A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

[Drunk Monk]

Wow, and this is the accessible Joyce. The beginning reminded me of Catcher in the Rye with its coming-of-age theme and remarkable descriptions of atmospheres and moods. Then it got majorly religious and philosophical, reminding me of my grad school daze when we were all trying to sound more intelligent and literate, even though we were already doctoral candidates. The cool part was reading it in Dublin. There would be passages when I was like 'I was just walking on that street!' Plus there's a character named Lynch. But it is so feckin obtuse - hundreds of footnotes per chapter and I hate flipping back and forth just to understand some odd reference (although some were really good). I could see how a reader could really get into it as a referential mystery to unravel, but that's just too much work for my casual reading. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it and am tempted to poach some of Joyce's descriptive style, if only I could find somewhere to reuse it.

[Drunk Monk]

i restate the title for those who don't hover - The Dubliners.

This is early Joyce - a collection of existential short stories all based in Dublin, the final tale being The areas, widely recognized as one of his sharpest pieces and rightly so. It was an enjoyable read. I've always liked short stories. It wouldn't have worked for me had I not visited Dublin. The Dead worked even better after our Georgian house tour. 

I'm done with Joyce now. It went well with Irish whiskey.