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

Description

James Joyce’s first novel, hailed as one of the greatest works of the twentieth century, about a young Irishman’s growth into artistic adulthood A semiautobiographical story mirroring Joyce’s own coming of age, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man begins when Stephen Dedalus is still a young boy. Living with his family in Dublin, Stephen’s first brush with the larger world occurs at boarding school, an unhappy time that he is eager to leave behind. Once home, however, life takes on a somber new tone as his father descends into alcoholism and his family’s finances dwindle. Joyce details young Stephen’s encounters with the Catholic Church, Irish politics, sexual experimentation, and coming-of-age in the twentieth century. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Not all readers can handle James Joyce, but this is one of his more accessible works, and this is an easy and comfortable way to enjoy it. It’s kind of a philosophical coming of age, in which the protagonist, obviously the autobiographical version of the author, discovers that the convoluted and severe Catholicism of his youth falls apart when confronted with the growing wisdom and maturity of real life. If you understand that sentence, you’ll understand Joyce.

⭐Who am to judge James Joyce? Like many, I put off reading this book until retirement. I should have read it earlier. It is at or near the top of all the thousands of books I have read in over 75 years of reading. I followed it “Dubliners” which is, if possible, even more brilliant. I am halfway through “Ulysses” and have learned to let it wash over my mind and not to fret about every word’s meaning. Joyce is unique in 20th century literature for a very good reason.

⭐This book impressed me deeply. The delivery was fast and good.

⭐Joyce is a favourite writer who reconciled me, as a troubled teenager, to being Irish. The early 20th-century Irish-Catholic soul is here revealed as perhaps in no other work, as the path of Joyce’s alter-ego, Stephen Dedelus, is traced from childhood to maturity.One marvellous set-piece after another is presented, the family home, the fierce Christmas argument over Parnell, the playing fields of Clongowes, the Hellfire sermon, the epiphany of the transcendent girl on the strand, the creation of a poem, the worshipful encounter with the nighttown prostitute… Until finally Stephen is ready to flee the nets that trammel the Soul, and forge the “uncreated conscience of his Race”…It is of course beautifully written as only Joyce can with the total beauty of language held in his mind and heart and hands. As his genius first shines then glows then bursts into flame… Here is his flight to the Sun.While not normally enamoured of the “Preface” I did find Seamus Deane’s to be insightful and of interest…But read this for a vision of early 20th-century Catholic Ireland, the unique account of the growth of the artistic mind, and the beauty of Joyce’s language shimmering across the veil of the world.

⭐James Joyce (1882-1941) ranks as one of Ireland’s greatest authors. His work is difficult and challenging to readers. In such classics as this novel along with the Dubliners short stories, the monumental Ulysses (which continues to examine the life of Stephen Dedalus and his friend Leopold Bloom) and Finnegan’s Wake he transformed literature in the twentieth century. This novel was originally published in 1917 in the United States and the next year in Great Britain. It is readable but the structure is not that of a typical novel. The story shines the spotlight on the young Stephen as he grows into manhood in Dublin during the early twentieth century. Dedalus was the father of Icarus who flew too close to the sun in Greek mythology.The Plot: We first meet Stephen as he perceives a story about a moo cow in his infancy. We then see the lad at a Jesuit run school where he dares to challenge a priest who has hit him for not reciting a lesson. Stephen had been excused from study because he broke his glasses when thrown into a rat infested water trench by another student Our next scene focuses on a Christmas dinner where Stephen overhears his family arguing over the career of Charles Parnell the Irish nationalist leader whose political career came crashing down when he was caught in an adulterous affair with Kitty O’Shea.. We next see Stephen and his father in Cork where the elder Dedalus is selling property as the family’s fortune is in sharp decline. Stephen visits the red light district of Dublin engaging in failed sex with prostitutes and his relationship with a young woman ends. He considers the priesthood and we are listeners at a long sermon on hell delivered by a Jesuit priest. Stephen begins to write and leaves Ireland after losing his Catholic faith as well as forsaking Ireland. His career and that of the self exiled James Joyce are similar. The book is not an easy read but is important in the career of the author and the arc of modern literature. As one who is a fan of the Everyman editions I enjoyed my fourth read of the novel and recommend it to your consideration.

⭐Book condition and turnaround time were excellent.

⭐Portrait’s stylistic variety is trumped only by Ulysses. The narrative prose evolves as the protagonist ages — the dialogue also provides us with a great number of distinct and memorable voices, most notably in the notorious sermon scene. But despite the novel’s preoccupation with style, it is also Joyce’s most emotionally direct book: there will probably never be a more evocative depiction of childhood loneliness than Part I of Portrait.

⭐James Joyce’s novel is difficult to review because it would take multiple reads and analyses to understand where he is coming from and where he is going to in his stream of consciousness style. I was advised to read this book by an Irishwoman if I wanted to understand Ireland and the Irish.I’m not sure if I do after struggling through this maze of words. But I did finish it so I accomplished something. Good luck to you.

⭐This is a poor quality version of the book. There have been deliberate errors inserted. For example in some places book has been replace with ebook. I saw this a few times and thought it was odd, but then later the word “worm” was replaced with “computer virus”. I stopped reading at this point an instead purchased the Penguin Kindle version which was fine. Note I had also purchased another version earlier which had the same errors, so it seems there are few of the incorrect versions floating around.

⭐James Joyce’s celebrated novel published in book form 1916 is always worth reading. A modernist style of writing this falls into that part of the Bildungsroman known as a Künstlerroman and concerns the young Stephen Dedalus.Here we follow the young Stephen as he grows up and see what schooling was like for him. Of course our main character is an alter ego of the author, and so this is quite autobiographical, and gives Joyce the chance to select what he places on the paper and to contemplate things.As we read this we see how language plays a large part as both Stephen’s use of it and his friends’ as well develops over the period this encompasses. Along with this is of course the development in character and the more adult thoughts that start to occur. This holds an interest for us especially in the schooling of the period in Ireland, where Dedalus is brought up by Jesuits. I should think most people are aware of the indoctrination in faith established at an early age so that those who have become part of an establishment are less likely to leave. We see how this affects the young Stephen who is even at one stage contemplating joining the priesthood.Well written with a wonderful use of language and symbolism this is something that is easy to get into and thus makes it probably the most accessible of Joyce’s novels. We can also find here the beginnings of Joyce’s fascination with style and use of language as he experimented further with Ulysses and then onto Finnegans Wake, showing his avant garde style and the potential of the novel to be something more than just a traditionally told narrative.

⭐I initially made the mistake of ordering this on Kindle and ploughed through it but there were no notes to help with sources and translations (of Latin) and too many broken lines and hyphens. So it was a relief to get the paperback thereafter which helped with all the right notes and details. It still isn’t an easy read as it is very much a stream of consciousness and a period piece – you need to understand where Joyce grew up and what life was like. That said, there are some wonderful passages of description and some very beautiful prose. Give yourself time and maybe read it more than once.

⭐This is one of Naxos’s finest recordings of any novel. Jim Norton reads with a sensitivity, intelligence and understanding of this complex text which comes only with long familiarity. He also has beautiful enunciation and a sense of phrasing and timing which few readers can match.Many readers will have struggled with this novel. It a modernist response to Jane Eyre, David Copperfield and Villette, charting the mental and spiritual progress of the author, thinly disguised. Its narrative procedures at times anticipate what Joyce would be doing in Ulysses and there are passages of experimental prose poetry. The major obstacle to one’s enjoyment, however, is not technical but human: except when he is Everychild and attracts a degree of pathos, Stephen, the hero, is a repellant character, moody, arrogant, cold and priggish with deluded notions of his creative powers: the villanelle he struggles to give birth to is a tedious exercise in rhetorical whining. Nor are any of the other major characters engaging or much developed personalities. The book seems conceived in a grudge against not simply the Catholic Church, the female sex and provincial Ireland but against humanity itself: it is Ulysses without Bloom and Molly and those dozens of living, vibrant minor characters. Perhaps Joyce rediscovered Dickens before writing Ulysses.But Jim Norton makes a wonderful case for this novel and of course Joyce does many interesting things with narrative voices and structure which make it historically important. This reading may well help others appreciate the whole work rather than give it up as a waste of time half way through.

⭐It is intensely annoying that this conversion to e-book has many word spaces missing. e.g. Chapter 3 paragraph 2 ‘Yet asheprowled in quest…’ I know this is Joyce, but this is not how the printed version reads. Can I have my money refunded please. Oops, I see I paid nothing in the first place. Serves me right for being such a cheapskate.

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