Dubliners: Penguin Classics

by James Joyce

"Mi allontanai lentamente lungo il lato soleggiato della strada, leggendo mentre camminavo tutti i manifesti teatrali nelle vetrine dei negozi. Trovai strano che nè io nè il giorno sembrassimo in lutto e mi sentii anche seccato scoprendo in me una sensazione di libertà come se la sua morte mi avesse liberato da qualcosa".

Racconti:
- Le sorelle
- Un incontro
- Eveline
- Una piccola nube
- Contropartita
- Un caso pietoso
- Una madre

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, English Literature

Audible Audio

First published January 10, 2016

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

[Abigail Cfr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestamente, algunos relatos muy interesantes y otros que solo queria que acabaran. Ha sido muy costumbrista.

[Miguel García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dublin era un battle royal para los infantes, eh? bueno, es un libro, esta bien, algunas historias mejor que otras. Seguimos.

[Peter Cotell · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 3.5. Some really good stories, some less so. Worth the read.

[Umberto Boldrin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Racconti semplici e che onestamente non mi hanno molto entusiasmato. Posso anche mettere in conto che sia io che non ne ho capito appieno la profondità letteraria e io senso di insieme che lo scrittore voleva trasmettere. Sta di fatto che personalmente non mi sembrano nulla di speciale, le mie aspettative sono state un po' disattese.

[kaili · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

[MyChienneLit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short stories in this collection are world-class. Joyce has mastered the form and uses it to bring the sublime and the mundane to his readers. Joyce is frequently passed over because people are intimidated by the experimental, stream-of-confidence fugue state of his longer novels. His short stories, however, are written in a far more conventional and easily comprehensible style. The plots and themes in this book are weighty and thought-provoking, but the language and voice is clear and easy to understand. The stories are generally pretty short, so this is a perfect book to read for a bit, and set aside if needed. The Dubliners is the ideal introduction to Joyce, but his fans will love these stories as well.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to read stories that bring you to a romantic, ethereal vision of Ireland and its culture, then don't read Joyce. He writes stories of the downtrodden and miserable in the city of Dublin. Joyce isn't necessarily negative, just honest. The short stories are easily broken down to digestible pieces, but they won't leave you feeling nostalgic for a mystical place.

CodEx Cantina did a wonderful Youtube analysis on each of the stories.

Fun fact: I chose my son's name from "The Dead" after I read it while pregnant.

[Trevor McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely an unusual collection of vignettes that feel like we're just peeking in on a tiny portion of a much longer story. I imagine this is intended. The stories are all wildly different, but generally follow a bunch of pretty awful men. It turns out that excessive alcohol consumption brings out some terrible qualities in people. Shocker.

I'm glad I read a Joyce book finally, even if it's a baby one.

[Peter Hajmasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

34. szülinapom

[Pino Sabatelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quattro stelle e mezza

[Ana Libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me fascinan estos relatos excelente como nos cuenta cosas sin apenas mencionarlas

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Básicamente como 22 relatos sobre Springfield pero en Dublin.
Es como Carver, historias del día a día de gente común de Dublin, sin nada sobresaliente, pero la vida es interesante por si misma. Claramente no entendí todas las referencias porque es una obra que espacio temporalmente es muy específica, pero lo referente a la condición humana es bastante identificable.

[Radit Panjapiyakul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joyce's short stories has meditative quality that you need to read the collection as a whole to get what it is all about. Each story does not really work on its own and is only part of the big picture. They are less about stories of people in Dublin but more of a still life sketch. There are not much plots anywhere in these stories. I think the main theme is the reflection on the the transient nature of things which can be seen in many part especially the last story. And it is a book that requires reading with open mind to appreciate its quality.

[Giada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letto in italiano.
Ho letto:
- The Sisters (non l'ho capito)
- Eveline (non l'ho capito)
- The Dead (molto bello, commovente)

[Erynn McKelvy]

just a few of them :)

[Aurora Losa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maravillosas descripciones, te mete de lleno en el Dublín de la época y sus habitantes. El último relato es digno de mención.

[Azael Contreras · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Road to Ulysses (3)