Book 885: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce

Ugh—I should’ve given up while I was ahead, or used the same app I used to slog my way through Ulysses. This was the longest 215 pages of my life.

I actually broke down for the last chapter and found an audiobook version from my local library to listen to at 1.25x speed while sorting data and stuff at work. So, at the very least I can say I enjoyed the Irish accents for that portion of it and the Whaley last name shout out about 75% of the way through 😀

Honestly, the less said about this book the better. I can cross it off my languishing Classics Club list and move on with my life. And never read anything by James Joyce again.

There were definitely parts that were beautifully written and fascinating, especially around the protagonist’s future career options:

He was angry with himself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses, angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the world about him into a vision of squalor and insincerity. Yet his anger lent nothing to the vision. He chronicled with patience what he saw, detaching himself from it and tasting its mortifying flavour in secret. (58)

And the occasional beautiful passages about location:

Disheartened, he raised his eyes towards the slow-drifting clouds, dappled and seaborne. They were voyaging across the deserts of the sky, a host of nomads on the march, voyaging high over Ireland, westward bound. The Europe they had come from lay out there beyond the Irish Sea, Europe of strange tongues and valleyed and woodbegirt and citadelled and of entrenched and marshalled races. He heard a confused music within him as of memories and names which he was almost conscious of but could not capture even for an instant; then the music seemed to recede, to recede, to recede, and from each receding trail of nebulous music there fell always one longdrawn calling note, piercing like a star the dusk of silence. Again! Again! Again! A voice from beyond the world was calling. (154)

However, when those few and far between passages are lined up against pages and pages of stream of consciousness, shifting of location/perspective/time and an entire chapter (3) beating around the bush (pun intended) about masturbation and abstinence, I honestly just can’t. I spent so much of chapter three trying to figure out WTF was going on and whether the protagonist was worried about sex or having murdered someone and then when it finally clicked it was all about masturbation I was done with the book. And that’s why I sought out the audiobook to get through it ASAP.

Recommendation: If you like stream of consciousness, random shifts in perspective and timeline, have at it. If those two things are not your cup of tea then pass. I will not be reading James Joyce again in the future no matter how many beautiful passages I stumbled into, there weren’t enough to make me want to voluntarily subject myself to this again. I fell asleep trying to read this SO MANY TIMES! And I’m not talking fell asleep in bed, I’m talking on my lunch break at my desk in the office, standing up in line at the post office, and even at one-point walking around the house specifically trying NOT to fall asleep just to get through Chapter 3!

Opening Line: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo . . .”

Closing Line: “APRIL 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from A Portrait of the Artist as a  Young Man
“His evenings were his own; and he pored over a ragged translation of The Count of Monte Cristo. The figure of that dark avenger stood forth in his mind for whatever he had heard or divined in childhood of the strange and terrible. At night he built up on the parlour table an image of the wonderful island cave out of transfers and paper flowers and coloured tissue paper and strips of the silver and golden paper in which chocolate is wrapped. When he had broken up this scenery, weary of its tinsel, there would come to his mind the bright picture of Marseille, of sunny trellises, and of Mercedes.” (54)

“He could still leave the chapel. He could stand up, put one foot before the other and walk out softly and then run, run, run swiftly through the dark streets. He could still escape from the shame. Had it been any terrible crime but that one sin! Had it been murder! Little fiery flakes fell and touched him at all points, shameful thoughts, shameful words, shameful acts. Shame covered him wholly like fine glowing ashes falling continually. To say it in words! His soul, stifling and helpless, would cease to be.” (130)

“He would never swing the thurible before the tabernacle as priest. His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders. The wisdom of the priest’s appeal did not touch him to the quick. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world.” (149)

“Was it because he had heard that in Buck Whaley’s time there was a secret staircase there?” (170)