Rian Bolger > Recent Status Updates

Excruciating. Might DNF. I think I have outgrown Lovecraft by quite a margin.

The Dead
- Obviously an astounding work, Eliot was right to call it the finest short story ever written.
- I have two or three reads on what Gabriel, Michael, and Gretta represent on a nationalist level, which is always the easiest bit to parse with Joyce, thankfully.
- I really felt those themes of a sort of social paralysis or stagnation over the party.
- Full review of whole book to come!

Yarrr har har

Grace

- Joyce flexing his capacity for comedy big time, lots of fun
- Very educational notes on this one, well written by whoever did them for Penguin
- Very cool ending, really felt the scorn for the Church there by turning the sermon into business jargon

Yo ho ho

A Mother
- Another strong and memorable entry from Joyce, one of the ones I'll remember better in a few years.
- Love Mrs. Kearney's adamant pursuit of payment, and how the reality of stupid, scamming fucks in the arts completely runs against the romantic aspirations she has for her daughter amid the Irish Literary Revival.

Ivy Day in the Committee Room
- Always interesting when Parnell comes up with Joyce. I really struggle to hone in on what he thinks of him. I love how he casts a shadow over everything Joyce writes.
- I liked that the poem tackles everyone who let Parnell down and everyone has the sense to just agree and sit in respectful silence.
- One of the more labyrinthine stories as prose goes.

Immediately some of the most gorgeous, exciting, dynamic prose I've read and I haven't even gotten into the spooky stuff yet.

A Painful Case
- Wondered how much of this would be a stand-in for Joyce on seeing Duffy owned a copy of a play Joyce had penned a translation of. Reckon the surname "Dubh" hints at a "dark" reflection of Joyce, this is the Joyce that remains trapped in Dublin. The anti-Dedalus
- Fantastic descriptions of his time with Mrs Sinico, have to wonder if and why her name deliberately sounds like "cynical" 🤔

Clay
- Probably the most confused I've been for one of these, maybe due to the length.
- Once I straightened out what was going on, I liked it a lot more.
- Grim how central alcohol is to the story, drunkards on the tram are as prevalent as ever unfortunately.
- Poor Maria.

Counterparts
- Farrington is a percectly repugnant protagonist. God, I hated him. Naturally those last few lines broke my heart. I want to kill him.
- Fantastic sense of place as always, thankful to Joyce for so often writing about the city centre where I'm familiar with the street names and can feel smart.

It's no Hitchhiker's Guide!

Maybe the cruellest book I've ever read. Just horrible. Currently at a point where the main character is trying to take a hospice patient off life support because she doesn't like seeing sick people.

Yes Mr Hendrix it's very feminist to have your protagonist immediately start feeling romantic urges towards the 26 year old manfailure that she caught jerking off

It wouldn't be an American book without the author appropriating Samhain!

Impressively and immediately dreadful. Liberal wokescolding from an idiot that doesn't understand what the problem is, or what he wants his book to be. Makes the wrong creative decision at every turn. This is the closest I have come to DNFing a book in years.

A Little Cloud
- Liked this one a lot. Again he's moving around the city center so I had a great sense of place and familiarity.
- Connected with Chandler a lot. Completely understand the frustrations and longing. Seeing that you can do something someone else has but the only hurdle being a difference of drive is torture.
- Heartbreaking little ending with his young fella.
- Excessive footnotes again, Penguin?

Every time this man speaks outside of his field he reveals himself to be one of the dumbest men ever

Lecturer is friends with the bell curve guy ??

Even the most professional, knowledgeable linguist can't help but be an ignorant, pigheaded American for too long.