eventually crest over is very subtle. I have to admit that without having looked up annotations, I wouldn't see myself exactly "getting" their message or broader themes, if there's any; but I did feel a vague yet poignant aftertaste of weariness and malaise after reading each story. James Joyce's Dublin feels like a very cyclical city, where everything goes round and round down a bottomless drain with no real way out.What brought me to making this post is me having finally read The Dead. I'm feeling really conflicted. I admit that I went in with too high expectations, only to be met with 20+ pages of descriptions of a homey Christmas party rife with comedy of manners that really should have belonged to a Jane Austen novel. The last few pages made up for it though, but I still feel like I'm just not mature enough to fully get what that last scene is trying to communicate to me, to feel whatever strong emotions that other readers have gotten. I pity both Gabriel and Gretta, am glad that Gabriel is mature enough to see through his impetuous jealousy and genuinely empathize with his wife, and I believe that by the end, he's made peace with his lesser position in comparison to his wife's childhood love in her heart. In comparison to the other stories in the collection, I think that this one has the most optimistic ending out of all. This could have gone as bad as Counterparts. But I don't know, the strongest impression I have right now is just a vague, disquieting moodiness, like there's still something that's left unfinished. I haven't had my first love yet. I haven't read many books. I haven't experienced much, really. This is just my first time reading through these stories. I'm feeling both pity for myself for having missed so many experiences to not grasp still the ability to empathize with an apparently universally appealing work, and also rather excited for the future, when I eventually reread these stories and compare and contrast them with my new experiences, good or bad.
>>25290823>I admit that I went in with too high expectations, only to be met with 20+ pages of descriptions of a homey Christmas partyThose pages are the high point of the entire collection. Portraying the bustle of life is what Joyce is all about. Anyway, it gladdens me to see someone actually reading (and thinking) on this board, and doubly so when the reading is Joyce.
>>25290823Literary fiction is about character driven narratives over plot. It feels fragmented because Joyce is one of the greatest modernist writers of all time.You didn't read it wrong. That stream of consciousness experience is the point. And if it left you feeling sad then the author did his job.
>>25290823>James Joyce's Dublin feels like a very cyclical city, where everything goes round and round down a bottomless drain with no real way out.sounds like you engaged with it just fine
>>25290823Yeah, that's what I thought about it as well. I was never bothered by the lack of plot, since Joyce is a beautiful writer and his talent is in making the mundane feel sublime. The bitterness is also something I felt deeply reading the thing, I think your reading of Dubliners is a fine one and I'm happy you enjoyed it.
>>25291849I should also add, but I like the idea of rereading it as you age. There is a cohesion of the stories featuring older characters, kind of akin to a man's life, and I experienced something like Araby's as a teenager, which is why it's my favourite story. Now I'm in my After the Race phase of my life, and I think that's one of the best parts in how universal the stories are and how anyone can see themselves in them.
>>25291793I'm kinda awestruck by it. Whenever I do try to write something, I'm always struck by this persistent, inescapable urge to connect my writings to a theme or a broader narrative. To be able to so accurately depict urban life as Joyce did, which, for most of the time, is very mundane and aimless, is definitely an achievement. I feel like I should read The Dead a second time to come to appreciate those first 20+ pages though. I just got lost in the "bustle of life" during my first read and only really gained my footing when I reached Gabriel's speech.>>25291856Joyce said it himself that Dublin contains all of the world's cities, or something along those lines. It's rather funny and inspiring that we can relate this much to an Irishman living in the 1900s. I've also been reading the Odyssey alongside (to prep for Ulysses) and it also strikes me how, in that downright ancient work, there are aspects that can seem especially modern (PTSD, treatment of war veterans, the role of family and women in war, etc). This timeless quality is what makes classics classics, in my opinion.
>>25290823I'm currently reading Dubliners. Just finished Clay. They're alright. Sometimes it ends and I am left wondering what the deal was but overall decent vignettes into random people's lives
>>25290823Why do Americans say “period”?
>>25290823>But I don't know, the strongest impression I have right now is just a vague, disquieting moodiness, like there's still something that's left unfinished.considering that one of the first images in the entire collection is a lone candle in the bare window of a dead priest, this makes sense
Skip Portrait and Ulysses, dive straight into the Wake
>>25291811Yeah that stream-of-consciousness sure is cool, feels like before that that the novel is often committed to a sort of realism with an omniscient narrative, although there are a few difference from this like the comic epics of fielding, in the 1700s, and with joyce too almost there also i sense that joyce is cracking the mold for story and narrative by enlarging that but at the same time almost demanding that a larger mold be made and that in the meantime are just going to have deal with the artistry of joyce writing novels
