"Then in New York I Fell Out with a Dragon..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Query:

Is there any actual merit at all (literary or otherwise) in James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist?

Discuss.

(we found a nest of baby rabbits to-day while picking up trash along Oriental Road. Baby rabbits, and one slithery garter snake that Maria almost stepped on, whispering over the leaves down the bank.)

Comments

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I knew if I posted this, someone was going to comment and tell me how awesome Joyce was. Moreover, I really wanted someone to do that. The reasoning was that if I got to hear the reasons he was awesome, I could try applying that to my further reading and possibly, if not enjoy him, respect him more as an author. So I am very pleased, as happens; now I can try paying more attention to his expression and turns of phrase, because I know where the theoretical beauty lies.

I also am forced to conclude that my personal dislike may be unfounded and unobservant, and that with this in mind I should re-examine the text and try to find the good things in his writing. Obviously they're there, because somebody found them. Even if I don't agree with them, they're there. So! Thank you. ^_^

He still sucks to read aloud, though. >_>

[shawk.livejournal.com]

I had to read Ulysses as a part of my "Narrative: Genre and Analysis" course (I am really not sure how or why it qualified as subject matter for this subject), and the professor, a painfully earnest just-graduated sort, insisted on reading long passages aloud to us. Unfortunately, he had extremely bad diction, and stumbled and stuttered a lot. I wanted to cry every time I had to go into that classroom.

But then somehow I got away with writing a paper comparing the works of James Joyce to the works of Pablo Picasso, so that at least was entertaining.

Um, pointless aside, here.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

...You know what. That sounds like a really reasonable comparison. Wow. That makes so much sense.