Dubliners – James Joyce

How I remember my high-school classmates spending months and months reading (?!?) this collection of short stories and pretending that it was the most meaningful book they had ever read. Having read it over a lazy weekend I have a couple of thoughts (both for them and for whoever happens to read this blog):

1.       I understand it was cool to say that one was reading Joyce as a teenager, but, seriously, spending 2 months carrying it around feels a bit excessive – maybe my classmates needed to show off?

2.       I understand it was cool to say Dubliners was the greatest book they had read (perhaps it was factually true, as for a number of them it could have been their first book not written by Roald Dahl), but, honestly, what’s the point?

I have the feeling this is something that you can only appreciate if you’re Irish (probably like you can only appreciate Fenoglio’s short stories if you’re Italian), but if you aren’t – well, to restate my thought above, what’s the point?

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?!?