#3 James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

 

In the #100BestNovels category, I finally finished my first book! I’m using Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list for this category. They rank Ulysses by James Joyce as the best novel of all time, but quite frankly, it’s intimidating as hell and Portrait is #3 on their list so I swapped them. 

Portrait is described as Joyce’s “most approachable” work. Set in Ireland in the 1890s, it follows the life of Stephen Dedalus from childhood through university as he decides what kind of human he wants to be and how much of his family, religious, and national inherited baggage he wants to schlepp into adulthood.

James Joyce’s massive literary influence is in part because of his use of interior monologue, a narrative style that is a stream of consciousness from his main characters’ thoughts. This makes for a difficult but occasionally soothing read. For the first half of the book or so, I would sometimes read it out loud and let the gauzy prose wash over me. I had moments of really enjoying it. This style of writing is very effective in showing Stephen’s age progression and what he was concerned with as he grew up.

The second half of the book felt like page after page of Catholicism hell and damnation as Joyce’s main character struggles with his own religious beliefs. It was seriously slow-going for me and I’m glad it’s over.

The point of this project is not to share my profound insights on artists or their works that people much more qualified than me have been doing for over a hundred years, but to notice what this submersion in art inspires in the real world. In that respect, this was a huge success.

First, I spent hours learning about the Irish quest for independence and the home rule movement. It’s astounding how long things take, how hard activists work to push their vision forward, how flawed some of those visionaries are, so flawed that they hurt the very movement they are trying to help. The history of Ireland is so rich, tortured, and unique, it’s hard to put down once you start learning about it.

You really have to experience it first hand, so…. We’re planning a trip to Ireland! I’m so excited! Husband Rog is a huge soccer fan so we are going to try to wrap in a quick visit to England so he can watch his team play live for the first time. This is my favorite “real world consequence” of The Retirement Project so far.  

Enjoy this cute 11-minute history of Ireland. Let's get flutered!