May/Joyce Book: 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'

[Scheherazade]

In May, we will be reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce, who once said:

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins commited in previous lives.

Please post your thoughts and questions on the book in this thread.

Online Copy


Book Club Procedures

[WaxDoll]

Yah, my first book club thingymajig ever! I’ll start first thing… tomorrow Tonight is dedicated to the all-new episodes of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy (that hasn’t happened in a while)

[genoveva]

Even though I voted for Finnegan's, I'm glad this one won the vote. It's shorter, I have it, and after reading some excerpts from Finnegan's I got quite intimidated, and figured I'd need way more than a month to read it.

[chmpman]

I picked my copy up from my school library today. I won't be able to get a serious start on it until after Wed.; I'm in the middle of finals week at university. I'm looking forward to it though, the copy I got includes several critical essays on the novel.

[WaxDoll]

I've the read the first part of chapter one, and I thoroughly confused. Just to get this straight, Dante is a family friend (???) who owns a printing press. Are Michael Davitt and Parnell politicians? Dante doesn’t like Parnell, right? Is Stephan in college, or does that mean something else, cause I know it means middle school in French… but I’m just unsure LOL… sorry I’m enjoying the books so far, though

Edit: Ignore this. I should have finished reading chapter one, first I get it now

[Scheherazade]

I've the read the first part of chapter one, and I thoroughly confused. Just to get this straight, Dante is a family friend (???) who owns a printing press. Are Michael Davitt and Parnell politicians? Dante doesn’t like Parnell, right? Is Stephan in college, or does that mean something else, cause I know it means middle school in French… but I’m just unsure LOL… sorry I’m enjoying the books so far, though

Clongowes Wood College is not a college in today's sense but a boarding school for children. Joyce himself attended the same school when he was young.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jjoyce.htm

[WaxDoll]

Clongowes Wood College is not a college in today's sense but a boarding school for children. Joyce himself attended the same school when he was young.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jjoyce.htm

Thanks for the explanation, Scheherazade!

[ShoutGrace]

I've the read the first part of chapter one, and I thoroughly confused. Just to get this straight, Dante is a family friend (???) who owns a printing press. Are Michael Davitt and Parnell politicians? Dante doesn’t like Parnell, right?

Dante is actually a woman? Joyce's naming choices throughout the book are very important, I hear. His own name, Stephen Dedalus, is a combination of both the first Christian martyr and a pagan myth hero. Female characters also get interesting treatment.

You're right about Davitt and Parnell. Parnell was a true Irish hero, but was successfully slandered and dethroned after it was revealed that he had an adulterous affair earlier in his career, resulting in a child. Dante takes the side of the priests who are attacking him. I think.

"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets." - Stephen

[WaxDoll]

Dante is actually a woman? Joyce's naming choices throughout the book are very important, I hear. His own name, Stephen Dedalus, is a combination of both the first Christian martyr and a pagan myth hero. Female characters also get interesting treatment.

You're right about Davitt and Parnell. Parnell was a true Irish hero, but was successfully slandered and dethroned after it was revealed that he had an adulterous affair earlier in his career, resulting in a child. Dante takes the side of the priests who are attacking him. I think.

"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets." - Stephen

Thanks for clarifying ShoutGrace

Did anyone else find it odd that Stephan dreams of falling in love with "Mercedes," and yet he dreams of refusing her, too.

"...towards the close of which there appeared an image of himself, grown older and sadder, standing in a moonlit garden with Mercedes who had so many years before slighted his love, and with a sadly proud gesture of refusal, saying:

-- Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes."

It makes you wonder about what Stephan sees love as. Maybe a way to dominate, or to prove superior? I dunno… just my ramblings

[chmpman]

Dante is actually a woman? Joyce's naming choices throughout the book are very important, I hear. His own name, Stephen Dedalus, is a combination of both the first Christian martyr and a pagan myth hero. Female characters also get interesting treatment.

The schoolmates are largely real attendees of Joyce's school, I believe, with their names mainly preserved by the author. Uncle Charles and Dante actually were two live-ins of the Joyce family in his childhood, although the uncle was named William O'Connell and the "aunt" Hearn Conway.

I haven't gotten very far, so I'm going to go read.

[Scheherazade]

It makes you wonder about what Stephan sees love as. Maybe a way to dominate, or to prove superior? I dunno… just my ramblings

I think Stephen sees love only as a romantic endeavour; something he yearns for but his religious upbringing and romantic nature do not let him enjoy it either so as much as he wants to be in love and daydreams about it, he puts it a stop by adding the refusal scene as well.

[Nightshade]

I ve started it (under sufferance as it were) and can I just say----- moocow???!!!

[Virgil]

Some of the motifs and my impressions of the first chapter:

(1) Questions. The little Stephan is frequently asking questions; attempting to understand the world.

(2) Religion: Jesuit learning, sin (sexual learning)

(3) Family: Father especially as influencial person

(4) Irish Politics especially in the way it defines people

(5) Language: Stephan is learning meanings and sounds of words.

(6) School friends: Stephan seems to be the outsider mostly.

[Nightshade]

I just read ( is that how its spelt IM having a bad day??) the first chapter I think it bares reading a second time at least. But first off its very touchy-feelly discriptions and there were a few bits where I thought yes a child thinks exactly lie that but what I want to know is how much of the story is autobiographical Becaus e the notes at the end of the book seem to cover alsorts of minior things like the grave stones. And then there is that politians death and how exact that pins the date down by.

[Virgil]

I think quite a bit is autobiographiocal. I will say, even though I've read this before, I'm finding it boring. What exactly is so special about Stephan?