Status Updates From Dubliners

Holy shit this book is aggressively Irish in the sense that it's so heavily written into every story, you need whole pages of background the book gives you in the back in order to understand what Joyce is talking about half of the time
He's bought proud to be Irish but understands his country's flaws deeply, I think that's really interesting

Pretty much every one of these stories made me think, stuck with me or taught me something. There's so much wisdom, pain and humanity in these mostly mundane experiences, also quite a lot of wit and irony and dare I say mischief in the writing that made it all so unique.

I've been reading it for about two years now and don't care to list my impression of each story, but that last one (The Dead) hit hard.