James Joyce: The Dead And Other Stories

by James Joyce

The Sisters, Araby, An Encounter, Two Gallants, Eveline, After the Race, The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, A Mother, Clay, The Dead

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Irish Literature, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published July 1, 1989

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

[iva° · Rating 4 out of 5]

ovaj izbor od 4 priče iz "dublinaca" (koje inače sadrže 15 novela) može te samo zaintrigirati da posegneš za cijelim djelom. joyce je precizan, ali mekan, razotkriva društvene slojeve i karaktere kao fin gospodin (možda i jer nas od njega dijeli stotinjak godina), ono što želi reći, on će i reći, ali na način da se nitko ne uvrijedi, tek da malo zastane i zamisli. realizam u najreprezentativnijem smislu.

[Adam DeFosse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was the first from Joyce that I have read in its entirety. The entire Dubliners collection was fantastic; specifically The Dead, but the rest of the book fell just a little short for me. The Dead’s ability to tackle love, loss, and nationality really helped wrap up the collection as a whole. Being almost double the size of any other parts of Dubliners I would argue The Dead is more of a novella, but that’s beside the point. It’s easy enough to follow along with his short stories despite their strong ties and references to Ireland, but the smaller essays and poems near the end of the book were much harder to understand. I will no doubt go back and read them after I’ve read more of Joyce’s works, but for now I will appreciate his literary prowess as I begin one of his actual novels.

[Tabea Werhahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wave of yet more tender joy escaped from his heart and went coursing in warm flood along his arteries. Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life together that no one knew of, or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his memory. He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers.

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?

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many aspects of Ireland revealed -- class differences, British domination, Irish nationalism, music, traditional gatherings -- in such a short space. Plus that last paragraph in The Dead, the snow on Michael Furey's grave. I think I remember several friends in an Irish pub in London reciting that now.
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[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the AP literature application we were to read the short story "The Dead" by Joyce James. Although, the beginning had a very slow start the author uses much description and carefully chooses his words choices. I really liked the way the author uses details to describe the way the characters because the readers had a clear picture of how they act and look. In the end; the main theme evolves, as the main character, Gabriel, hears the story of his wife's childhood love. He realizes that his wife does not love him and his feelings for her are the same. He also notices that he has never been loved by a women and hasn't shown his true feelings toward anyone.
I really enjoyed the end but the beginning made it hard to get into the story so I don't think I would read another story by this author.

[Countess of Frogmere · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the last story in Joyce's The Dubliners, as well as the last short piece he wrote. And why would you want to write something else once you've accomplished something as beautiful as this story? Gabriel, confident and smug in his professional life, his education, and his marriage, has an epiphany after a celebration of the Epiphany at the home of his elderly aunts and spinster niece. The last passage is just breathtaking.

There's a wonderful film adaptation directed by John Huston and starring his daughter, Angelica. My only quibble (and it's a small one) is that Gabriel doesn't wear glasses in the film. The glasses seem to me to be an important symbol of his figurative blindness.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suggested reading this book when another book group was reading Last Night at the Lobster. It's an obvious pairing--both are winter stories. Snow is almost a character in each--and is a symbol of death and loss, the end of love. But the more we discussed the connections between Joyce's novella and O'Nan's short novel, which is barely longer than a novella, the more connections we saw. It is such a beautiful story. I recommend it highly and love this pairing.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read these stories several times over the years but I never noticed "Exiles" like I did this time through. It might be the best play I've read (reread) in years. (Read the book not the audio book.)

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful audiobook