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

I have just gotten past the place where Stephen loses his virginity in a cathouse. He has already taken part in that play, and I guess the woman that he failed to kiss (the mysterious E.C. - Emma Clery), was there. It seems to be a pretty straightforward autobiographical account. He has started to get into some heavy Irish Catholicism stuff, and it is kind of bogging me down. But these were the things that effected Joyce most truly as a young man, I suppose.

Virgil, I think that your 5th point, language, encompasses names. I have found the naming very intriguing. Joyce goes out of his way to name streets, buildings, places etc. in ways that to me seem sort of distinct from everything else. There is also that strange part where he says "My name is Stephen Dedalus. I am walking with my father Simon Dedalus. We are going (this specific place). . . " and so on.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

What exactly is so special about Stephan?

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A character doesn't have to be special IMHO - it's about truth and resonance.

i can't wait to begin. Unfortunately my schedule cannot bend this month, so I hope that I will be able to join in June's selection. However, i am still enjoying your conversations.

enjoy the rest of the book everyone! I thought it was a good book my first time.

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Originally Posted by Bandini

A character doesn't have to be special IMHO - it's about truth and resonance.

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Yeah, but the novel must be interesting. Otherwise why read it?

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Originally Posted by Shoutgrace

Virgil, I think that your 5th point, language, encompasses names. I have found the naming very intriguing. Joyce goes out of his way to name streets, buildings, places etc. in ways that to me seem sort of distinct from everything else. There is also that strange part where he says "My name is Stephen Dedalus. I am walking with my father Simon Dedalus. We are going (this specific place). . . " and so on.

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Yes, the development of language is really the only thing I find all that interesting. Now I know the rest of the novel, and I know it gets better. The internal conflicts are evident. But must we go through 60 pages before we actually get a conflict? Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

Oh, couldn't get through it. Not my cup of tea. I read first two pages and then stopped...

Two pages??? Actually I got to the sermon scene, which I believe to be a turning point in itself, but had to pause in order to read other things (I had a good reason for this, something involving a misprinted edtion I had.)

oh, I finally started it, I'm just so relieved that it has complete sentences that I can actually follow, after the Faulkner.

I'm about 50 pages in, I'm finding it readable, I think Stephen is an okay character, but he's mainly there in order to show us the others.

My only problem with it is having to keep flipping to the notes, and the particular version I've got (penguin) loves to explain every last detail, I'm sure they are all very important and all, but it's getting tiring.

Oh hi there Riesa. I haven't seen you around in a bit. Or at least not at the same time I'm on. I'm glad you're reading along too. Actually Stephen becomes the only character. At the beginning he's mostly an observer, but the novel becomes more and more "self centered", and by that I mean it's almost all Stephen's consciousness. Those first fifty pages or so, he's relatively young, but the novel to me really is about the development of his mind/consciousness/self.

aha, so has he become more interesting to you then?

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Originally Posted by Riesa

aha, so has he become more interesting to you then?

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I've read it before, so I know. But it's been a long time. I was surprised at how bored I felt in the first chapter. Stephen is actually very cute and charming in this chapter. He does become more arrogant as the novel progresses, and that's consciously done by Joyce.

Im confused , just read chapter 2 and who is "she"? I know the one he doesnt kiss is EC, is this elieen from the first page? and is she the same she who comes to the play?Or is he just going to call everywoman she?
And who is willie and whats a red light district and why should he mix that up with the jewish district ???

And another thing whats stephen hero? Was this Joyces second atte,mpt at the same story?
:confused:

Joyce first wrote a small essay of sorts (that is terribly dense to read through), then expanded in Stephen Hero (was this finished?) and then wrote APOTAAAYM. (I believe)

A red-light district is an area housing brothels. The red light was to signify that a willing woman was on the inside back in the day. Willie I don't remember, and I don't know who Eilene is.

On the first page he says

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When they were grown up he was going to marry Eileen

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but lookng back a it I think her last name was Vance.


APOTAAAYM?? Surley easier to say a portrait this is like TLTWATW for the lion etc

I must say I really loved the second chapter. Not boring at all. Check this from the first page of the second chapter:

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Every morning, therefore, uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse but not before he had greased and brushed scrupulously his back hair and brushed and put on his tall hat. While he smoked the brim of his tall hat and the bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of the outhouse door. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which he shared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as a sounding-box: and every morning he hummed contentedly one of his favourite songs: O, twine me a bower or Blue Eyes and Golden Hair or The Groves of Blarney while the grey and blue coils of smoke rose slowly from his pipe and vanished in the pure air.

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The outhouse as a "sounding-box"! That is so typical Joyce, the bringing together of the high with the low, the singing with the sounds of an outhouse, the arbor with a toilet.

Also from the second chapter:

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While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms and turning in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. These voices had now come to be hollow-sounding in his ears. When the gymnasium had been opened he had heard another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards national revival had begun to be felt in the college yet another voice had bidden him be true to his country and help to raise up her language and tradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bid him raise up his father's fallen state by his labours and, meanwhile, the voice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shield others from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free days for the school. And it was the din of all these hollow-sounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades.

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Again the re-iteration of the theme: family, Religion, nation as they conflict with his individuality. How great it is that he puts them in the form of "voices".

There are five chapters, five iterations of the theme, each time further developed.

One other thing too. Notice how Stephen is triumphant at the end of each chapter. What a master craftsman Joyce is in structuring this novel.

Unfortunately I found the third chapter tedious and not as interesting. The sermon goes on forever, and there isn't any originality here. Joyce could have easily found some published sermon and put the words in the priest's mouth.