What do you think?
Rate this book
Suspicious Readings of Joyce's "Dubliners"
Because the stories in James Joyce's Dubliners seem to function as models of fiction, they are able to stand in for fiction in general in their ability to make the operation of texts explicit and visible. Joyce's stories do this by provoking skepticism in the face of their storytelling. Their narrative unreliabilities—produced by strange gaps, omitted scenes, and misleading narrative prompts—arouse suspicion and oblige the reader to distrust how and why the story is told.
As a result, one is prompted to look into what is concealed, omitted, or left unspoken, a quest that often produces interpretations in conflict with what the narrative surface suggests about characters and events. Margot Norris's strategy in her analysis of the stories in Dubliners is to refuse to take the narrative voice for granted and to assume that every authorial decision to include or exclude, or to represent in a particular way, may be read as motivated. Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners examines the text for counterindictions and draws on the social context of the writing in order to offer readings from diverse theoretical perspectives.
Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners devotes a chapter to each of the fifteen stories in Dubliners and shows how each confronts the reader with an interpretive challenge and an intellectual adventure. Its readings of "An Encounter," "Two Gallants," "A Painful Case," "A Mother," "The Boarding House," and "Grace" reconceive the stories in wholly novel ways—ways that reveal Joyce's writing to be even more brilliant, more exciting, and more seriously attuned to moral and political issues than we had thought.
As a result, one is prompted to look into what is concealed, omitted, or left unspoken, a quest that often produces interpretations in conflict with what the narrative surface suggests about characters and events. Margot Norris's strategy in her analysis of the stories in Dubliners is to refuse to take the narrative voice for granted and to assume that every authorial decision to include or exclude, or to represent in a particular way, may be read as motivated. Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners examines the text for counterindictions and draws on the social context of the writing in order to offer readings from diverse theoretical perspectives.
Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners devotes a chapter to each of the fifteen stories in Dubliners and shows how each confronts the reader with an interpretive challenge and an intellectual adventure. Its readings of "An Encounter," "Two Gallants," "A Painful Case," "A Mother," "The Boarding House," and "Grace" reconceive the stories in wholly novel ways—ways that reveal Joyce's writing to be even more brilliant, more exciting, and more seriously attuned to moral and political issues than we had thought.
- GenresCriticism
296 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
18 people want to read
About the author
Margot Norris
25 books3 followersMargot Norris is Chancellor's Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, where she teaches modern literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 20, 2012
Norris's book is one of the most brilliant scholarly publications on DUBLINERS extant. I'd read and used it before, but I just blocked out a portion of time to read it from beginning to end, from cover to cover. Norris's scholarship is matched by her unique, inventive, but never far-fetched intensive readings of the stories. Her labeling of them as "suspicious" is perfect. And highlighting all is the sheer elegance of her delivery. I don't think intellectual undertakings are often conveyed with the combination of wisdom and grace that is evident here. Exemplary.
February 24, 2009
just finished teaching "a little cloud" so i reread parts of this piece of lit crit. interesting ideas but holy crap! talk about tortured prose. made me glad i don't spend time sitting around writing lit crit anymore bc sometimes it strikes me as a terribly cruel things to do to literature and the english language.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews