A portrait

[HPF]

Yes! Absolutely, couldn't agree more! Do run! Preferably over the edge of a cliff on to some large, pointed rocks tens of meters below!<br>Obviously YOU don't want to read this book because you are too stupid to read it, and it probably lowers your self esteem when you have to recognise yourself as being incapable of apprecaiting anything finer than the local village newsletter. That's assuming unicellular organisms like yourself have self esteem issues to begin with. Do you?<br>When you evolve a bit further and develop an opposable thumb like the rest of us, your long-suffering educator might take on the challenge of teaching you how to write. Then, you can have a go at crafting your paper on Portrait, and what a piece of work that's likely to be! If you can finish all those six lines of your submittal, I dare you to post it on this website and I'll get a few teaching professionals to review it, and I promise you they'll do it with a bit more thought, dignity, accuracy and professionalism than you managed in the present instance with Mr. Joyce's great work. That's assuming they can stop laughing long enough to carry out the task. <br>Being a member of some primitive sub-culture as it appears you are, you probably had not heard of Joyce before your introduction to Portrait. You might think it fun to blithely trash his genius, but I assure you if you were sent back in time (and preferably left there) to be alone in a room with him, such was his total dominance of the language he would have frightened the life out of you, and you would have been in no doubt who the superior being was then. <br>Now, it must be time for your afternoon nap, so put your thumb in your mouth and go to sleep, you poor deluded child you.

[ellen]

i totally agree.. i sit here in agony and my head aches... my brain is out of function and everything is just... black! why? doing a paper on "a portrait".. *

[katie]

yey! someone who appreciates literature! thank you for awakening nadia and many other people like her! i totally agree with you and think portrait is an amazing work and i thoroughly enjoy studying it for my coursework! you have reminded me just how good it is, thank you!

[David]

You have a lot of problems! I agree with nadia. Whoever responded to nadia, you need to get out and have some fun kid!!! You almost wrote an entire essay on the fact that you have no life!! haha...Now, it must be time for your afternoon nap, so put your thumb in your mouth and go to sleep, you poor deluded child you.

[HPF]

Dear David,<br><br>Yes, indeed, poor David, poor, little David.<br>You've well and truly put me in my place then. I feel so put down.<br><br>NOT!<br>I love it when silly little people like you post replies on websites. You're so thick, you think what you say is meaningful, but it only serves to illustrate to all and sundry what a pillock you are. <br>Now I swat morons like you out of my way like I swat away summer flies (and I get the impression they're only nearly as annoying as you are, poor David), so I'm not going to waste a huge amount of time on you. After all, I'd hate for you to have to read another "essay". When I replied to Nadia's critique--if one can describe it as such--it took me no more than a few minutes to complete the task. That is because I am able to use something called wit, which allows me to think very sharply, and coupled with my ability to type quickly, I was done before you could say, David, "Mum, I need help to wipe my bottom again, please". See? I did it again just there--did you see how I managed that? No, you didn't, did you. That's because you're stupid, David. My poor, poor, little-wittle, baby David. And how do I know that even though I've never met you? Because only stupid people post notes like yours, little man. It's like a law of nature--immutable and true.<br>If I were you, I would in future attempt to use correct diction and grammar when I write. One capatalises a person's name, one does not use multiple exclamation marks (clever people can register the emphasis even when only one is used--you're not clever, little David, and most likely neither are any of your family or friends, so I almost forgive you the need to use more than one), and, for the love of God, you vile little turd, one certainly does not post a "comeback" of which the latter part is the word-for-word, verbatim quote of the person you were so pathetically attempting to belittle! I mean, really, David, you may as well walk down the street with an associate (e.g. a fellow chimpanzee, if indeed the Monkey-House will allow you and your arboreal twin out for the afternoon) who is garbed in one of those T-shirts that has a finger pointing to one side and the words "I'm With Stupid" emblazoned across the front.<br>Now, if you've managed to read all that, poor, little, insignificant, dull, David, and my superior writing ability hasn't left you so befuddled that you've gone and soiled yourself again, I'll let your Mummy warm your bottle and then you can sit in front of the TV and watch cartoons with the other pre-schoolers.<br>But for the sake of Peter and the Saints, Dave, leave literature to those of us with the mind to appreciate it.<br>Yours,<br>HPF<br>p.s. Please don't hesitate to reply to this note. I printed out your last one and showed it around and lots of good, clever, people got a huge kick out of seeing another idiot exposing themselves for the world to see. But the novelty has worn off somewhat with the passing of the weeks and what we'd really love now is another one of your special offerings. I love to laugh, you see, David. And you, my low-achieving friend, are in that regard a comedic legend.

[Nadia]

Wow, when you see or hear of this book .. run! You don't want to read it, much less write a paper on it.

[untamedshrew]

Dear Lord, the anonymous person is strange!
David, Nadia, Ellen-- thank you all for assuring me that somewhere in the universe, there remain a few sane individuals who don't fall hook, line, and sinker for any incomprehensible BS that makes them feel clever for "understanding" it. Any book written for lit crit alone is invariably crap. Kudos on being secure enough in your intellectual capabilities to see Joyce's writing for the nonsense it is!
Those who liked the book-- WHY? Did you actually enjoy reading it, or just analyzing it? Because his writing is DESIGNED to be illogical and difficult to get through...

[The Unnamable]

his writing is DESIGNED to be illogical and difficult to get through...

Sounds a bit like life to me.

[starreader13]

it's called stream of conciousness-- like "the unnamed" said- it's like real life. do you think in perfectly formed sentences? I sure don't... my mind meanders from place to place all the time. life certainly is nothing like literature and I think that joyce does an amazing job at portraying what life was like for a stifling artist in ireland at that time. there are so many metaphors, so many motifs... joyce truely was a master at writing, a true artist... the book just blows my mind. you have to read it two, three times to fully comprehend all of the meanings behind it, because they are laced in every word. and yes, I enjoyed reading it, and still do, it is beautifully written

[HPF]

[QUOTE=untamedshrew;150895]Dear Lord, the anonymous person is strange!
David, Nadia, Ellen-- thank you all for assuring me that somewhere in the universe, there remain a few sane individuals who don't fall hook, line, and sinker for any incomprehensible BS that makes them feel clever for "understanding" it. Any book written for lit crit alone is invariably crap. Kudos on being secure enough in your intellectual capabilities to see Joyce's writing for the nonsense it is!

untamedshrew, David, Nadia, Ellen, I owe you all a big, big apology. I'm the idiot here. I recently visited Yale University and spoke at length to an elderly Professor of English who put me straight on some of the many myths of Joyce and his "genius". It appears that thousands of people have perpetuated these myths about Joyce and his writing over the years so they can make money on them, including getting us all to buy this crap and think it's brilliant just because it doesn't make any sense. You see, the Professor told me that he knew some of the Joyce family from way back, and he knows for a fact that Joyce was full of crap and couldn't write a decent normal story to save his life. The Professor has copies of some normal novels that Joyce tried to write and they are all rubbish. Any of us could do better! Joyce hated basically everyone he met and he was an arrogant sod beyond belief, but he also had this need to be admired and to have other people think he was a "genius", even though he knew he was only of average or below-average intelligence. Anyway, what Joyce decided to do was go to his local library in Dublin and simply start reading some famous literature and history books and start taking smart quotes out of them and then re-wording them to look as if it was his own work. To do this, he would look up as many difficult-sounding words as he could in the dictionary and use them all over the place. Finnegans Wake is a classic example of this. It doesn't make any sense at all because it is basically just a collection of all the stuff he wrote down from those library books, all in no real order at all. It's not a book at all; it's just a collection of his note taking that someone found and declared to be a work of genius! The same thing for Portrait. But at least in this case he did try to put together some sort of a story but because he was a crap writer and didn't know what the hell he was talking about he had to use all these big words and obscure references to make him sound clever. And the worst thing is we have spent decades trying to decipher all this nonsense, and fools like me have been defending him to the death, when all along he's just this loser who never amounted to anything in his life and he's taking us all for a ride! And I have spent years of my life reading all this BS and telling people Joyce was the greatest writer who ever lived! Anyway, I hope you'll accept my apology for all the things I said. I'm done with all this literature crap now. Like untamedshrew said it's all just horsecrap that stupid people write to make themselves look impressive. And it's stupid people like me who want to believe it is "genius" because I want people to think I'm clever for reading it. Boy, all that time I've wasted. I could have been out having fun and living a life like normal people. Anyway, thanks for listening and don't waste another second of your precious life on Joyce or any other of the "intellectual" writers featured on this website. They are all bogus and full of their own crap! I've thrown all my literature books out in the rubbish. Read Dan Brown instead. He's my favourite writer now. Great stories and you don't need a dictionary by your side to be able to read them! Thanks guys and good luck, HPF.

[starreader13]

Dan Brown? you're comparing joyce to dan brown...

what is the world coming to....

i've read dan brown, all of his 4 books actually, and there's really nothing special about them. they're entertaining pop lit, two of which were written for the controversy, and the other two are semi-good sci-thrillers. honestly, michael crichton is a much better pop lit suspense and sci-fi writer, and i would read his books more than once. unlike dan brown, where they are really very predictable. ugh. if you just want a book to entertain you, go ahead, read brown.

joyce on the other hand was brilliant. the 'normal' novels may not have been that good, but why does something have to be written 'normally' for it to be good. stream of conciousness writing is pretty difficult, and he was amazing at it, and the depth and perception of the writing changed as dedalus grew older, as he matured. it's beautiful. and his language really isn't that hard to understand, nor are his references if you know a little bit of irish history. there were only a few words in the novel that i had to look up. i'm very sorry that you don't understand it, but hey, there's nothing i can do about that.

you probably wouldn't like oscar wilde either, The Picture of Dorian Gray, such a beautiful novel, and so so powerful. But if you're looking for a classic version of today's pop lit, try Dumas. Three Musketeers is a great, exciting novel, (that is full of plot, not too much interpretation for you) adventure story, wonderful wonderful tale...

[graeme6]

Although I agree with the fact that this book is a tough pill to swallow, it is quite well written if you can work your way through it. As a grade 11 student I truly don't think I am at a level of good comprehension, but still I enjoyed his writing. As well starreader13 I couldn't agree more with your comments on Dan Brown. I was told that I would love the Davinci Code by everyone around me but when I read I failed to see what the fuss was about.

[mazz]

i started reading Da Vinci code and it was like a rollercoaster ride that you race through to the end, and that was it. It was fun to read, but thats all. Where as Joyce takes you places. I've never been able to get far into Ulysses its not for me..yet. Portrait was a great book. I think these books were meant to be read more than once to truly get something from them, you have to work your way through them for sure. I think perhaps HPF has gone for good now so we don't have to defend lit. in regard to HPF. some people only like pulp fiction and don't read for the beauty of words. Am a Pullman fan too.

[Hephaestus]

This HPF guy is good at sarcasm...cos nobody seemed to notice it

Dan Brown? you're comparing joyce to dan brown...haha

[Massalex]

Who angered you so much?? Or are you just smarter than everyone else?

You seem to take a lot of time running down sentence after sentence just to insult people. More time on your hands than the people who actually care. I think so. Joyce is probably looking down on you right now. At least he used poetry when he wrote...(Please don't give me a lecture on Joyce and his athiest views...)