"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

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

...<33333333333 James Joyce.

I just made a post about him recently, and this is pretty much just a reiteration of that, but: It continues to completely boggle me that there are so many people who deny that there is any value in Joyce's works. I won't say that Joyce is easy to read, or that everyone can understand him or should be expected to enjoy his work -- but it's just positively weird to me that I keep seeing him disparaged as a pretentious hack with no talent. In my estimation, the man was a bloody Shakespeare. I'm not necessarily interested in everything he wrote about, but still there's scarcely a page of Ulysses that I can turn to without being knocked entirely off my feet in amaze. And A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is also just brimming with beautiful quotations.

It's not an exciting story. It's not supposed to be an exciting story. It's several things -- a character study, a reflection of a time and place in which Joyce lived, a collection of vaguely philosophical anecdotes -- but mainly, at least to my mind, it's an exploration of the variety and versatility of language, its ability to express in the most vivid detail every tiny nuance of life, if one only knows how to turn the phrases just right. I'd give anything to be able to play the English language the way Joyce does. Sure, he gets carried away sometimes, and uses pretentious words like "moiety" that really ought never to be used. But that's a small thing. He absolutely owned the English language. I really think there's nothing he couldn't have expressed perfectly, if he'd had a mind to do it.

So, er, in short... yes? ...>_>

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

Er. That wasn't mean to sound mean, by the way -- I didn't realize you were actually reading the novel until I saw your comment back to tomecatti above; I sort of assumed you were just considering reading him, and asking whether you should. *hides* So. Sorry if that came out wrong.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

No, no, it's okay! We're about eighty-seven pages in, and I've been having trouble. But, as I mentioned below, I think that may have something to do with the fact that I'm reading it aloud to my sister.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

o_O Okay, yeah, I would be very daunted by the prospect of reading Joyce out loud. The way he uses language is great for literature, but kind of inscrutable when you try to say it.

God, I wonder if there's an audiobook of Ulysses... it would be completely incomprehensible... o_O

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Daddy is having us do it for school. Dramatic reading.

...Wow. I. No.

[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.

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

I'm being awkward and creepy by comment-jacking when I don't know you, but I thought of this comment today and took my mother's copy of Portrait off the shelf and saying that it changed my life is an understatement. How silly and cliche, but it's true. So nice icon. ;-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

Awesome. :) Just lately, I've met a startling number of people who have expressed a deep and frightening hatred for Joyce, so I'm delighted whenever I see anyone saying nice things about him. So -- comment-jacking much appreciated!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

Wait, whoa. I just realized you mean that you, like, just started the book today. Are you saying you read the whole thing? In one day?

If so, then wow, dude, you're even better at reading Joyce than I am. I doff my hat.

Also I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Ulysses; it's even better than Portrait, in my opinion.