Saturday, 12 September 2015

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



I have read somewhere that, alongside In Search of Lost Time, Joyce’s Ulysses is the book that most people claim to have read without actually having done so. Why reading Joyce is something meant to be so cool that you should lie about is just beyond me.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is now a century old, and it feels that way. What do we need to read this book today for? Bore us to death? Possibly. Tell us Catholic life could be grim and miserable? Seriously overdone.

I’ve read this book less than a year ago, and all I seem to remember is (in alphabetical order): Apathy, Boredom, Catholicism. Maybe I’m not enough of an aesthete, but I wonder what’s the point of this book nowadays. In order to be considered one of the greatest writers ever, shouldn’t your masterpieces be, erm, readable?!?

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