Dubliners - BookWyrm

Paperback, 317 pages

English language

Published Dec. 8, 1993 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-018647-5
OCLC Number:: 1033587469

(1 review)

'When you think that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years,' James Joyce once wrote his brother, 'that it is the 'second' city of the British Empire . . . that it is nearly three times as big as Venice, it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world.'

In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only twenty-five, we are given a definitive group portrait. It is a book, as Terence Brown writes in his stimulating Introduction, 'rooted in an intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life.' And yet, beyond its brilliant and almost brute realism, it is also a book full of enigmas, ambiguities, and symbolic resonance. Dubliners remains a work of art that, Brown's words, 'compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world, its controlling sense of truths experience as its author discerned them in a defeated, colonial …

'When you think that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years,' James Joyce once wrote his brother, 'that it is the 'second' city of the British Empire . . . that it is nearly three times as big as Venice, it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world.'

In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only twenty-five, we are given a definitive group portrait. It is a book, as Terence Brown writes in his stimulating Introduction, 'rooted in an intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life.' And yet, beyond its brilliant and almost brute realism, it is also a book full of enigmas, ambiguities, and symbolic resonance. Dubliners remains a work of art that, Brown's words, 'compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world, its controlling sense of truths experience as its author discerned them in a defeated, colonial city.' (back cover)

182 editions

Julie R reviewed Dubliners James Joyce 1914 by James Joyce

Much more interesting than I expected

4 stars

If you've been avoiding Joyce because of Ulysses, this book feels like a warm-up both for the reader and the author. There are beautiful phrases buried inside intriguing vignettes. Yes, the political and social commentary is there (and opaque for those of us without knowledge of the time period and history), but the stories are enjoyable independent of those allusions. (Except for Two Gallants. I felt like that one went right over my head, but I also noted the excessive walking similar to Ulysses.) I found a lot of pain in these stories, but I was also struck by the deep sense of community and family. Most of these "stories" don't have an ending as we think of story structure, but are open to interpretation and thought. Reminded me a bit of all those lessons in high school about the Lady and the Tiger by Stockton.