Ulysses (Gabler Edition)

Ulysses (Gabler Edition)
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Ulysses, great or not ?

ULYSSES is Joyce's Retelling of the Homerian Epic . Massive, Maddening, Enigmatic and Priceless

A REAL FAILURE AS A NOVEL

Classic of Modern Literature

Well, it's a classic, it once earned deserved praise as new & original but...

Ulysses (Gabler Edition)
James Joyce , and Hans Gabler
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0394743121
Release Date: 1986-05-12

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Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language.

Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is: What happens?. In the case of Ulysses, the answer might be Everything. William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.

Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call Early Yeats Lite--will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naive curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" --James Marcus

Book Description

Considered the greatest 20th century novel written in English, in this edition Walter Gabler uncovers previously unseen text. It is a disillusioned study of estrangement, paralysis and the disintegration of society.

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The 1934 text, as corrected and reset in 1961. Ulysses is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century. It was not easy to find a publisher in America willing to take it on, and when Jane Jeap and Margaret Anderson started printing extracts from the book their literary magazine The Little Review in 1918, they were arrested and charged with publishing obscenity. They were fined $100, and even The New York Times expressed satisfaction with their conviction. Ulysses was not published in book form until 1922, when another American woman, Sylvia Beach, published it in Paris for her Shakespeare & Company. Ulysses was not available legally in any English-speaking country until 1934, when Random House successfully defended Joyce against obscenity charges and published it in the Modern Library. This edition follows the complete and unabridged text as corrected and reset in 1961. Judge John Woolsey's decision lifting the ban against Ulysses is reprinted, along with a letter from Joyce to Bennett Cerf, the publisher of Random House, and the original foreword to the book by Morris L. Ernst, who defended Ulysses during the trial.

Customer Reviews:

Ulysses, great or not ?.......2007-09-20

Probably every avid reader feels compelled at some time in life to read "Ulysses", especially as it was voted the best work of fiction of the 20th century at the turn of this millenium.

The style of writing throughout the book is usually referred to as "stream of consciousness". This method has been subsequently employed in other works such as "To The Lighthouse" and "The sound and the Fury". However, in my opinion, these latter two works used the style much more succesfully than Joyce.

If you are currently reading "Ulysses" at the moment, expect a very patchy book. The second half is , in general, better than the first half, with the two penultimate chapters "Cabman's shelter" and "Ithaca" standing out from the rest. After that, the description of birth in "Oxen in the sun" is also excellent , as is the part dsecribing Paddy Dignam's funeral early in the book. As to the rest of the book, I believe there is little to recommend it.

Opinion tends to be polarized about "Ulysses" . Its severest critics suggest that it is only praised by those who are scared to be criticized for not understanding the book, a sort of "emperor's new clothes" scenario. There is, however, more than a grain of truth in this opinion. It does seem incredible that a book with so much "padding" could be so highly thought of. It might have made a very good book of around 200 pages, but one does have the sensation that Joyce is taking his readers for a ride in many parts. ( Of course, his ultimate send up of his readers was "Finnegan's Wake"! ). Furthermore, the much lauded sense of humour is overblown. At best, this is a mildly amusing book with one or two laugh out loud lines. To label it as "very funny" is pretentiousness itself. Most of the humour is also of the "toilet" variety.

On the positive side, there are some interesting passages as mentioned above. However, the main interest lies in seeing this new attempt at a style of writing , and to try to fathom out why this book has become the "darling" of the ( maybe "so-called" ) intellectuals. If you want to see a better example of joyce's talents, try "Potrait Of The Artist As A Young Man", or even "The Dubliners".

ULYSSES is Joyce's Retelling of the Homerian Epic . Massive, Maddening, Enigmatic and Priceless.......2007-09-13

James Joyce (1882-1941) was a tormented Roman Catholic who forsook his faith, picked up his pen and wrote the great novel "Ulysses" based on the epic poem "The Odyssey" by Homer. It is impossible to explain Ulysses or give it an adequate review in the short space alloted this reviewer. Howwver, I would offer the following thoughts for those brave souls eager to enter the labyrinthal complexities of a genius's mind:
Joyce tells the story of one day in the life of the people of Dublin, Ireland on June 16, 1904 (the day he first met his wife Nora Baracle). As he does so in eighteen chapters linked with similar episodes in "The Odyssey." During the day (about 900 pages) we follow the two chief characters on their peregrinations and adventures. Those characters are:
Stephen Dedalus-Named for the Greek mytholgical figure Dedalus who builds wings to fly in the sky; his son Icarus flies too close to the sun and perishes while Dedalus lands in Sicily. Stephen was the chief character in Joyce's "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." He is tormented by his failure to pray at his dying mother's bedside; tormented by the Roman Catholic Church's burden of guilt laid upon his soul. Stephen is an aspiring author. He is ambivalent in his feelings toward his native Ireland. As the novel begins he is living in the English built castle
The Martello Tower along with his friend Buck Mulligan and an Englishman named Haines. Stephen is a teacher who is supervised by the horrible Deasy a West Englishman who in an Orange Protestant. Deasy is a false Nestor to the callow Stephen. Stephen is an intellectual with biographical correspondence to the author James Joyce.
Leopold Bloom-A 38 year old advertising man who is married to the sensuous Molly. Bloom is a middlebrow who roams the streets of Dublin plying his advertising career engaging in arguments, dreaming about a sexy young thing on the beach and saving Stephen from trouble in the famous Nighttime section of the book. Leopold does not practice his Judaism. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant. The novel ends with Bloom returning home to his unfaithful wife Molly just as Odysseus returned home to his faithful wife Penelope in the Homeric epic. Bloomsday is celebrated worldwide on Feb. 2 each year (the date of Joyce's birth in 1882).
c. Molly Bloom-Her nearly fifty pages of stream of consciousness prose was until recently the longest sentence in the English language. She is a coarse, bawdy, serially cheating wife to Bloom.
I do not claim to understand everything going on in Ulysses. Joyce said it would take the professors and critics centuries to explore its rich minefield of literary allusions, jokes, and analysis of the human condition. Ulysses has been banned and blasted by literary critics as the same time it has been praised. You may find out yourself by giving it a close reading with a good commentary handy. Joyce plums the depths of the human mind. He is a great Irish genius whose work demands study.

A REAL FAILURE AS A NOVEL .......2007-08-03

As a devout modernist, I put off the pleasure of reading this book for years. I wanted to have the time and leisure to give it proper attention. I had taken a seminar with Anthony Burgess on ULYSSES at CCNY in the early seventies. We did a close reading of the Nighttown chapter and were supposed to read the rest of the novel on our own. I never did. But Burgess' enthusiasm was impressive and though I wasn't entirely convinced, I was certainly intrigued. In earlier years I had read DUBLINERS and PORTRAIT and even some of FINNEGANS WAKE and was especially impressed by Joyce's mastery of language and the poetic quality of his prose.

An early retirement offer finally had me reading the "GREATEST NOVEL OF THE 20th CENTURY" last month in Riverside Park. Some nice cigars added to the mix.

The first few chapters were stunning. The powers of description, the playfulness and musicality of language, the wit and intelligence of Stephen and Buck were a delight. I was obviously in the hands of a master. Shakespeare even came to mind.

But then something happened. The humanity and poetry seemed to drain out of the thing as we were treated to yet another chapter of theoretical "experimentation in narrative technique". The idea of writing a novel, each chapter of which is written in a parodistic or borrowed style seems to me a doomed one. (And more postmodernist than modernist). Apparently even Ezra Pound objected. I found myself asking, "Couldn't Joyce have found his own voice and style to narrate this section?" An entire narrative chapter in the question and answer form of a Catholic Catechism seems affected at first. After thirty pages it is deadly and even embarrassing. And then another in the style of a men's sporting magazine, and then another in the style of a women's magazine? What's the point? (Other than showing off?) And the Freudian/Surrealist kitsch of the endless Nighttown chapter was downright infantile. Talk about dated! This is novel writing from the outside in. First you have an "experimental" concept and then you fit in some narrative stuff. It's no wonder academics use this book as major fodder. It seems to be written with them in mind.

Likewise the useless tie ins with Homer's ODYSSEY. One can't help thinking of them as a desperate attempt to add structure, incident and theme to a book fairly bereft of them. Not to mention adding a bit of literary pedigree to offset the "obscenity".

Which brings me to my last point. The fancy smorgasbord of styles cannot disguise that as a novel, ULYSSES is sorely lacking. All the criteria by which we judge a novel - character depth and development, involving narrative, thematic focus, depth of feeling etc., seem totally absent. Basically what we have here is a brief Balzacian "realist" sketch, padded out and styled-up beyond belief.

Now this is really a minority opinion: not only is ULYSSES a failure, but the reason I think it is a failure is that it is a transitional work. Joyce was obviously bored with novelistic narrative but still felt obliged to accommodate. With FINNEGANS WAKE, he hit stride and finally found his métier - a book as a place to play with language and psyche for his own pleasure, without regard for traditional novelistics.

A NOTE ON EDITIONS: The huge academic controversy about which edition of ULYSSES is "authentic" or "correct" is, as one might expect, much ado about very little. Serious textual issues are minimal. Most of the typos in the 1922 edition were corrected in 1960/1 by the editors of the Modern Library in consultation with Richard Ellmann. That text was also used for the Bodley Head and current Everyman editions. Gabler later went overboard, making some highly questionable decisions. His edition is also difficult to read due to small print, layout, line-numbering etc. Danis Rose's edition went even further and "corrected" Joyce's compound words etc. - a disgrace.

I ended up reading an online version edited by Jorn Barger - a very sensible amalgam of the best work of previous editors. It took some time and expense to print out, but it was definitely worth it.

Classic of Modern Literature.......2007-07-23

While this text is undoubtedly one of the most difficult that I have read, the sheer skill at manipulating language that Joyce demonstrates is remarkable. The result is a novel that offers a most intimate study into the human method of thinking.

Not for the faint of heart, however, because this is a text that requires dedication, as the games that Joyce plays with language and the thinking of his characters often obfuscates the meaning.

Well, it's a classic, it once earned deserved praise as new & original but..........2007-07-10

Many scenes stick in one's mind forever, for example when Leopold Bloom releases his bowels or when the coffin falls on the road. I finally came to understand the stream-of-consciousness technique and realized it's not Joyce's stream we're wading in but the carefully reproduced stream of the character's consciousness. I found this particularly effective and fun reading of Stephen Dedalus's morning at school. Other scenes like Molly Bloom's grand finale are simply beautiful and literally breathless, especially if you take punctuation as a breathing signal.

And I'm especially glad to read it now that I live in Dublin. I've lived in Ringsend three months, I've visited a friend in Mullingar, and I've shopped at Buckley's butcher shop, all of which are mentioned in Ulysses. I even bought my copy of the book at the Martello tower featured at the start of the novel.

But overall, one feels Ulysses is somewhat contrived. Crucify this humble critic if you will, but reproducing the structure of the Odyssey is a clever but artificial way of bringing epic grandeur to what is nothing more than a very ordinary day. Why go through all that trouble? I do agree with the lesson but find it rather long winded. In painting, a still life by Chardin is as realistic as an imperial coronation scene by David, but with much less fuss.

And then there are the inside jokes. References to Walt Whitman and to Edgar Allen Poe (which I got only because I remembered Tom Hanks reciting Poe's "To Helen" in The Ladykillers) and other writers abound. Shouldn't a great work stand on its own, at least where its intended audience is concerned? Ulysses fails utterly in this respect unless we restrict the audience to academics.

Vincent Poirier, Dublin

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Joyce Is Meant to Be Read Aloud
Dublin digitally discerned and declaimed

Dubliners CD
James Joyce , Colm Meaney , and Stephen Rea
Manufacturer: Caedmon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 0060789565
Release Date: 2005-05-10

Book Description

The fifteen stories that make up this brilliant audio roam over a human landscape that stretches from the bleakest of despair to the most blinding of epiphanies. First published in 1914, the stories are as lucid and accessible as they are memorably poignant.

Dubliners is an audio experience that will only grow in richness with each time you listen. The stories and performers are:

The Sisters • Frank McCourt
An Encounter • Patrick McCabe
Araby • Colm Meaney
Eveline • Dearbhla Molloy
After the Race • Dan O'Herlihy
Two Gallants • Malachy McCourt
The Boarding House • Donal Donnelly
A Little Cloud • Brendan Coyle
Counterparts • Jim Norton
Clay • Sorcha Cusack
A Painful Case • Ciaran Hinds
Ivy Day in the Committee Room • T.P. McKenna
A Mother • Fionnula Flanagan
Grace • Charles Keating
The Dead • Stephen Rea

Customer Reviews:

Joyce Is Meant to Be Read Aloud.......2007-10-04

James Joyce was absorbed by music, people, languages, acting and actors, and though an exile from his native country and city, his literary consciousness was forever embedded in Dublin. He had an unerring ear for Dublin dialogue.
At night I turn out the lights and listen to these CD's, to the cadences of the people talking, and to me these Dubliners endlessly gossiping are in the room with me. Joyce's narrative adroitness, his choice of words, his lyrical descriptions, and above all, his sense of place are brilliant facets of a genius.
Stephen Rea's sensitive reading of "The Dead" is worth the price of this set of fifteen stories read by fifteen different mostly Irish personalities. The characters in the stories live and breathe, become real. Joyce was meant to be read aloud. It's good talk, conversations that you become a part of.
In these stories Joyce is very accessible. In Finnegan's Wake he became Jackson Pollock--obscure and difficult. In "The Dead" you can feel, touch, hear, and taste the snow that is falling outside the house while inside two old sisters are giving their annual bright and cheery party. It's a story of tenderness, love, regrets, and lost lovers, but it is mainly full of life, good times, fellowship, and above all humanity.

Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy

Dublin digitally discerned and declaimed.......2006-10-16

Handsomely produced, elegantly assembled, and consistently engrossing: these actors read the stories with appropriate sensitivity, wit, pathos, and distance. The detachment of Joyce in his "voice" on the page is re-created well. When I have taught students "Araby" or "The Boarding House," the chance to hear the language repeated as its author would have meant it to be rendered makes these stories come alive for a classroom six thousand miles and a century away from early 20c Dublin.

Although all of the stories succeed, those in the center of the book emerged when conveyed aloud most enlighteningly. Clay, A Mother, A Painful Case, and most of all Two Gallants, After the Race, and Counterparts all hit my ear with more force than they had when I had only read them. These stories are often overlooked compared to the others, but the skill that the actors brought to these more prosaic, less lively, and more nuanced examples of Joyce's careful craft deserve special acclaim. The packaging keeps the CDs securely in place, is itself compact and well-designed, fitting its outwardly austere & Edwardian yet subtly decorated and inviting contents.

Students, the curious newcomer, the experienced teacher, and those who read the book out of delight and not duty: all will benefit from the music on the page that by a technology Joyce himself spoke into at its early gramaphone stages is now digitally preserved so that those of us all over the world and a vastly changed world later can be entertained and instructed. I think JJ might have been pleased at this version of his pioneering, eloquent, yet accessible and moving, accounts of his imagined neighbors and municipal counterparts.

Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Viking Critical Library)

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good start on Joyce
Not just "An Original," but "THE Original"
The Lessons of Life in Dublin
Great stories, great ciriticism
Beautiful, context-difficult, yet accessible collection

Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Viking Critical Library)
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

good start on Joyce.......2007-08-22

James Joyce lurks in my home, the mammoth Ulysses sitting heavily upon my shelf, mocking me, sending chills down the back of my neck and dashing thoughts of actually making it through the tome unscathed. So it was with much trepidation that I tackled this earlier work by Joyce.

I was most pleasantly surprised to discover this collection of Dublin tales to be very accessible, and while I no doubt missed much of the poetical allegory present in his work, following the basic meanings of the story was within my reach. Ulysses may be as different to this as Faulkner's As I Lay Dying was to The Sound and Fury, but I hope not.

An relatively easy and enjoyable start if trying to work your way through Joyce's works.

Not just "An Original," but "THE Original".......2006-08-23

This is the old father, the old artificer, of all 20th century short stories. Each story is a gem, and together they tell like a rosary. "The Dead," is by itself a masterpiece which resonates long after you've finished it. Dubliners is Joyce's most accessible work, readable and enjoyable without losing any of its deeper nuances.

The Lessons of Life in Dublin.......2005-01-05

The simplest of all of Joyce's works, Dubliners introduces the people and everyday life present in Dublin, Ireland. While the events can be described as quite mundane, each of the fifteen short stories subtly highlights a unique meaning in life. Though each is self-sustaining, it is much more gratifying to read the tales in the order published. They follow the natural course of human life, growing from childhood to adulthood to death. Joyce skillfully demonstrates a sequence of events that can happen to anyone throughout a lifetime.

However, if you are completely unhappy with the first stories, skip to the end and read "The Dead". There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the best stories of fiction of its time - both in its use of language and its powerful messages. Actually a novella, this final story encompasses everything from politics to love to the inevitability of death rendering all else meaningless. While many people finish the Joyce's collection finding it to be one of the more depressing pieces of literature they have read, it really is not. For example, "The Dead" proves that death is essential to making a fresh start. Joyce did not intend to write to please others and leave them satisfied, but instead to portray reality in a grim city.

Just remember, after finishing Dubliners, you are one step closer to reading Ulysses!!

Great stories, great ciriticism.......2004-07-13

When he was a young man, James Joyce abandoned his hometown of Dublin, and yet, he never wrote about any other place. He had also rejected Catholicism, and yet all his characters are dominated by it. DUBLINERS, Joyce's collection of short stories which set the standard for the genre, is filled with characters who come to terrible revelations (which he called "epiphanies") about how their lives had been scarred by the provincialism of Dublin, the divisiveness of its politics, and the oppression of religion. By extension, this is how Joyce percieved humanity at the dawn of modernism.

The stories range from the psychologically simple ("Counterparts" and "A Little Cloud") to the extraordinarily complex ("A Painful Case" and "The Dead"). But what is common throughout is the feel for Dublin just after the turn of the last century. The readers see the cobblestones, the chimneys, the trams and carts, the churches, and the street lamps. More importantly, the readers feel the tensions underlying the public smiles and infrequent bursts of confidence that the characters exhibit.

The extra value of this Viking Critical edition is, of course, the criticism. The valuable notes help make the understanding of the reading much easier. And the critical essays, each single one, provides a deeper understanding of how to put these stories in a larger frame.

Beautiful, context-difficult, yet accessible collection.......2002-03-04

I suppose "Dubliners" as a collection of short stories is an excellent starting point for a newcomer to the literary world of James Joyce, for several reasons. The stories are written in plain English, a statement not to be under estimated, for Joyce is known for conscious, far-reaching experimentation within the English language, which ever since has inspired critics and theorists of literature, but at the same tame presented a common reader with a real challenge, ever so more overwhelming for the native speakers, not to mention those for whom English is a second, or third language. Joyce's most known works are as hard to read as they are to translate, this being the reason why "Finnegan's Wake" remains one famous book which is rarely translated, and even more seldom done so with any success whatsoever. "Dubliners" however comes nowhere close to the later-day experiments of this author, even if stories contained therein are thematically interconnected with "Ulysses". The prose is plain and captivating, often brutal, sometimes lyrical, but always dignified. Reading "Dubliners" is an adventure in itself, because if you happened to enter Joyce's world with the aforementioned volumes, you probably expected a similar experience. This book contains the very first literary attempts by this author, when although innovative in some respects, the stories fit well into the classical literary framework of the XIX century. Therefore, because of its accessibility, it's highly recommended to read "Dubliners" as your first volume by James Joyce. With this background, the ultimate task of dealing with "Ulysses", for it's a battle rather, than a casual reading, as Joyce himself projected, intended, and announced upon its publication - this task shall be much easier, and for once, even the reading of the aforementioned might prove successful and satisfying.

The stories contained in "Dubliners" are intriguing mainly because of their construction. Thematically interconnected, they constitute a coherent series of snapshots of Dublin, one of the largest cities in Europe at the time, and terribly under represented in literature. Characters appear as quickly as they fade away within the space of just a few pages, for you should know that the vast majority of stories in this volume are very short. So often the short stories are misunderstood, so often readers are genuinely perplexed. Unnecessarily so, because even if we agree that a short story should be brief and to the point, it's only too difficult to conceive a small pearl, which serves as a igniting spark of imagination, leaving the reader lost deeply in thoughts, genuinely affected by the content. It's not the case that everything should be explained, that the reader should be spoon-fed with logical presentation of events and causation. It's not the case that the ending of a short story should be definitive, so that there is nothing to subtract, nor anything to add when the last page is turned over. A good short story does not end with its last page, an observation I wish shall be helpful for you in your struggle with this literary form. It need not be a struggle, shouldn't be in fact, and if reading "Dubliners" will help you finding the answers on your own, so much the merrier.

Act after act in a play, we have a unique opportunity to see the real Dubliners, of all classes, occupations, with all different histories, lifetimes, passions, all types of human failure and success, all relative, built into the rich contextual background of Dublin, the city which should have been a capital of a country that also should have been but wasn't, at least not yet. These stories are not an assault on the storyline, as one might briskly attempt to categorize; their structure is classical, and yet Joyce contributed to the literary world by pushing the frontiers of the short story, at the same time retaining the compactness of the the contents despite of their enormous scope. It's not enough to read each story on its own, not in this volume. Although they are independent in the dimension of the storyline, the individual stories are essentially small jigsaw pieces of a puzzle; not in the sense of a greater, hidden meaning lurking there for a reader to discover, but in the sense of a multidimensional portrait of the city, the nation and its ailments, peculiarities and unique oddities. Much like Tyrmand's Varsaviana novels, "Dubliners" is an ode to Dublin, a city one loves so much to be sick of it, in Joyce's own words. There is a great deal to learn from James Joyce's "Dubliners", if you are so inclined, and the beautiful, accessible and yet context-difficult writing makes it a thoroughly enjoyable pleasure.

Dubliners (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
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Irish Stew

Beautifully written but underwhelming

Great Vignettes Of Dublin Life and A Great way to introduce yourself to James Joyce

Untitled

Frustratingly short short stories

Dubliners (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Release Date: 1991-11-26

Book Description

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Though James Joyce began these stories of Dublin life in 1904 when he was twenty-two and completed them in 1907, their unconventional themes and language led to repeated rejections by publishers and delayed publication until 1914. In the century since, his story “The Dead” has come to be seen as one of the most powerful evocations of human loss and longing that the English language possesses; all the other stories in Dubliners are as beautifully turned and as greatly admired. They remind us once again that James Joyce was not only modernism’s chief innovator but also one of its most intimate and poetic writers.

In this edition the text has been revised in keeping with Joyce’s wishes, and the original versions of “The Sisters,” “Eveline,” and “After the Race” have been made available in an appendix, along with Joyce’s suppressed preface to the 1914 edition of Dubliners.

Download Description

Dubliners was completed in 1905, but a series of British and Irish publishers and printers found it offensive and immoral, and it was suppressed. The book finally came out in London in 1914, just as Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man began to appear in the journal Egoist under the auspices of Ezra Pound. The first three stories in Dubliners might be incidents from a draft of Portrait of the Artist, and many of the characters who figure in Ulysses have their first appearance here, but this is not a book of interest only because of its relationship to Joyce's life and mature work. It is one of the greatest story collections in the English language--an unflinching, brilliant, often tragic portrait of early twentieth-century Dublin. The book, which begins and ends with a death, moves from "stories of my childhood" through tales of public life. Its larger purpose, Joyce said, was as a moral history of Ireland.

Customer Reviews:

Irish Stew.......2007-09-07

Because "Ulysses" is so imposing with its epic length and pages of solid, tiny text I decided to get my feet wet with "Dubliners," which is not quite half the other's length. From what I read with "Dubliners", I'll have to give "Ulysses" a shot in the near future.

Normally I'd do an obligatory plot summary, but that would be a pointless exercise because A) There are 15 short stories that comprise the book and B) None of them really has a traditional "plot" to speak of. Rather, "Dubliners" is a serious of what we in modern parlance would call "character sketches." Think of it as each story being a portrait of some person or scene done in painstakingly vivid detail. Each story focuses on some small moment that often leads the character to discovering a melancholy truth about life.

The first stories focus on children encountering the harsh realities of the adult world--a priest dying and an encounter with a creepy, crazy old man--and then move on to teenage love and then more adult problems of marriage, family, and politics before a final meditation on death in the aptly-titled "The Dead."

The way Joyce captures the humanity of each character is so stunning; he taps into the soul of these people to expose the secrets, wishes, hopes, and fears that reside within each of us. It's hard not to see a part of yourself in one or more of these characters, almost as if Joyce knew you over 90 years ago better than you know yourself right now. Because while the technology may change, the human psyche remains the same.

The reason I can't give this four stars is that like any short story collection there's a fatigue that sets in upon reading "Dubliners." The longer the collection goes on, the more similarities can be seen in the characters and the situations, the descriptions and the dialog. It's like listening to an album of music and noting that song 10 sounds a lot like song 5, which sounds a lot like song 2. There's really no way to avoid that fatigue unless the writer uses a completely different style each time.

As well, reading a book written over 90 years ago that's set in Ireland can be a challenge for a modern (not quite 90) year old American. Footnotes and such can be helpful, but it also interrupts the flow of the reading.

Still, Joyce's uncanny knowledge of humanity is well worth any fatigue or nuisances.

That is all.

Beautifully written but underwhelming.......2007-07-31

I enjoyed four of the fifteen stories in this book immensely. The others were great for their prose, depiction of people at certain junctures in their life, and reflection of Dublin at the turn of the Century, but otherwise not compelling.

"The Dead," his most enduring and evocative piece of short fiction, did nothing for me. I loved A Little Cloud, Couterparts, A Painful Case, and Eveline.

I read the Barnes&Noble Classic edition. The maps at the beginning of each story added no value.

After reading this book I'm ready for some contemporary fiction.

Great Vignettes Of Dublin Life and A Great way to introduce yourself to James Joyce .......2007-03-30

Admittedly Joyce's better known works can seem quite daunting to the uninitiated but here in these short character sketches a reader can begin to understand what all fuss is about and enjoy some wonderfully written short stories in the bargain.

The stories are consistently good and from the very first where a young boy encounters the death of someone he knows for the first time the tales and the characters are engaging. Highly recommended !

Untitled.......2007-02-01

I don't really have anything thoughtful to say exept that after reading this book multiple times, I think that it is tight, but breathes, and is choreographed as best as a human being could do, and in that regard, it is very much like a Beatles album, and should be esteemed in like manner.

Frustratingly short short stories.......2007-01-05

I had given up on James Joyce after finding "Ulysses" too murky and disorienting. When I mentioned this to a young handsome literature student in a Dublin pub, he suggested I try "Dubliners" instead. When I got back home I checked a copy out of the library and found it hard to believe this collection of stories was written by the same man who confounded me before. I found each story almost instantly engaging (except the one about the election; too far removed from my modern American experience, I guess), and most seemed to end abruptly. This may be why another reviewer wrote that the stories had no climax, but I simply wanted more. I'm here on Amazon to buy a copy because I still want more.

So did Joyce write these stories and then hit the Absinthe before writing "Ulysses"? Or am I thinking of Oscar Wilde...?

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JAMES JOYCE: A LITERARY LIFE
MORRIS BEJA
Manufacturer: Ohio State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Dubliners (Norton Critical Edition)
Ulysses Annotated
Ulysses
Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce, With Pound's Critical Essays and Articles About Joyce
Stephen Hero

ASIN: 0814205992

Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition

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Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition
James Joyce
Manufacturer: Garland Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ReJoycing: New Readings of Dubliners (Irish Literature, History and Culture)

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Your first and final commentary opening these deceptively simple yet infinite and fathomless short stories.

ReJoycing: New Readings of Dubliners (Irish Literature, History and Culture)

Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Viking Critical Library)
The Dead (Art of the Novella series, The)
Dubliners (Cliffs Notes)

ASIN: 0813109493

Customer Reviews:

Your first and final commentary opening these deceptively simple yet infinite and fathomless short stories........2007-01-19

Your first and (never) final friend and companion to the Dubliners,

This collection of fourteen scholarly essays (plus introduction and preface) provides not only the best basis for beginning appreciation of these still revolutionary short stories, but remains solid assistance for advanced readings of these subtle, elusive, shifting tales.

The Dubliners are called the most accessible of Joyce's work, yet the first essay in this collection quickly dispels this error in judgment, as it unfolds the hidden depths and embryonic techniques which bloomed in his later work. What we see upon the surface of these tales is not trustworthy, but open to a myriad of interpretation. Joyce's clever ambiguity has provided a wide spectrum of readings of his short stories, according to the reader's sense and sensibilities, prejudices and presumptions, of which the reader herself may not be fully conscious. As with Wilde's criticism, we often see in Joyce, particularly in these sparse stories, our own image and likeness believing we are reading as the author wrote. This collection of commentary well relieves us of this accident of parallax.

Please review these commentaries for a brilliant glimpse at Joyce's early writings and his tentative trial of narrative techniques later so maturely elaborated in Ulysses. Even a long time reader of Joyce learns much from this collection of essays, as the work of Joyce always holds more to reveal, and these studies are excellent in opening for us further dimensions in this deceptively complex early tales.

Highly recommended for beginning and advanced readers of Joyce, most recent, valuable and substantial of any commentary upon this collection of tales, and indicator of further study.

James Joyce A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work (Literary A to Z)

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A Context For the Classics
Wide-ranging, well-written browsing material!
Tons of fascinating information, plus guide to Ulysses!
A to Z and then some!

James Joyce A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work (Literary A to Z)
A. Nicholas Fargnoli , and Michael Patrick Gillespie
Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Stephen Hero
Ulysses
Ulysses Annotated
James Joyce (Oxford Lives)
A Reader's Guide to James Joyce (Irish Studies)

ASIN: 0816029040

Book Description

(series copy) These encyclopedic companions are browsable, invaluable individual guides to authors and their works. Useful for students, but written with the general reader in mind, they are clear, concise, accessible, and supply the basic cultural, historical, biographical and critical information so crucial to an appreciation and enjoyment of the primary works. Each is arranged in an A-Z fashion and presents and explains the terms, people, places, and concepts encountered in the literary worlds of James Joyce, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf. As a keen explorer of the mundane material of everyday life, James Joyce ranks high in the canon of modernist writers. He is arguably the most influential writer of the twentieth-century, and may be the most read, studied, and taught of all modern writers. The James Joyce A-Z is the ideal companion to Joyce's life and work. Over 800 concise entries relating to all aspects of Joyce are gathered here in one easy-to-use volume of impressive scope.

Customer Reviews:

A Context For the Classics.......2000-12-19

Essential to understanding the writtings of Joyce is understanding the world he lived in. Bear in mind that all of his works were, more or less, either autobiographical, or were about the world he lived in. This compilation of the many details of Joyces life shows us the minutia that made up books like "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," "Ulysses," and "Finnegans Wake." If properly used, this provides the key to interpreting the dense allusions and motives of his impressive body of work. After perhaps the works of Tindall, Bishop and Campbell, this is the most usefull book you can get to help understand the works of Joyce.

Wide-ranging, well-written browsing material!.......2000-09-06

Presents, in alphabetical order, brief (one paragraph to about 2 pages) synopses and explanations of people, places, themes, and phrases form several of Joyce's works, including his major novels and his poetry. Wonderful as either a tool for decoding Joyce, or as "skimming material." It's a treat to just wander through these pages, seeing explanations for `Finnegan' across from those for "Dubliners," a biography of T.S. Eliot one page after a description of the fictional "Earwicker."

Includes over 800 entries, illustrations, synopses of books and chapters, biographies of Joyce and his contemporaries, bibliography, a very useful index, as well as the text of Jude Woolsey's ruling to lift the ban on "Ulysses." The writing is clear, wide-ranging, and complete without bogging the reader down in minutiae. Not as thorough as the encyclopedic "Ulysses Annotated," but very useful in disentangling Joyce and his works without great effort! Written by a Professor of Theology and English at Molloy College (and vice president of the James Joyce Society), and a professor of English at Marquette University.

Tons of fascinating information, plus guide to Ulysses!.......2000-08-31

Elvis, the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe have received the A to Z treatment in which every aspect of their lives and works have been reordered alphabetically, so it was only a matter of time that the mania would spread to lesser figures in our popular culture, in this case Mark Twain, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

This series of three books, originally published by Facts On File and now updated and reprinted by Oxford University Press, combines facts culled from the writers' lives and works, shakes them up thoroughly, and recasts them into easily locatable entries. The result is an addictive pleasure, a page-turning odyessy for anyone interested in learning more about their favorite writer.

At 304 pages, the Joyce volume is the smallest of the trio, but what it lacks in size it more than makes up by offering extensive commentaries on "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake." Those who have tried to read these modernist (or post-modernist, the argument still rages) classics have quickly recognized the need for assistance. For "Ulysses," the Joyce volume reprints Joyce's chart that lists each chapter's time frame, location, symbols, technics, organs, art and correspondences to the original. Each chapter is given its own entry, which describes the action, Joyce's intentions, and clairifies points of Dublin's history. As one who attempted "Ulysses" solo, and suffered for his sin, I can speak with authority that this volume would have saved me a great deal of agony. I only wish they had abandoned their schema and combined the chapter descriptions into a single, lengthy appendix.

No detail is too small to escape the editors. There are also entries on Gustave Flaubert, an influence on Joyce's writing style; Throwaway, the race horse whose victory in the Ascot Gold Cup figures in "Ulysses," and the Volta Cinema, Dublin's first movie theater, which Joyce helped to open.

In short, this guide can help the Joyce reader move through the complexities of his work without feeling like you've earned a Ph.D in comparative literature while you're doing so.

A to Z and then some!.......2000-08-06

This is an outstanding reference for readers ranging from those having casual interest to serious Joyceans. All of Joyce's works are covered in some depth and the material on Ulysses and Finnegans Wake is fantastic. It includes chapter outlines and summaries. The book is also very good at providing concise summaries of people, places and things in or connected to Joyce's work. I wish I had discovered this book much earlier in my academic career.

Great Irish Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

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Synopsis

Great Irish Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Maria Edgeworth , William Carleton , Lady Gregory , Standish O'Grady , William Butler Yeats , James Stephens , James Joyce , Seumas O'Kelly , and Liam O'Flaherty
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Great French Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Great German Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Great English Short Stories (Thrift Edition)
Great Russian Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Great American Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

ASIN: 0486437884

Book Description

Features 13 captivating tales, including stories by Maria Edgeworth and William Carleton from the beginning of Irish prose fiction in English; the retellings of traditional tales by Lady Gregory and Standish O'Grady from the great age of the Irish Literary Revival; and the 20th-century works of William Butler Yeats, James Stephens, James Joyce, Seumas O'Kelly, and Liam O'Flaherty.

Customer Reviews:

Synopsis.......2005-10-02

"This collection of thirteen captivating tales by Irish authors illustrates both traditional and modern approaches to the Celtic art of storytelling. Spanning two centuries, it features stories by Maria Edgeworth and William Carleton from the beginning of Irish prose fiction in English; retellings of traditional tales by Lady Gregory and Standish O'Grady from the great age of the Irish Literary Revival; and contributions from many of the twentieth century's most significant writers, including William Butler Yeats, James Stephens, James Joyce, Seumas O'Kelly, and Liam O'Flaherty."--eCAMPUS

Aesthetic Autobiography: From Life to Art in Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Anais Nin

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More Genre-Bashing
Thought provoking and insightful...
How much is too much?

Aesthetic Autobiography: From Life to Art in Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Anais Nin
Suzanne Nalbantian
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0312172893

Book Description

Suzanne Nalbantian provides a precise and highly original basis to identify literary art with her novel approach to autobiography. Re-examining Proust, Joyce, and Woolf, with Nin in their wake, Nalbantian discerns models of a hybrid genre characterized by common aesthetics.

Customer Reviews:

More Genre-Bashing.......2007-01-24

While Nalbantian has veiled it in "neutral" academic prose and by using the particular cases of a few famous writers, her argument is just another example of memoir-hating. While I think it's an interesting exercise to try to trace author experience through fiction, doing so in a way that bashes an entire other category of writing should certainly make us suspicious. And while I agree that many readers are obsessed with memoir for all the wrong reasons, there are memoirists who do more than regurgitate facts, who actually write in literarily complex ways. The search for a pithy, simple thesis has unfortunately led S.N. astray in what might otherwise have been very interesting work.

Thought provoking and insightful..........2001-08-24

Aesthetic Autobiography is a fascinating study of the transmutation of life fact into fiction. Nalbantian's basic premise is that one's fictionalization of one's own life reveals more about an individual than an individual's earnest attempt at self documentation by way of a "memoir." The first chapter is an analysis of autobiography proper; in the second chapter Nalbantian introduces theories of "aesthetic autobiography," and in the subsequent chapters she relates her model of a shared aesthetics to the giants of twentieth-century autobiography. For example, writers of aesthetic autobiography share a concentration on a place, a childhood memory, and a beloved family member. In additon, they each utilize a concrete element as an anchor in time. It is a very creative work, and any individual interested in the creative process, the transmuation of life fact into fiction, will find this study essential and illuminating.

How much is too much?.......2000-04-07

The constant edification of authors reaches a sickening degree when their lives are marched out like so much cannon fodder. Are they interesting people? Undoubtedly. Worthy of print? Surely. Worthy of endless reams of print that never stops? You get the idea

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