Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, all of which are set in, you've guessed it, Dublin. The book was published in 1914 and is available in the Penguin Popular Classics range - you should be able to pick it up for £1.
My previous forays into Penguin Popular Classics ... Read review
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, all of which are set in, you've guessed it, Dublin. The book was published in 1914 and is available in the Penguin Popular Classics range - you should be able to pick it up for £1.
My previous forays into Penguin Popular Classics have had mixed results - Treasure Island was very good, Robinson Crusoe was dire. Happily, Dubliners joins the very good category.
... ...
To sum up, Dubliners is the sort of book that would benefit greatly from repeated reading - I am sure that when I read it again I will pick up on nuances and deeper meanings in the text that I missed before. Each story is cleverly written and entwines you in the lives of the characters with amazing speed. As the cover notes of the book say, "the stories are as refreshingly original and astonishing today as when they were first published ... more
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, all of which are set in, you've guessed it, Dublin. The book was published in 1914 and is available in the Penguin Popular Classics range - you should be able to pick it up for £1.
My previous forays into Penguin Popular Classics have had mixed results - Treasure Island was very good, Robinson Crusoe was dire. Happily, Dubliners joins the very good category.
Joyce was only 25 when he completed Dubliners, which if I think about it too much makes me feel very inadequate. When reading the book you can certainly detect the genius present in such a young man.
It is difficult to generalise about the 15 stories - as I said before, they are all set in Dublin, and most have some sort of undercurrent of sadness that becomes evident by the end of the tale. Most of the early stories are only 10 pages in length, so will probably only take around 10 minutes to read.
Joyce has the ability to tell a tale without resorting to waffle, and to get you emotionally involved with the people you are reading about within the space of a couple of pages. One of the early tales, "Eveline", is only 7 pages long, and tells the story of a young woman who decides at the last minute not to go to sea with her lover. Joyce's skill is to convey brilliantly how sad Eveline feels at being separated from her partner, and all within the space of just a few hundred words.
Another story, "A Little Cloud", features a man from Dublin meeting up with a successful businessman from London, a friend who he has not seen for a few years. Even though the story is set nearly 100 years ago I found it was easy to relate to the inadequacies the main character feels as he meets his more successful counterpart.
Throughout the stories Joyce shows a great passion for the city in which he was born, but he also examines the dark side of the city and the general pressures of urban life. The book is not wholly gloomy, and there are scenes of jokes and laughter - Joyce definitely had a keen eye for the absurd.
"Grace" is one of the lighter stories, where a group of men try to get a friend of theirs off the booze by converting him to religion. "Counterparts" tells the story of a man who has a bad day at work and gets hammered to make him feel better, but only ends up feeling worse (can definitely relate to that one!).
The final story is the most famous of the collection - "The Dead". It is about 60 pages long and centres around a gathering of family and friends for an evening of music, song and dance. As with most of the other tales, you can detect that the superficial happiness of the characters is hiding a deeper unease. Without giving the story away, "The Dead" looks at how different people cope with life and death, and ends with a paragraph about snow falling that is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
To sum up, Dubliners is the sort of book that would benefit greatly from repeated reading - I am sure that when I read it again I will pick up on nuances and deeper meanings in the text that I missed before. Each story is cleverly written and entwines you in the lives of the characters with amazing speed. As the cover notes of the book say, "the stories are as refreshingly original and astonishing today as when they were first published in 1914".
Advantages: Being Irish, I can assure you that this is an accurate and well written depiction of Dublin at the time. Disadvantages: The Short story form prevents a great build of characters, but instead gives short extracts of their lives
...a few stories in the Dubliners in which Joyce puts the newly developed middle class under his ‘looking glass’, and shows up their many flaws with the ‘scrupulous meanness’ he shows his other characters. Through Jimmy Doyle, the young adventurous protagonist, who lives ‘in excess’ but kindles little ambition or talent, we are reminded of the bias of social pretensions and the superficiality of society at the time. ... ...the ‘paralysis’ in which many Dubliners were monotonously bound, and ‘the Continent’ that parades its ‘wealth and industry’. The disparity between the immobility of the onlookers and the prosperous forward motion of the continentals not only acts as a reminder of the dire poverty of many of the Dubliners, it also reminds us of the economical depression that Ireland suffered from at the time. Even at such an early ...
sinead135 02.12.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dubliners - James Joyce
Advantages: Good reading Disadvantages: Using references a fair bit.
Dubliners is a collection of short stories by James Joyce, 15 in all, written about the people and places in Dublin.(Oddly enough)
James Joyce (1882-1941) was born in Dublin to a middle class catholic family, whose social and economic status declined during Joyce's youth and adolescence.
"Dubliners" Joyce himself remarked, was meant to reveal the paralysis at the heart of Irish society. Each of the 15 stories deals with a different aspect of Dublin ... ...a Wordsworth classics version of Dubliners and afforded myself a first James Joyce reading experience. Wordsworth Classics have a web presence at www.wordsworth-editions.com. This book, new or possibly second hand, can be bought from www.Amazon.co.uk At Amazon last time I looked in there were 46 used and new versions. Your local book shop may have a cheap copy also.
The book, complete and unabridged contains an introduction which you are advised ...
parker-munn 05.03.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dubliners - James Joyce
Advantages: How can I justify Joyce in an advantages and disadvantages section? Disadvantages: Don't be silly - its James Joyce
I may be a bit biased because I am a Joyce fanatic. However, this collection of short stories is definitely worth a look. At the time Joyce wrote Dubliners, the short story was the fictional medium to use. Strangely though, although the stories can be read in isolation, some of the richest meanings are gained when the stories are seen as a collection that is both unified and divided. Joyce's early work is seemingly more 'accessible' to the casual ... ...meaness' is seemingly not one of literary 'richness'. However, in reality the richness is all there to be had; its just that the reader needs to extract it. If the stories are read in conjunction then more parallels, 'themes' (although I hate that idea), symbols and ideas become progressively more apparent. However, this is not to say that reading the stories cannot be rewarding first time round. The style is poignant, at times shocking and always ...
lizzie_haycocks 23.02.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dubliners - James Joyce
Advantages: cleverly written, excellent portrayal of Dublin, Disadvantages: a little bleak
...banging heads on walls, but Dubliners is quite accessible, even if, at points, quite difficult. Funnily enough, the first story is the hardest to understand, which maybe Joyce does purposely? I think so, the more you read of his, the more it dawns on you that Joyce doesn't like rules. Any rules at all. And that includes with writing... expect to find sentences beginning with subjects, nouns, adjectives, compounds, or in fact anything he wants. Some ... ...Dubliners is a book containg fifteen short (but bleak!) stories about life in, and experiences of, Dublin, and are all focused on the themes of death and disease, which, though at first disheartening, The first four stories are focussed on the themes of childhood:
~The Sisters~
A story about a father dying. Immediately the book begins with a death, but through the eyes of a young boy. The sisters, as the title of the short story, are conversing ...
steffee 27.09.2001 (21.04.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dubliners - James Joyce
Advantages: Interesting, thoughtprovoking, a master at work. Disadvantages: Difficult to get into, needs accompanying notes.
The first time that you read it, you'll probably wonder what was the point. The second time, you'll see his genius. Joyce writes in a way that I had never encountered before I picked up this book. His style is naturalistic, which is difficult to get used to at first, but it basically mean that he is able to weave ambiguity into the stories which makes them much more rewarding. Joyce is clearly in love with his home city and he describes it as almost ... ...this book, get one with good annotation if you can because there are a lot of colloquial phrases that will probably seem confusing as first. However, understanding these words is much like understading the book itself, if you persevere you will be handsomely rewarded. This is not an easy book, but it is something that you need to read for yourself and something that I am sure will enrich your life as it enriched mine. ...
Garfinkel 21.04.2001
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Advantages: Regularly updated (updates on web also), very informative Disadvantages:
I've used a number of different guide books and I have found that the Lonely Planet series is the best by far. They are packed with information on things to see and do, where to stay and eat presented in a logical fashion and written in a coherent, friendly, unbiased style. They also have a lot of 'additional' information on specific topics that are particularly interesting, for example Muay Thai boxing in Thailand or JamesJoyce's Dublin. It's no wonder that in some parts of the world you feel naked without your well-thumbed Lonely Planet 'bible' by your side. Also, I love the cover photography. Check out Lonely Planet's excellent website as well. ...
Product Information for "Dubliners - James Joyce" »
Product details
Type
Fiction
Genre
Classics
Title
Dubliners
Author
James Joyce
ISBN
0140622179; 0586044760
Manufacturer's product description
From the author of PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, FINNEGAN'S WAKE and ULYSSES, a modern classic which highlights the incidents in the lives of ordinary men and women. Part of the VINTAGE CLASSICS series.
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