The Dead by Joyce, James (2008) Paperback

by James Joyce

The Dead by Joyce,James. [1993] Paperback

Genres: Fiction, Classics

Paperback

About the author

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and a pivotal figure in 20th-century modernist literature, renowned for his highly experimental approach to language and narrative structure, particularly his pioneering mastery and popularization of the stream-of-consciousness technique. Born into a middle-class Catholic family in the Rathgar suburb of Dublin in 1882, Joyce spent the majority of his adult life in self-imposed exile across continental Europe—living in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris—yet his entire, meticulous body of work remained obsessively and comprehensively focused on the minutiae of his native city, making Dublin both the meticulously detailed setting and a central, inescapable character in his literary universe. His work is consistently characterized by its technical complexity, rich literary allusion, intricate symbolism, and an unflinching examination of the spectrum of human consciousness. Joyce began his published career with Dubliners (1914), a collection of fifteen short stories offering a naturalistic, often stark, depiction of middle-class Irish life and the moral and spiritual paralysis he observed in its inhabitants, concluding each story with a moment of crucial, sudden self-understanding he termed an "epiphany." This collection was followed by the highly autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), a Bildungsroman that meticulously chronicled the intellectual and artistic awakening of its protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, who would become Joyce's recurring alter ego and intellectual stand-in throughout his major works.
His magnum opus, Ulysses (1922), is universally regarded as a landmark work of fiction that fundamentally revolutionized the novel form. It compressed the events of a single, ordinary day—June 16, 1904, a date now globally celebrated by literary enthusiasts as "Bloomsday"—into a sprawling, epic narrative that structurally and symbolically paralleled Homer's Odyssey, using a dazzling array of distinct styles and linguistic invention across its eighteen episodes to explore the lives of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus in hyper-minute detail. The novel's explicit content and innovative, challenging structure led to its initial banning for obscenity in the United States and the United Kingdom, turning Joyce into a cause célèbre for artistic freedom and the boundaries of literary expression. His final, most challenging work, Finnegans Wake (1939), pushed the boundaries of language and conventional narrative even further, employing a dense, dream-like prose filled with multilingual puns, invented portmanteau words, and layered allusions that continues to divide and challenge readers and scholars to this day. A dedicated polyglot who reportedly learned several languages, including Norwegian simply to read Ibsen in the original, Joyce approached the English language not as a fixed entity with rigid rules, but as a malleable medium capable of infinite reinvention and expression. His personal life was marked by an unwavering dedication to his literary craft, a complex, devoted relationship with his wife Nora Barnacle, and chronic, debilitating eye problems that necessitated numerous painful surgeries throughout his life, sometimes forcing him to write with crayons on large white paper. Despite these severe physical ailments and financial struggles, his singular literary vision remained sharp, focused, and profoundly revolutionary. Joyce passed away in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1941, shortly after undergoing one of his many eye operations. Today, he is widely regarded as perhaps the most significant and challenging writer of the 20th century. His immense, complex legacy is robustly maintained by global academic study and institutions such as the James Joyce Centre in Dublin, which ensures his complex, demanding, and utterly brilliant work endures, inviting new generations of readers to explore the very essence of what it means to be hum

Reviews

[Vern Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gabriel's wife reflecting on past dead boyfriend, is the only thing I can think of regarding the title.
Irish style writing is hard to interpret at times.

[Paul Engelhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say that it's exactly a spoiler, but I do make reference to a loss - one would assume it is expected give the title. I don't name the specific loss, so it's less of a spoiler.

Anyway.

This starts off as a sweet charming story of a winter party hosted by two sweet, elderly aunts. While they are not young, they know how to throw a party that pleases everyone, appeals to everyone's dance, music and food tastes. The nephew of the aunts, Gabriel, is something of a master of ceremonies.

Politics, petty rivalries, concerns over over indulgences of some of the party guests abound, yet it all feels quaint and lovely.

The mini novel ends in a hotel room where Gabriel's wife details a loss she experienced as a young woman. Gabriel himself does not handle this new information well and gets a bit jealous and not terribly supportive of her grief (as he is interpreting it through the eyes their relationship and how me may be playing second fiddle to this lost love).

To say that the ending 'came out of nowhere' isn't exactly accurate. We see Mrs. Gabriel (Greta, I believe, is her name) growing weepy and weak after a song she hears at the party, so we know that something is not right in her world, but it seems a tad 'tacked on'. Like he needed an ending. I mean, when you title something "The Dead", you have to know that there will be some loss experienced through the telling of the tale. Still - 75% of happy happy joy joy and the final quarter of the work being death and grief seems a little forced.

The writing is strong however and strong enough to get over the blip in the plot of "okay. Time for sadness now". I would now be interested in watching the highly touted film from...what was it, the 1990s?

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Dead" is the final and longest story in James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914), a collection that presents a realistic and often bleak portrayal of early 20th-century Dublin life. Considered one of Joyce’s greatest short stories, The Dead explores themes of identity, memory, love, and mortality through the experiences of Gabriel Conroy, a socially conscious yet insecure protagonist. The story’s famous epiphany in the final paragraphs elevates it to a near-mystical meditation on the passage of time and the persistence of the past.
The story unfolds during an annual Christmas gathering at the Dublin home of the Morkan sisters, Kate and Julia, who host a festive dinner and dance. Their nephew, Gabriel Conroy, arrives with his wife, Gretta, and soon finds himself navigating social anxieties. Throughout the evening, Gabriel engages in intellectual discussions, delivers a well-received toast, and wrestles with his own insecurities about his relationship with his wife, his Irish identity, and his role in society. The climax occurs when Gretta, hearing a song—"The Lass of Aughrim"—is overcome with emotion. Later, she confesses to Gabriel that the song reminds her of Michael Furey, a young man who died tragically after waiting for her in the cold many years ago. Gabriel realizes that his wife has loved a dead man more deeply than she has ever loved him. This revelation leaves him feeling insignificant, forcing him to confront his own mortality in a profound epiphany as he watches the snow fall over all of Ireland. Gabriel’s struggles with his Irish identity, class status, and self-perception are central to the story. As a well-educated, cosmopolitan man, he feels disconnected from the traditional Irish culture represented at the party. His speech reflects this divide, as he quotes European authors and worries about being perceived as too pretentious or out of touch. His crisis of identity culminates in his realization that he may never have truly understood his own wife. While Gabriel assumes he has a strong bond with Gretta, her emotional response to Michael Furey’s memory reveals the limitations of their marriage. The story contrasts romanticized love (Michael Furey’s youthful passion) with Gabriel’s more conventional and uninspired relationship. The story’s famous final passage describes snow falling “upon all the living and the dead,” symbolizing Gabriel’s realization that life and death are inextricably linked. He sees himself as just one small part of the larger cycle of existence, and his epiphany forces him to acknowledge his own insignificance and ensuing demise. Joyce’s haunting meditation on love, time, and self-awareness, through Gabriel’s journey, surveys human defenselessness and the universal experience of loss. The story’s lyrical and melancholic ending, coupled with its rich symbolism and psychological depth, cements its place as one of the greatest short stories ever written.

[Cailin Leithead · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just did a more comprehensive review on the other version but it was so boring and I wouldn’t recommend. The notes made it so distracting, didn’t even adresss the words and phrases I actually had questions on, made it seem like he just paraphrased and copied a lot of quotes from other texts and authors and just put a bunch of places in it which also felt unoriginal because so much of the book referred to ancient architecture, parts of Ireland or statues and landmarks. The footnotes also took away from the story and made an already boring, confusing and hard to read book, even more confusing and take even longer.

[Aadit Panse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked the book, the descriptions were wonderful and made me feel like I was there listening to the piano or eating with the family. However, and maybe this is an issue with me, sometimes I just couldn't understand the themetaic plot. I just couldn't understand the problems that James joyce talked about. It is most likely that there may be a gap in my knowledge either about his craft or the context of his writing.

[Martyna Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

deep, thought-provoking work. I wish I was mature enough to just simply enjoy these types of works, but I think I will stick to light, escapist literature with little conflict to save me from these feelings of anguish and despair. nevertheless a good read.

[morgan rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this in high school and then gave it to my little
brother to use for the same class a couple of years later. i couldn’t really focus on the story all that much bc my brother’s teenage commentary was too funny lol.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I selected this book for our 60 year old Book Club. I thought we could use some James Joyce and it was well reviewed. Not exactly the Christmas theme I was hoping. We’ll see what others think of it on Wednesday evening. Ugh.

[Nicolas Jao]

-pretty good. i liked the heartfelt tone of the story. also beautiful prose
-felt like an introduction to the essence of irish culture

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite stories by Joyce.

[Raegan Hoyer]

bleak!

[Rosc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evocative read on the day that the story occurs. Beautifully
Written.

[Brodie Fowler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very introspective but hurt my heart ❤️. Such a good Christmas story but also a story about being dissatisfied and having feelings of pretentiousness and feeling guilty about it.

[Lola Stocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brev. Listened to bbc audiobook. So beautiful

[Akash Raj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dull and soft, like Dublin snow

[anoldfashionedgirl]

Read for school. Was mildly entertaining, had a few iffy things.

[Juli Wisotsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know how this books reads, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it on The Classic Tales podcast. Wonderful accents and descriptions. Such emotion.