Product Description

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9117 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882, but exiled himself to Paris at twenty as a rebellion against his upbringing. He only returned to Ireland briefly from the Continent but Dublin was at heart of his greatest works, Ulysees and Finnegans Wake. He lived in poverty until the last ten years of his life and was plagued by near blindness and the grief of his daughter's insanity. He died in 1941.

Customer Reviews

A thoughtful and brilliant book!
I can't believe that no one has taken the time to write a review for this book. The reason? Possibly the overexaggerated appeal of Ulysses. As a young man myself I found his experiences of childhood and of Ireland poignant and thoughtful. Everyone should read this book to see just how well he got inside the mind of himself (for it is surely autobiographical) as a child and presented it in such a way that makes it a believable and brilliant novel. This book should be read and re-read!

..(from) THE DEPTHS
"A Portrait..", written with such creative wise insight, unfolds an extrordinary mind through its inner voice,
and lets the reader sense its overwhelming life-flow from cradle through the "unshackeling" towards freedom.
Reading this masterpiece, moving through ideas in literature,poetry,phylosophy,politics;
encountering situations,sights&sounds,thoughts&feelings through the books unique language, is both a beautiful & a thought-provoking journey.
This book i recommend to any reader who's curious to step beyond, read deeper, & find inspiration
--a personal favorite..enjoy.

Great account of the coming of age of a poet.
"A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man" was published in 1914, Joyce's first novel. Though the hero's name is given as Stephen Dedalus, to a great extent he is Joyce, and this is autobiography, chronicling approximately the first 20 years of Joyce's life.

Joyce is famous for the difficulties of his prose, but this applies primarily to "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake." "Portrait" is a relatively easy read. The opening page is perhaps the most unorthodox and difficult of the whole book, as it is an attempt to represent the consciousness of the infant Stephen. Following this is a long account of Stephen at boarding school, under the tuition of the Jesuits. Stephen is a timid, sensitive boy, ill-suited to the harsh regime of the brothers or the rough-and-tumble interaction of his fellows.

The main preoccupation of the book is the spiritual and sexual angst of the adolescent and post-adolescent Stephen. Though as a young boy he is religiously-inclined, the awakening of his sexual instincts leads to a prolonged internal struggle. Stephen frequently seeks the company of members of the prostitute class, and then indulges in much tortured self-recrimination.

As a previous reviewer mentioned, the sermon Stephen hears at a school retreat is incredibly powerful and vivid- detailing the infinity of horrors that await all transgressors from God's law. If churchmen really were able to speak so powerfully it is little wonder that Ireland fell so obsequiously under the Church's thumb. But Stephen openly rebels against the sexual and philosophical repression of the Church when he becomes a college student; he renounces all the ideals of his native society and avows "to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." In short, he becomes a poet.

For a first novel, "Portrait" is extremely self-important, as even the title reveals: Joyce is "The Artist," without irony. History would appear to have justified his opinion, however. In my opinion no one who intends to read "Ulysses" should do so without reading "Portrait" first. It is not difficult, despite Joyce's reputation, and is a fascinating account of the coming of age of a poet, who is revealed as a young man of typical human frailties who, through pride, determination and a rejection of all surrounding influences, became the most influential, if not the most widely-read, author of the Twentieth Century.