A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (best way to read books .TXT) 📕
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyce’s first novel, published after the previous success of his short story collection Dubliners. The novel is written in a modernist style, with dialog and narration blending together in a kind of stream-of-consciousness meant to invoke the blurriness of memory.
Joyce originally planned writing a realist autobiographical novel of 63 chapters titled Stephen Hero. He abandoned the attempt halfway through, and refocused his efforts on Portrait, a shorter, sharper work in the modernist style. His alter-ego remained Stephen Dedalus, named after Daedalus, the mythological Greek craftsman and father of Icarus. Portrait was written while he was waiting for Dubliners to be published, a process that took eight years and so frustrated Joyce that he once threw the manuscript of Portrait into a fire, causing his family to run to save it.
The novel closely traces Joyce’s early years. Like his alter-ego Stephen, Joyce was born into a middle-class family and lived in Dublin as they descended into poverty; he rebelled against his Irish Catholic upbringing to become a star student at Dublin University, and put aside thoughts of priesthood or medicine, the other careers offered him, to become a writer. Joyce doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics, presenting the discoveries of youth in all of their physical detail, including Stephen’s teenage visits to prostitutes (which also mirror Joyce’s youth, and were how he probably contracted the suspected syphilis that plagued his vision and tortured his health for the rest of his life), and the homosexual explorations of children at a Jesuit school.
The writing is in the free indirect style, allowing the narrator to both focus on Stephen and present characters and events through his eyes, until the last chapter, where Stephen’s first-person diary entries suggest he’s finally found his voice. As the novel progresses, the syntax and vocabulary also grow in complexity, reflecting Stephen’s own development.
Of Joyce’s three novels, Portrait is the most straightforward and accessible. But it remains just as rich and complex as any masterpiece, with critics across generations hailing it as work of unique beauty and perception.
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- Author: James Joyce
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—I didn’t think he had that much in him, said Mr. Casey.
—I’ll pay your dues, father, when you cease turning the house of God into a polling-booth.
—A nice answer, said Dante, for any man calling himself a catholic to give to his priest.
—They have only themselves to blame, said Mr. Dedalus suavely. If they took a fool’s advice they would confine their attention to religion.
—It is religion, Dante said. They are doing their duty in warning the people.
—We go to the house of God, Mr. Casey said, in all humility to pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses.
—It is religion, Dante said again. They are right. They must direct their flocks.
—And preach politics from the altar, is it? asked Mr. Dedalus.
—Certainly, said Dante. It is a question of public morality. A priest would not be a priest if he did not tell his flock what is right and what is wrong.
Mrs. Dedalus laid down her knife and fork, saying:
—For pity sake and for pity sake let us have no political discussion on this day of all days in the year.
—Quite right, ma’am, said uncle Charles. Now Simon, that’s quite enough now. Not another word now.
—Yes, yes, said Mr. Dedalus quickly.
He uncovered the dish boldly and said:
—Now then, who’s for more turkey?
Nobody answered. Dante said:
—Nice language for any catholic to use!
—Mrs. Riordan, I appeal to you, said Mrs. Dedalus, to let the matter drop now.
Dante turned on her and said:
—And am I to sit here and listen to the pastors of my church being flouted?
—Nobody is saying a word against them, said Mr. Dedalus, so long as they don’t meddle in politics.
—The bishops and priests of Ireland have spoken, said Dante, and they must be obeyed.
—Let them leave politics alone, said Mr. Casey, or the people may leave their church alone.
—You hear? said Dante, turning to Mrs. Dedalus.
—Mr. Casey! Simon! said Mrs. Dedalus, let it end now.
—Too bad! Too bad! said uncle Charles.
—What? cried Mr. Dedalus. Were we to desert him at the bidding of the English people?
—He was no longer worthy to lead, said Dante. He was a public sinner.
—We are all sinners and black sinners, said Mr. Casey coldly.
—Woe be to the man by whom the scandal cometh! said Mrs. Riordan. It would be better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea rather than that he should scandalise one of these, my least little ones. That is the language of the Holy Ghost.
—And very bad language if you ask me, said Mr. Dedalus coolly.
—Simon! Simon! said uncle Charles. The boy.
—Yes, yes, said Mr. Dedalus. I meant about the … I was thinking about the bad language of the railway porter. Well now, that’s all right. Here, Stephen, show me your plate, old chap. Eat away now. Here.
He heaped up the food on Stephen’s plate and served uncle Charles and Mr. Casey to large pieces of turkey and splashes of sauce. Mrs. Dedalus was eating little and Dante sat with her hands in her lap. She was red in the face. Mr. Dedalus rooted with the carvers at the end of the dish and said:
—There’s a tasty bit here we call the pope’s nose. If any lady or gentleman …
He held a piece of fowl up on the prong of the carvingfork. Nobody spoke. He put it on his own plate, saying:
—Well, you can’t say but you were asked. I think I had better eat it myself because I’m not well in my health lately.
He winked at Stephen and, replacing the dishcover, began to eat again.
There was a silence while he ate. Then he said:
—Well now, the day kept up fine after all. There were plenty of strangers down too.
Nobody spoke. He said again:
—I think there were more strangers down than last Christmas.
He looked round at the others whose faces were bent towards their plates and, receiving no reply, waited for a moment and said bitterly:
—Well, my Christmas dinner has been spoiled anyhow.
—There could be neither luck nor grace, Dante said, in a house where there is no respect for the pastors of the church.
Mr. Dedalus threw his knife and fork noisily on his plate.
—Respect! he said. Is it for Billy with the lip or for the tub of guts up in Armagh? Respect!
—Princes of the church, said Mr. Casey with slow scorn.
—Lord Leitrim’s coachman, yes, said Mr. Dedalus.
—They are the Lord’s anointed, Dante said. They are an honour to their country.
—Tub of guts, said Mr. Dedalus coarsely. He has a handsome face, mind you, in repose. You should see that fellow lapping up his bacon and cabbage of a cold winter’s day. O Johnny!
He twisted his features into a grimace of heavy bestiality and made a lapping noise with his lips.
—Really, Simon, you should not speak that way before Stephen. It’s not right.
—O, he’ll remember all this when he grows up, said Dante hotly—the language he heard against God and religion and priests in his own home.
—Let him remember too, cried Mr. Casey to her from across the table, the language with which the priests and the priests’ pawns broke Parnell’s heart and hounded him into his grave. Let him remember that too when he grows up.
—Sons of bitches! cried Mr. Dedalus. When he was down they turned on him to betray him and rend him like rats in a sewer. Lowlived dogs! And they look it! By Christ, they look it!
—They behaved rightly, cried Dante. They obeyed their bishops and their priests. Honour to them!
—Well, it is perfectly dreadful to say that not even for one day in the year, said Mrs. Dedalus, can we be free from these dreadful disputes!
Uncle Charles raised his hands mildly and said:
—Come now, come now, come now! Can we not have our opinions whatever they are without this bad temper and this bad language? It is too bad surely.
Mrs. Dedalus spoke to Dante in a low voice but Dante said loudly:
—I will not say nothing. I will defend my church and my religion when it is insulted and spit on by renegade catholics.
Mr. Casey pushed his plate rudely into
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