Dubliners
James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation in Ireland'. Joyce's aim was to tell the truth -- to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century. By rejecting euphemism, he would reveal to the Irish the unromantic reality, the recognition of which would lead to the spiritual liberation of the country. Each of the fifteen stories offers a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Dubliners -- a death, an encounter, an opportunity not taken, a memory rekindled -- and collectively they paint a portrait of a nation. - Back cover. Dubliners is a collection of vignettes of Dublin life at the end of the 19th Century written, by Joyce’s own admission, in a manner that captures some of the unhappiest moments of life. Some of the dominant themes include lost innocence, missed opportunities and an inability to escape one’s circumstances. Joyce’s intention in writing Dubliners, in his own words, was to write a chapter of the moral history of his country, and he chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to him to be the centre of paralysis.
Stats for nerds
32recommend
57mentions
49people
2007–2026years
67% recommend32% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- For anyone who is curious about Joyce but doesn't want to take on Ulysses, I would recommend his Dubliners collection of short stories, which is much more accessible and still a really good read. I would love to tackle Ulysses, preferably with a good companion piece.
- I would strongly recommend anyone who has a second-hand impression of Joyce based on articles like this just go and read Dubliners. Seriously. It’s an amazing set of short stories that are wonderfully-written, at times funny, moving, sad, haunting etc. It’s just incredible. It’s not a hard read at all and will enrich your life. I recommend it to basically everyone and several people have talked to me years later about stories in it. It’s fantastic.
Then maybe read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. A really great semi-autobiographical work.
At that point you’ve probably made your mind up one way or the other about whether you like Joyce, so then if you feel like it, go read Ulysses and/or Finnegan’s Wake if you want to. But don’t do it because you think it will impress anyone or anything like that. Just read it if you want to. Before you read Ulysses, I would personally recommend reading a good modern version of Homer[1] because that’s just a great experience anyway and plenty of people don’t know the original story and so don’t understand the relevance of the title and are kind of lost before they even get started.
[1] eg I’ve heard very good things about the Mendelsohn translation https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo243090... . I heard some excerpts from Seamus Heaney’s version read out and they were amazing and lyrical as you might expect but probably more “poetic” than most people might care for if they’re not already Heaney fans. I read an older translation but I can’t dig it out right now.
- As far as Joyce goes, I haven't read Ulysses. Dubliners, however was very approachable and enjoyable. It's is a collection of descriptive short stories of people in turn of the century Ireland. The final story, "The Dead" is haunting.
- Dubliners is a great little book. Probably the most approachable Joyce? He’s just playing with sounds and rhythms and images. The characters are interesting too but what I got from it was a lot of experimental and playful descriptions.
- It's harder (but more rewarding) reading certain books the umpteenth time because they are so complex or require other reading to fully grasp and appreciate. For me some examples were
J. Joyce Dubliners
Dante's Divine Comedy
several others.
The hard work makes the journey meaningful (for me) and I'm absolutely bored ticking check boxes just to brag about having speed read through 60 classics in a year.
- It's like abstract art in book form, or trying to interpret a dream that someone else is telling you about. There are glosses of the book out there that give more context to the words and references. Having one of those can fill you in, but it's still going to be a slog.
Maybe I'm unkind, but I've never been a fan of the Wake. It's always seemed to me to be the sort of thing academics in English literature departments and lovers of abstract art really go for, but few other people can appreciate. (Nothing against literature academics or abstract artists -- it's just that their tastes are informed by things that don't inform most people's!)
If you want to appreciate Joyce as a more approachable author, 'Dubliners' is a great collection of short stories and not experimental.
