Dubliners

by

Paperback, 319 pages

English language

Published Aug. 6, 2016 by Ulverscroft.

ISBN:
978-1-4448-2942-6
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OCLC Number:
954285274

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4 stars (1 review)

1890s Ireland: Across the city of Dublin, as the River Liffey winds and twinkles through its heart, infinite domestic dramas play themselves out behind lace curtains and broken window-panes, inside quiet parlours and crammed churches, along concrete pavements and cinder paths. Through these are illuminated snippets of the lives of the Dubliners - truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur theologians, struggling musicians, moony adolescents, victims of domestic brutishness, sentimental aunts and poets, patriots earnest or cynical...and people just striving to get by. --back cover

182 editions

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.