No Subject

[Unregistered]

You're an author yet you don't know how to spell and use words that don't exist. It leaves me "trepacacious" to see what an idiot you are.<br>Joyce was a genius. It doesn't surprise me at all that he was incomprehensible to you. God, seeing comments like this makes me want to frickin' kill myself. What the hell is wrong with people today?<br>Are you for real? I mean, Jesus, you write like a seventh grader.

[Unregistered]

Great reply!!! this man claims he's a writer... that's the funniest thing i've ever read!!!

[Unregistered]

seems to me, that reply doesn't really do much to attack the fact that this book is boring. i am a high school senior being rushed through this book in time to write an IB paper on it for my advanced diploma. if people on this board are saying that "Portrait" is hard at a master's level, i am amazed that i am expected to pick it up. i was not impressed with joyce's style... but hey, i was let down after "araby" as well, and my teacher built that story up for days. i was not struck with profound messages, or amazing themes. and get this: i have to write an essay paralleling (that looks wrong...someone please, attack my spelling since you might not have anything else intelligent to reply with...) the stephen d. story with the story of icarus and daedalus using imagery, diction, syntax, and other literary elements. boooooring. maybe i should do my essay in semi-stream of consciousness and let the teacher know what i think. :)

[HPF]

Dear Philistine,<br>I am shocked you have the temerity to label yourself an author whilst not having even a rudimentary grasp of the English language.<br>James Joyce was not only a master of the English language, he had such profound genius that he broke new ground in the technique of writing and introduced new words into the language. Are you trying to emulate him by your use of the non-word "trepedacious"? Can't you appreciate that this is a forum for literature and when a complete non-entity like you uses broken English to criticize one of the most gifted writers who ever put pen to paper you not only show yourself up to be a cretin, you make the rest of us cringe?<br>I am gob-smacked to hear you are attaining or have attained a Masters degree. This reflects poorly on the educational establishment you studied at. I would have hoped chaff like you would have been weeded out from the grain of academe at an earlier stage.<br>Portrait is a difficult book, no doubt. In Ireland, we study it as early as high-school level, as we do with some of Joyce's other works. However, it is not incomprehensible; a good teacher will facilitate your understanding of it and you may find any number of educational texts to accompany the novel, which aid the reader in gaining a fine appreciation for the rich symbolism, the heady prose, the cultural and political background, the mind of the genius, the angst and the arrogance of the artist--all the elements in fact that make Portrait one of the greatest works of literature. True, to the half-wit the story may come across as boring, containing as it does no car-chases, explosions, or gratuitous sex-scenes. If you like that kind of thing, read some pulp fiction. Better still, since you obviously have little appreciation for the written word, go to a movie complex and watch something which has been dumbed down to your Neanderthal level. I suggest Matrix 2, Terminator 3, or perhaps Barney & Friends. By the way, the word banal means "lacking originality; disappointingly ordinary or commonplace"; you must be the only reader in the world who believes Joyce's writing to be ordinary or conventional. I wonder how the great man would describe your work, or even your pathetic "critique"? As "eliciting feelings of trepedaciousness", perhaps?<br>I shudder to think you might ever be in a position of influence in the literary education of young minds. God preserve that your Masters degree gets you no further in the field of literature than my engineering degree will get me in the field of open-heart surgery. And please, do indicate what it is you have authored; I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next man, and am seeking at this very moment some rubbish with which I might light the fire. <br>Perhaps you do have one thing in common with Joyce though: in one thousand years people of all races and creeds will still be marvelling over the majesty and mastery that is his work; and even after all that time, if indicated to your review, those same people will doubtless still beggar belief at your ignorance, and rightly mock you as a witless, contemptable dullard.<br>Your, in pity,<br>HPF<br><br>

[Unregistered]

You are reading this at masters level, for goodness sake this is the foundational stone of Joyce, can't wait to hear your opinion of Ulysses and Finnegan's wake, I read A Portrait post GCSE

[MCO]

Dear HPF. <br>What a truly wonderful defence!<br><br>p.s. I hope your career in open heart surgey is doing well!

[Unregistered]

I have never read so boring or banal a book as "A Portrait ..." It was tortuous at a Master's level and incomprehensible at anything less. As an author I find it incredible that he was published at all, let alone with great aclaim. The fact that he was voted the author of the twentieth century leaves me trepedacious to see what lies before us ...