What a wonderful choice for this week’s selection! I am actually teaching it tomorrow in class. James Joyce can be rather intimidating (to put it mildly) in the height of his High Modernist experimentation. In this story (and in the entire collection of _Dubliners_), Joyce is at his most approachable. Although Joyce is never one for easy sentimentality, he cultivates such compassion for his marginalized figures in this collection—like the young man in this narrative as he desperately attempts to find some vestige of hope, beauty, & grace in his state of quiet & unrecognized despair by those surrounding him in this impoverished setting. What I find most striking is the level of empathy he feels for these figures—viewed as unworthy of respect or attention by other figures in this colorless world shaped by the all-encompassing “moral paralysis” Joyce references in the introduction to the collection. His tenderness toward these vulnerable and disappointed characters is notable, perhaps as he feared he could become one of these figures trapped in self-protective stasis if he did not escape this deadened environment in his own life.
The most taught short story by Joyce. _Dubliners_ closes, as you must know, with "The Dead"--its brilliance, incomparable.
What a wonderful choice for this week’s selection! I am actually teaching it tomorrow in class. James Joyce can be rather intimidating (to put it mildly) in the height of his High Modernist experimentation. In this story (and in the entire collection of _Dubliners_), Joyce is at his most approachable. Although Joyce is never one for easy sentimentality, he cultivates such compassion for his marginalized figures in this collection—like the young man in this narrative as he desperately attempts to find some vestige of hope, beauty, & grace in his state of quiet & unrecognized despair by those surrounding him in this impoverished setting. What I find most striking is the level of empathy he feels for these figures—viewed as unworthy of respect or attention by other figures in this colorless world shaped by the all-encompassing “moral paralysis” Joyce references in the introduction to the collection. His tenderness toward these vulnerable and disappointed characters is notable, perhaps as he feared he could become one of these figures trapped in self-protective stasis if he did not escape this deadened environment in his own life.
Perhaps wonderful writing - of an incredibly wretched young life.
'Tis wonderful...the words have such a calming rhythm as the setting unfolds.
Love this story so much. I read it for the first time in a college writing class 10 years ago and still think of it often!
"I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away." Sigh.