Dubliners

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories all set in Dublin and all featuring classic Irish characters:

“The Sisters”
“An Encounter”
“Araby”
“Eveline”
“After the Race”
“Two Gallants”
“The Boarding House”
“A Little Cloud”
“Counterparts”
“Clay”
“A Painful Case”
“Ivy Day in the Committee Room”
“A Mother”
“Grace”
“The Dead”

I remember reading this collection of stories long ago, and I remember that the stories surprised me with the memorable characters and unexpected plots.

I was not quite as taken with the stories or the characters this time. Did I remember what was going to happen? Is that what led to my disappointment with the second reading of Dubliners? Or was it simply that I am at a point in my life where I hope to find some characters who have admirable qualities in the pages of the books I read, and this did not happen? I'm not sure what happened, but I didn't connect as strongly with the plight of the characters or with the difficulties of the characters' lives on this read.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect with this collection of vignettes. It turns out, for me anyway, that they read as a more modern style that the date they were written (1904-07) or published (1914). They are reasonably ‘gritty' with swearing and bad behaviour on display in a way I wouldn't have expected. I think this is probably what made it an interesting read.

The stories are (mostly) short snapshots of everyday live in Dublin's poorer classes - the way they live their lives, interact with each other. They scheme and double cross, they find ways to work around the law and the morals expected of them. There are also lots of sayings and idioms that are still in use nowadays in Dublin (specifically) and probably all of Ireland - another factor which contributed to me generally enjoying this. Personally I can't help getting a kick out of recognising a street name, or even a suburb from the few years I lived in Dublin.

4 stars.

Just a note for myself. The stories I would come back to again one day: An Encounter, Eveline, A Little Cloud, A Painful Case, The Dead.

Con una prosa en apariencia inofensiva, Joyce demuestra maestría a la hora de exponer los sentimientos y pensamientos de sus personajes. La indecisión de Eveline en el cuento que lleva su nombre; la mezcla de sensaciones de Lenehan en Two Gallants mientras hace tiempo por las calles de Dublín; la angustia contenida de Joe en Clay; la frustración de Farrington en Counterparts; la decepción de Little Chandler en A little cloud; la tristeza de Gabriel en The dead. Todas estas sensaciones se te pegan y permanecen, pegajosas, días después de la lectura.

Imaginé todas las historias sucediendo en una misma Dublín, como si el autor decidiese hacer zoom aleatoriamente en distintos puntos de la ciudad y narrar lo que le sucede a sus ciudadanos en tiempo real. Con el pasar de los cuentos Joyce logra crear un contexto, un ambiente en el cual todas las historias se enmarcan: esa Dublin tan particular que cobra vida propia bajo la pluma de Joyce.

Me sorprendió cómo algunos temas y planteos de los cuentos están plenamente vigentes en la actualidad, salvando las distancias propias de la época. Desde algo tan trivial sobre cómo darle instrucciones a un taxi para dejar a un pasajero en camino al destino final como planteos trascendentales como el contraste entre la vida de juerga y la vida familiar; los riesgos diarios que enfrentan los pre-adolescentes en las urbes; el amor enfrentado a las convenciones sociales; la influencia de la religión y la política en la vida diaria; o la identidad nacional.

En varios cuentos hay un desprecio de los personajes por la Dublin que habitan. Hay también una minimización de la importancia y el atractivo de la ciudad, en contraste con la idealizada Londres o la Europa continental. Vivir la vida, para algunos, parece sólo posible fuera de Dublín. Hoy basta con abrir redes sociales y diarios para palpar esto mismo en sociedades como la argentina.

Las lecturas que resisten tan bien el paso de los años son definitivamente buenas lecturas.

''Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

3.5 stars really. I liked this book, which is not really the experience I expected from as divisive a figure as James Joyce. This was my first foray into his œuvre, and I liked it? But didn't love it? It's definitely a solid, fantastically observed collection, and occasionally a story did leave me staring into the distance after finishing it, particularly The Dead and A Painful Case, but it just didn't hit the same as some of his contemporaries have. One day, I'll gird my loins and actually read Ulysses, but until then I'll guard my opinion of Joyce as a very solid writer who wrote horrifying smut to his wife.

It feels a bit weird to review classic literature. Like, do I have the right to give James Joyce 4 stars? No, I don't think I do... I literally found this book on my shelf with my undgrad notes still tucked inside along with the cheat codes to my then favorite video game. So yeah, I'm giving it 5 stars because there is a reason that Dubliners is taught in undergrad and why it's the best introduction for anyone interested in Joyce. I enjoyed slipping back into the lives of everyday people, their trials and tragedies. It brings back a lot of great memories from high school and undergrad, and now from my trip to Ireland where I visited a bunch of the places mentioned in the stories. “The Dead” was the first Joyce story I ever read, and I remember just being deeply affected by it. It's still quite affecting now. I harbor a secret and extra-pretentious desire to write a short story collection called Denverites.

More like a 3.5/5

Story : Umm... there are some really nice short stories like The Dead, The Sisters, A Painful Case and there are some short stories that are just okay, I guess. I am a big fan of anthologies, but when almost every story has no action (well, they have, but they are forgetable) and the characters are not interesting, it's just boring. Also, I am a fan of stories that dive into the minds of our characters, but again, here we see little of everyone because they are in short stories and sometimes it feels like they are not finished or the development is very poor.

Characters : As I said, there are many characters and everyone is disturbed by something. They aren't so developed as I would like, but I understand why. The dialogues are just amazing and I am happy to say that every story succeded in that criteria.

Overall : Some stories didn't resonate with me, and that's fine. I don't really remember the characters because there are so many and we don't know very much about them. The dialogues are great... I don't know, I think I would be more satisfied if I just read the summary of each one (except those that I love). I can't forget how Haunted made me feel, and how memorable the characters and stories were, while here... I read the story ,,What was that about?”. Maybe if I'll read them again and if I would pay more attention (it will be hard not to fall asleep), I would like more of them.

My enjoyment of this collection of short stories was uneven. My favourite story was The Dead, which was made into a movie starring Angelica Huston and directed by her father John Huston years back. The reader is introduced to quite a few characters at a party, all vividly described. The author certainly shows his masterful abilities as he is able to keep the reader engaged despite giving us details that are often missing in more contemporary novels. I particularly loved the last pages as they revealed the devastating impact of one dead soul on a marriage.

funnily enough i think i started to progressively like this book less and less the more my teacher told me what a genius james joyce was for breathing the air on this earthly plane

Not for me: I struggled to finish it, not because of language, which was fluid and easy, but because of the innuendos and cultural contexts that made me have to check if I really had understood the authenticity of characters and the author's intentions after every story. In the end, I thought the search for meaning, frustration and helplessness were a bit repetitive.

Barring the occasional lovely turn of phrase (which foreshadows the later brilliance of [b:Ulysses 338798 Ulysses James Joyce http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173877044s/338798.jpg 2368224]), and the wonderfully evocative sense of a particular time and place, I thought these stories were uniformly dull. The common thread seemed to be failure, with character after character falling short of achieving their dreams. The only one I came close to liking was “The Dead”.After reading its Wikipedia page, I've concluded that this is an objectively good collection from a literary standpoint, but I lack the context to fully appreciate it.

This was a fascinating collection of short stories taking place in Dublin in the 1920s. James has a really interesting style of writing, despite his insistence on not using quotation marks, which bothered me a little.

One of the reasons I loved the writing style in this, though, is that I can hear the voices of my Irish relatives in Joyce's writing - I feel like I've heard many of these characters telling stories before, and it really helped me connect to the stories that Joyce was telling. I know that's not the kind of thing that's going to intice anyone to read it or anything, but for me it was a nice treat.

Um this was good obviously, but if you're not a contemporary of James Joyce you really shouldn't read editions of his work without footnotes, argh!