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Dubliners / A Portrait Of The Young Artist / Ulysses
Three Acclaimed Classics In One Volume
- GenresFiction
721 pages, Hardcover
First published December 18, 2013
About the author
James Joyce
1,842 books9,826 followersJames 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 25, 2023
Hynes is a wonderful, wonderful narrator. He really brings Joyce to life. When I’d first read and listen to Ulysses, John Lee was the audiobook narrator; I thought he was fine (I’ve listened to him narrate several audiobooks), but for this I think Tadhg is perfect.
[For Portrait of the Artist, I listened to the audiobook read by Colin Farrell and, well, that reading didn’t measure up to Tadhg’s reading]
Kayleigh Payne reads for Molly in the Penelope chapter (and once in an early chapter when Molly speaks) and she also reads wonderfully. I especially liked how with snippets here and there she would sing the lines - so appropriate for Molly. (And I wonder how the research was done to identify what was song - would these have been lines from songs known to locals?). Hearing this chapter read aloud, especially by someone as talented as Payne, is a truly fascinating experience.
As I listened to this, I was reading the text mostly in the kindle edition of The Complete James Joyce* and found the audiobook had additional language that was not in text; minor stuff: a word or a phrase here and there, but interesting that there would be differences.
For Ulysses, I was also reading it in The Complete Joyce on my kindle; interestingly, there were differences between what Hynes was reading and the text - and I figure Hynes was reading a copy that had more updated changes; what changes I encountered in his reading seemed like emending Joyce would have made.
As to notes on Ulysses, see highlights in The Complete Joyce; Ulysses; The Annotated Ulysses; Hastings Guide to Ulysses; and Delaney’s Re:Joyce.
More notes on Portrait under that title; and the same for Dubliners, though several of those stories can be found under their individual title.
[For Portrait of the Artist, I listened to the audiobook read by Colin Farrell and, well, that reading didn’t measure up to Tadhg’s reading]
Kayleigh Payne reads for Molly in the Penelope chapter (and once in an early chapter when Molly speaks) and she also reads wonderfully. I especially liked how with snippets here and there she would sing the lines - so appropriate for Molly. (And I wonder how the research was done to identify what was song - would these have been lines from songs known to locals?). Hearing this chapter read aloud, especially by someone as talented as Payne, is a truly fascinating experience.
As I listened to this, I was reading the text mostly in the kindle edition of The Complete James Joyce* and found the audiobook had additional language that was not in text; minor stuff: a word or a phrase here and there, but interesting that there would be differences.
For Ulysses, I was also reading it in The Complete Joyce on my kindle; interestingly, there were differences between what Hynes was reading and the text - and I figure Hynes was reading a copy that had more updated changes; what changes I encountered in his reading seemed like emending Joyce would have made.
As to notes on Ulysses, see highlights in The Complete Joyce; Ulysses; The Annotated Ulysses; Hastings Guide to Ulysses; and Delaney’s Re:Joyce.
More notes on Portrait under that title; and the same for Dubliners, though several of those stories can be found under their individual title.
October 18, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. I'm in awe of his poetic and descriptive writing style. 5 Stars!
January 13, 2012
"Ulysees" is one of the few original books that I've read. The narrative style feels as if you're listening to the potential director's voice over as he gives you a rambling and at times mad voice over over the character's seemingnly mundane actions. (Note: if plot is what you're after, don't persist). He intrudes into their thoughts with the break-through technique of a the inner monologue that I think he pretty much invented. At times grosse, at other times darkly humorous and always philiosophical which is the focus of the text as it canvasses issues of life, religion and I believe, although I haven't read this far yet- the notion of war. It's a masterpiece but not to everyone's liking and as it is such an intense read, I've only been reading it in short spurts - only up to an hour before I give my brain a break. I've found it easier to read something lighter at the same time. Overall, it's a worthwhile read for anyone seriously interested in English lit because of it's impact on modern fiction.
April 7, 2021
Get this book it's 3 books in one.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews