Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Dubliners
    Dubliners
    Dubliners
    Ebook250 pages4 hours

    Dubliners

    By James Joyce

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The debut of Ireland’s greatest author and one of the most influential voices in modern literature

    It took nine years for James Joyce to find a publisher for this vivid, uncompromising, and altogether brilliant portrait of Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century. Now regarded as one of the finest story collections in the English language, it contains such masterpieces as “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead,” and serves as a valuable and accessible introduction to the themes that define Joyce’s later work, including the monumental Ulysses.
     
    Elegantly interweaving a moral history of Ireland with profiles of brave, flawed, and utterly realistic individuals—many of them clearly drawn from the author’s own life—experiencing moments of profound insight, Dubliners is an essential work of art.
     
    This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateOct 28, 2014
    ISBN9781497679337
    Author

    James Joyce

    James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. He came from a reasonably wealthy family which, predominantly because of the recklessness of Joyce's father John, was soon plunged into financial hardship. The young Joyce attended Clongowes College, Belvedere College and, eventually, University College, Dublin. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, and eloped with her to Croatia. From this point until the end of his life, Joyce lived as an exile, moving from Trieste to Rome, and then to Zurich and Paris. His major works are Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan's Wake (1939). He died in 1941, by which time he had come to be regarded as one of the greatest novelists the world ever produced.

    Read more from James Joyce

    Related to Dubliners

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Dubliners

    4/5

    105 ratings95 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Sure, this collection was written by none other than James Joyce, but let's be perfectly honest: this book encapsulates what Thoreu was talking about when he stated the obvious: "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." After finishing this collection of failed lives, broken dreams, religious superstition, alcoholic excess, harsh memories, heartbreak, double-dealing, etc, I am going to need lots of ice cream to cleanse my palate of from the taste of a 'why even bother' mentality. And to think that my Irish grandmother was living in these very streets as this book was written! No wonder she left! Despair at its most relentless; as one character notes, "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." And he was one of the lucky ones!
    • 5/5
      A reread of Dubliners, which I haven't read in half a century. A first read of the Norton Critical Edition with its supplementary materials. Dubliners could get 5***** on its own, but the supplementary materials in this NCE are absolutely superb, even better than the usually excellent NCE material. Especially good were Howard Ehrlich's " 'Araby' in Context: The 'Splendid Bazaar,' Irish Orientalism, and James Clarence Mangan" and Victor Cheng's "Empire and Patriarchy in 'The Dead'."
    • 3/5
      Sometimes there's a time not to read great works. I'm not sure why I chose the busy Christmas period to make my first foray into Joyce - to be quite honest it was hard going at times. Unlike what I've heard of Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, this collection of 15 stories was not arduous at all in terms of the style of writing, but I'm not a short story collection lover at the best of times, and I found myself often reading the book just for the sake of getting through it.Can I see what everyone raves about? Yes, I think I can. These stories were all about characterisation - subtleties and nuances which made each character quickly very believable and credible. It's just that clever as the writing and these characters were, I often found myself glazing over. I enjoyed the Dublin setting, and a number of the stories hooked me in, but many of them went nowhere, and sharply observant as the vignettes were they were often peppered with characters I didn't particularly like, which makes it hard for me to fall in love with writing even if it's from one of the so-called greats.I struggle with collections of short stories as they aren't long enough to suck me into page-turning addiction mode, and it can take me forever and day to get through a book like this as a result (despite it only being 250 pages long). Why did I pick this up then? Well, one of my late 2017 resolutions was to get back to doing more writing competitions again, and as I don't enjoy reading short stories I've been banging my head against a brick wall trying to write any that are a shade better than complete tripe. I wanted to examine the pace, the intros and the endings in particular, and how much plot to reveal.On that level the book did deliver, but there is a time for reading work like this, and I simply hadn't enough time or peace and quiet to give it the attention it deserved. This is a collection of stories that deserves to be studied, with attention given to the deftness of Joyce's literary art. I, on the other hand, was simply in the mood for reading for the sake of pure enjoyment.3 stars - I appreciated it, but felt like I dragged myself through much of it.
    • 4/5
      I finished the last story in this collection last night--Christmas Eve, coincidental with the story taking place on Christmas night. I have enjoyed every one of the tales in this book, the light brushstrokes with which each character and scene is painted, the reliance on simple human circumstances rather than action-heavy, moralistic plotlines. They rise from the page, leaving me with the sorts of emotions--wistfulness, annoyance, regret, joy--that I know well from real life. Beautiful.
    • 5/5
      First read Dubliners in the early 90's... re-read it again in 2005 or so along with some critical essays. Probably in my top 50 of all time... will be making that list once I have all my titles uploaded and reviewed. I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath for that.
    • 5/5
      What can be said of James Joyce, the son of John Joyce, that hasn’t been said already? He was the partially blind bard of Ireland and at the same time the only heir apparent to Shakespeare himself, whose four works of prose fiction are each masterpieces, and whose “apocrypha” (by which I mean his work outside of prose fiction, including verse poetry, drama, and an early version of Portrait called Stephen Hero), if not of the high standards set otherwise, holds literary merit and esteem in its own right.Dubliners, Joyce’s first masterpiece and only collection of short stories, carries in its pages all of the self-assured sophistication and willingness to break rules Joyce was famous for, but a much lesser degree of the “obscurity” he would pioneer in his next books and take to its fullest extent and conclusion in the dream freakout of Finnegans Wake, which would famously be called obscure by Ezra Pound, who wrote The Cantos . Dubliners is one of the greatest collections of short stories in the English language, if not the greatest collection. Centering around Joyce’s idea of the epiphany, or moments of great reflection, introspection, or realization, each story centers on the moment when a given character’s true self is brought out. It may be somewhat hard to understand and slow going at first, but once you catch on to what Joyce is doing – I caught on about half way through – then you will be hooked.“Two Sisters”, the first story, starts the collection on a dour note. A boy in mourning over his mentor, a priest named Flynn, isn’t sure how to deal with the ramifications of his first brush with mortality. Spiritually connected with the last story, “The Dead”, this story with its abrupt ending (mid conversation) shows that Joyce is not about to hold your hand through this collection. You’re going to have to dig in and find the purpose of the story yourself- there is no moral help, no conventional use of plot, and no tropes, allegories, or indicators.And that’s just the tone of the stories as they go through. The narrator doesn’t help you with anything and the characters are left to voice themselves and moralize on their own. To give you a little more information, “An Encounter” is about two boys’ acquaintance with an old lecherous pervert, “Two Gallants” details a couple of con men who find a maid willing to steal from her employer, “A Painful Case” is the realization of a man who rebuffs a woman that he has condemned her to a life of loneliness and isolation. These are the types of stories you can expect to find within the world of Dubliners.These are all great stories and each has its own unique, individual flavor, but the crowning jewel of the set would have to be “The Dead.” At around 15,000 words, some would consider this to be a novella, but its themes and materials are actually inextricable from the rest of the collection. It really is the consummation of all of the other stories, an intensification of what is happening throughout the rest of the book. It also breaks the most rules. First off, the story tricks the reader by starting out with a focus on one of the minor characters in the story. In fact, not only is the focus on the door maid Lily, but even her thoughts are exposed right from the beginning sentence which starts, “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.” Since the story takes place in a sophisticated upper-crust party, it was obviously not the case that she was literally run off her feet. The narrator was simply using the kind of words she herself would have used to describe her situation, and so a kind of deep penetration into her thoughts was achieved.This is, of course, strange and unusual, because Lily is not the main character of the story, as I have stated. She is merely a side character. The main characters of the story are a husband and wife named Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. But this isn’t the only act of trickery the author participates in. Even the setting is illusory as events shift from the party to the place Mr. and Mrs. Conroy are staying at with little or no connection between the two on first glance. Close reading is rewarded, though, as the connection becomes apparent on the second or third read of this amazing short story. Unfortunately, it is impossible to discuss all of the aspects of the works of Joyce in a relatively small space for readability, but hopefully my evaluation can serve as a roadmap and a help to you on your travels through this complex, rewarding book.Keep note that this is the first Joyce book to be written and as such should be the first Joyce book you read if you should ever decide to take an endeavor through Joyce’s world. I can imagine plenty of people trying to start with Ulysses and just getting lost. It’s important to pick up the ideas of what James Joyce is doing early on as he builds on these and adds to them as he progresses.
    • 4/5
      Sad to say, but I have never before read anything by James Joyce although I knew this was a serious omission in my reading life. I took the easy way out, and started with Joyce's short stories, Dubliners, set in middle class, early 20th century Ireland.I do like the way that some of the stories were loosely interconnected, the way a character in one would pop up again in another. And I liked the earlier stories, the ones with children and then adolescents, best. Some of the writing is lovely, and some of my favorite quotes are:“The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot.”“He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never game alms to beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.”“He had dismissed his wife so sincerely from his gallery of pleasures that he did not suspect that anyone else would take an interest in her.”Joyce's descriptions of characters were wonderful. To me, however, the stories were not, for the most part, especially interesting. I'd finish one and think, “Is that all there is?” Perhaps I'm just a reader who needs more definitive conclusion, more action, perhaps I just missed the point and am showing my ignorance. I'm going to give Joyce another try. But not just yet.About the specific edition I read – avoid the free Kindle edition. The occasional typo didn't bother me too much, but in the story “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” the free Kindle version was missing the entire “The Death of Parnell” poem, and that poem was integral to the story. Fortunately, I had an old copy sitting on my shelf, and I switched to it. However, my rating is based on my opinion of the writing, not on any particular edition.
    • 4/5
      A wonderfully eclectic collection of stories, all taking place in Dublin and all having to do with human relationships, be it between friends and family, spouses, parents and children, employees and their bosses, and so on. My personal favourites were An Encounter, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, A Painful Case, A Mother and The Dead. Of these, one is about an encounter between a strange old man and a boy, another about a demanding stage mother, one about an young man meeting an older woman, another about a man and wife and old memories coming to the surface. A few stories didn't engage me quite as much; such as one having to do with motor racing, another about a gathering of committee members, which are themes that hold less appeal for me. My first experience of James Joyce had been Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and, having difficulty making heads or tails of it, I had been discouraged from reading anything else by him, but I'm glad that another LT member (Cariola) recommended Dubliners, because the quality of Joyce's prose throughout is a pleasure to discover, and his attention to detail in describing various scenes and small, quiet moments are quite beautiful in their lyricism.
    • 4/5
      a lesson in accessible joyce. some stories are easier to get into. others are in his own impenetrable style. i started this in paper, finished on an e-reader. a vote in their behalf, i'm cylcing four books while commuting; i typically get to three in a round trip. i looked forward to 'dubliners' (and the others as well).
    • 4/5
      Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the Irish middle class. Each story is about a different person or group of people, and they are not really connected to each other in theme until you get to the last two pages of the book. At that point, you come to realize Joyce's purpose in writing this collection, and it all comes together for you.This is one of those books that I could not put down, had a profound affect on me emotionally at times, and yet, I doubt there is any one moment or character that will stick with me. In a way, that's the genius of it in that it perfectly captures the prosaic life of the middle class. In the end, one begins to lament the meaninglessness of his own life and the fact that most of our lives are not really worth telling stories about. Joyce celebrates this commonality in a moving way by telling it to us straight with little flourish, which would serve to make it maudlin. Come to think of it, I guess this book might just stick with me a little longer than I thought.
    • 4/5
      A collection of short stories from one of the darlings of the modern literary world, James Joyce. Though I mock, I do believe Joyce is deserving of his reputation (I just become irritated by some of the pretentious attitudes toward him that I discovered in literature classes) and his short stories are justifiably acknowledged as exemplars in that genre. Each of the fifteen tales depicts a slice of Dublin life from the early twentieth century, and all are colored with Joyce's judgment towards his native land. As he wrote in a letter, he felt that Ireland had become paralyzed, swamped in a nostalgia for the old days and an inertia that prevented it from the progress of other countries, and that Dublin, in particular, personified this attitude (my paraphrasing of his words). As a result, many of these stories have characters who are longing for change, or dream of bettering themselves, but in the final analysis are stuck in their situation and make no forward movement whatsoever. This theme - and many others - link the stories. They also have a progression that Joyce himself explicated, as the stories move from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, ending with stories about public life. Narratively, however, each piece stands alone, and the characters do not cross over. The way that these stories nonetheless are intricately connected through theme, symbolism, and style demonstrates Joyce's skill as a writer. They are very good short stories, and they are interesting as individual pieces and equally interesting to read for the more abstract connections that bind them as a whole."Dead" was my favorite. This is the final, and longest, story in the collection, and was written well after the others. In it, Gabriel attends a festive party at the Miss Morkans' house, where a tension runs beneath Gabriel's skin despite the jolly crowd. He has several painful encounters, and ends the evening with an unwelcome revelation from his wife that causes him to face mortality. I also particularly liked "Clay", in which Maria receives a sad prophecy and she's the only one who misses its significance, and "The Boarding House", the story where Mrs. Mooney uses unscrupulous feigned ignorance to marry off her daughter; I've read "Araby" so many times that I don't know if I like it for its merits or for its familiarity. Don't expect these stories to be mood lifters. Joyce was intentional about depicting negative portraits. His style is crisp, with lots of straight forward detail rather than lyrical flourish. He wanted to present life in gritty detail, often mediocre life, and the moral dilemmas and stagnation that he observed in his Dublin. These stories are crafted with fine writing and thematic resonance, and therein lies their value. Read them for their power and meaning, and enjoy the power of the short story form.
    • 4/5
      The most interesting thing about this collection of James Joyce short stories is not that they are accessible (in contradiction to so much of what Joyce has written); but that they are the epitome of the old cliché “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” That is to say, few of these stories really stand out. Yes, there are a couple of exceptions. But the majority are just okay stories. However, taken as a whole, these provide a fascinating picture of the town where they all take place. As the stories unfold, the people become more and more real, and the town takes on a shape.The intent of these stories was two-fold. The first was to stand on their own. Not all that successful. The second is to paint an overall picture, and that they do with much better success.It is said that this collection is a good introduction to Joyce. Could well be. As I say, they are quite accessible. But I can say that there is an underlying enjoyment to reading the stories that sneaks up on the reader.
    • 5/5
      Are you afraid of James Joyce? Have you heard horror stories from folks who have tried to read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake? Take a deep breath and pick up a copy of Dubliners--or better yet, listen as I did to a stunning audio version, in which fifteen stories are read by Irish actors and writers, including Frank and Malachy McCourt, Stephen Rea, Colm Meany, Fionnula Flannigan, Brendan Coyle, and Ciarin Hinds. Trust me, you won't have any of the difficulties here, in this early Joyce collection, that throw some readers off his work: no stream-of-conciousness narrative, no sentences that go on for twenty pages, no quirky dialect that you can't decipher. Just lovely, often very moving stories about ordinary people living in Dublin in the early 20th century. Two of the best known, "Araby" and "The Dead," you may even have read in a high school or college lit course, and both are tenderly rendered by the readers. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      James Joyce has always been a very intimidating author for me. His books Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are infamous for how difficult they are to read. I decided to start with Dubliners and see how that went before diving into another one of his and I’m glad I did. Even though I approached it with trepidation, I really enjoyed it. I’m sure I’m not supposed to say this, but Dubliners reminded me of Maeve Binchy’s short story collections. Her books, The Return Journey and London Transports, give glimpses of the lives of Irish and English people going about their daily lives and this book does the same. Both Dubliners and Binchy’s collections give readers well-written characters that they care about by the end of the story. The difference, of course, is that Joyce’s writing it much more poetic, but still, they have a similar feel. It’s odd to think about how controversial this book was when it was first released. Its content seems so tame compared with today’s standards, but at the time publishers were turning him down because it was too “lewd” because there were references to drunks, etc. I think my two favorites in the selection were “A Little Cloud,” a grass-is-always-greener story, and “The Dead.” To me, Joyce managed to blend the three vital elements of a great short story: good characters, an interesting look at their lives and beautiful prose. Here are a few examples of Joyce’s wonderful way with words…“A dull resentment against his life awoke within him.”“But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generations, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belong to an older day. ““His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”If you’ve been thinking of trying this author out, but aren’t sure where to start, I’d pick this one up and go from there.
    • 5/5
      Reading Joyce is like what reading was like when you were a kid - an almost physical experience. He is so good at creating an atmosphere, you can almost smell the air of turn-of-the century Dublin as you follow his characters through their quietly unsatisfied lives. 'Dubliners', in 15 sketches of hugely different people, gives you a very profound sense of what this city (and in fact the entire country) was like at the time, suspended in limbo; clinging to tradition in a sometimes mechanical way, yet yearning to be part of a bigger world. This is most pronounced in the story 'Eveline', where a girl is torn between duties to her family and the promise of a better, happier life abroad with her sweetheart. All in all, 'Dubliners' was a great read and something I'd recommend to anyone. I really like short stories and episodic novels (Dubliners falls somewhere in between I think, because the 15 stories add up to something bigger) because they allow you to catch your breath in between. I'm still a little anxious to touch 'Ulysses', its hugeness and impenetrability being rather legendary, so 'Dubliners' was my way to dip my toe in the water. I also think Irish history and culture are very interesting, and you get a lot of that (references, so keep wikipedia at hand) as well.
    • 4/5
      Joyce's simple stories keep one gripped. Wonderful collection and a great introduction to Joyce.
    • 3/5
      I like James Joyce's writing much more when he's speaking as a child than as an adult; his child-narrators seem to embrace a certain delicacy and sense of wonder that I find riveting. Meanwhile, his adult narrators seem to me to be about as flat as the adult characters seem in the earlier stories. I read the Norton Critical edition, which had some really awful, distracting notes--terms constantly and unnecessarily defined, story elements explained in an uncomplex and possibly incorrect way (ex: in "An Encounter" the notes tell us that green is a signal for homosexuality, though the text by itself would leave this wonderfully open to interpretation).
    • 4/5
      Several short stories set in Joyce's hometown of Dublin, Ireland. His stories capture the essence of human nature; from all classes of society and different aspects of life. His stories entail happiness and love to sympathy and remorse, to regret and loss. Each story encompassing a different emotion and leaving the reader feeling enraged and melancholy amongst others. Written in the early 1900’s yet the stories can be relevant to current times.
    • 4/5
      DublinersJames JoyceAug 14, 2010 Joyce writes of the characters in Dublin in the first years of the 20th century, before the great war. His people are ordinary, poor or middle class, often unhappy and wishing for better times. The protagonist in his story “A Painful Case” realizes much too late what he meant to another woman, and realizes he was unable to grasp life as he wished to. The story in the “Dead” seems to be about something else until the end, when it becomes one again of unrequited love and loss. The stories often end without a clear resolution, a question in the mind of the reader about the fate of the characters, or the meaning of the events. They are absorbing, and emotionally affecting.
    • 4/5
      848 Dubliners, by James Joyce (read 17 Apr 1966) Some of this book was very good. They are short stories, and, of course the trouble with short story books is that one has to start over with each story. Probably the best in this volume was "The Dead," though only in its ending did I note a sudden sensation of feeling in myself. The ending: "Yes, the newspapers were right, snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling in every part of the dark neutral plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bay of Allen and, further westward, softly falling into the dark, mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lovely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." If I were Irish, what an orgy of feeling would Ireland rouse in me!
    • 4/5
      Unassuming stories of everyday life, and from every phase of life. Some are vignettes, some almost feel underwhelming... but intentionally so.I have to say, though, that 'The Dead' is a GREAT story. It is one of the best stories I've ever read, and touches on the themes of all the other stories for a powerful and resonating close. And it starts out so much like the other ones, like a vignette, but then it continues past that vignette and goes deep into the character's psyches.I also liked 'A Painful Case', where an unlikeable old man couldn't bring himself to love a woman due to his own hangups until she is dead, and 'Little Cloud', in which a man realizes the mundane-ness of his life in comparison to his famous friend who just came back to Dublin for a visit. However, the worst of these stories are rather boring. The weight of the everyday dialogue and references to obscure irish politicians of the day doesn't help a story like 'Ivy Day in the Committee Room' which takes many pages to go no-where and say nothing interesting in the process.
    • 3/5
      Capturing the essence of middle-class Ireland in the early 1900s, this is a collection of 15 short stories changing in mood and character, but constant in theme. The age of the protagonists rises from the first story to the last, but all are engaged in some sort of defining internal moment or thought. The last story, The Dead was perhaps the most profound example of this, but it is possible to capture that defining moment in each tale. The Dead was also the most moving story, for me, although I was also touched and disturbed by both A Painful Case and Clay. I confess, not being an appreciator of Irish Lit, most of the rest of the stories did little for me, but I am in awe of Joyce’s short story telling ability, nonetheless.
    • 3/5
      I don't think the fifteen separate stories in this book will stick in my mind, but the general feeling most likely will. The feeling of Ireland around 1900, seen from different positions in society. Teenagers skipping school, boys and girls in love, workers, politicians, religious disputes, elite dinners. An interesting book.
    • 4/5
      A collection of short stories, each depicting a "Dubliner," this is arguably the most accessible Joyce. But Joyce can be a tough read if you aren't prepared for it. That's why I think this collection of shorts format is a great place to begin to see if you like Joyce. Joyce did NOT write to be accessible, though. It's work reading Joyce. For some it's a labor of love. For others it's just work. For me, it's just work.
    • 5/5
      I've always liked this book better than the novels.
    • 5/5
      Joyce's other books are difficult (Portrait of an Artist) to impossible (Finnegans Wake). This one reminds me of Chekhov. Closely observed lives. . . no sentimentality, no phony psychology. I found it wonderful and wish that Joyce hadn't become such a pedant. Had he used his incredible talent to write more books people actually read, the world of literature would be the better. Instead he chose to write pedantic books for pedants.
    • 5/5
      second only to A Portrait of the Artist... to me.
    • 4/5
      Two things that struck me about these short stories. One, the writing is so vivid. Mr. Joyce focuses a tight lens on the details - and everything comes alive. Two, these stories are less stories in the sense of narrative than stories in the sense of catching a glimpse of a life - like looking through a window at a moment or two in an on-going story. The trick in this is that the window catches just that moment that tells the whole story.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable enough, a great introduction to Joyce if you have never read--certainly more accessible than [Ulysses]. I read these short stories very closely thanks to an Irish lit undergrad course and got to see a recurrent theme of paralysis (emotional, physical, and psychological) throughout the stories.
    • 5/5
      My mother used to call me a Jackeen. I thought at first she was calling me a Dubliner, an Anglicised city boy, which is one of its meanings and insult enough from a Culchie like her. A Culchie is someone from the Irish countryside. Keep up at the back. It turns out Jackeen also means a drunken waster, which is more probably what she meant, but the two definitions are one and the same to her I reckon.Joyce, in The Dubliners, never uses the word but there are one or two of both types of Jackeen scattered throughout the collection of short stories.The book reminds me of an Ian Dury album. He makes the ordinary extraordinary. He takes the small and mundane moments of everyday life and turns them into celebrations of existence. The stories start with tales of childhood and convey the tension and detail that consume a child’s life perfectly and continue throughout lifetimes until the last story, The Dead, which finishes with the best piece of writing I have ever read.The perfect book to have in your pocket when waiting for someone in a pub. Preferably someone unreliable who wont turn up on time.

    Book preview

    Dubliners - James Joyce

    Dubliners

    James Joyce

    THE SISTERS

    THERE WAS NO HOPE for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: I am not long for this world, and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

    Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his:

    No, I wouldn’t say he was exactly … but there was something queer … there was something uncanny about him. I’ll tell you my opinion. …

    He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms; but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the distillery.

    I have my own theory about it, he said. I think it was one of those … peculiar cases. … But it’s hard to say. …

    He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and said to me:

    Well, so your old friend is gone, you’ll be sorry to hear.

    Who? said I.

    Father Flynn.

    Is he dead?

    Mr. Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house.

    I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter.

    The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him.

    God have mercy on his soul, said my aunt piously.

    Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate.

    I wouldn’t like children of mine, he said, to have too much to say to a man like that.

    How do you mean, Mr. Cotter? asked my aunt.

    What I mean is, said old Cotter, it’s bad for children. My idea is: let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be … Am I right, Jack?

    That’s my principle, too, said my uncle. Let him learn to box his corner. That’s what I’m always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that’s what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large. … Mr. Cotter might take a pick of that leg mutton, he added to my aunt.

    No, no, not for me, said old Cotter.

    My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table.

    But why do you think it’s not good for children, Mr. Cotter? she asked.

    It’s bad for children, said old Cotter, because their minds are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect. …

    I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!

    It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin.

    The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children’s bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:

    July 1st, 1895

    The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of

    S. Catherine’s Church, Meath Street),

    aged sixty-five years.

    R. I. P.

    The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious.

    I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock. I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shopwindows as I went. I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this for, as my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass which he had made me learn by heart; and, as I pattered, he used to smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover his big discoloured teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip—a habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well.

    As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Cotter’s words and tried to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away, in some land where the customs were strange—in Persia, I thought. … But I could not remember the end of the dream.

    In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of mourning. It was after sunset; but the window-panes of the houses that looked to the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of clouds. Nannie received us in the hall; and, as it would have been unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all. The old woman pointed upwards interrogatively and, on my aunt’s nodding, proceeded to toil up the narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister-rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly towards the open door of the dead-room. My aunt went in and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand.

    I went in on tiptoe. The room through the lace end of the blind was suffused with dusky golden light amid which the candles looked like pale thin flames. He had been coffined. Nannie gave the lead and we three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray but I could not gather my thoughts because the old woman’s mutterings distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back and how the heels of her cloth boots were trodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin.

    But no. When we rose and went up to the head of the bed I saw that he was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odour in the room—the flowers.

    We blessed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza seated in his arm-chair in state. I groped my way towards my usual chair in the corner while Nannie went to the sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine-glasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a little glass of wine. Then, at her sister’s bidding, she filled out the sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed at my refusal and went over quietly to the sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke: we all gazed at the empty fireplace.

    My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:

    Ah, well, he’s gone to a better world.

    Eliza sighed again and bowed her head in assent. My aunt fingered the stem of her wine-glass before sipping a little.

    Did he … peacefully? she asked.

    Oh, quite peacefully, ma’am, said Eliza. You couldn’t tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised.

    And everything …?

    Father O’Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and prepared him and all.

    He knew then?

    He was quite resigned.

    He looks quite resigned, said my aunt.

    That’s what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he just looked as if he was asleep, he looked that peaceful and resigned. No one would think he’d make such a beautiful corpse.

    Yes, indeed, said my aunt.

    She sipped a little more from her glass and said:

    Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate it must be a great comfort for you to know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind to him, I must say.

    Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees.

    Ah, poor James! she said. God knows we done all we could, as poor as we are—we wouldn’t see him want anything while he was in it.

    Nannie had leaned her head against the sofa-pillow and seemed about to fall asleep.

    There’s poor Nannie, said Eliza, looking at her, she’s wore out. All the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash him and then laying him out and then the coffin and then arranging about the Mass in the chapel. Only for Father O’Rourke I don’t know what we’d have done at all. It was him brought us all them flowers and them two candlesticks out of the chapel and wrote out the notice for the Freeman’s General and took charge of all the papers for the cemetery and poor James’s insurance.

    Wasn’t that good of him? said my aunt

    Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

    Ah, there’s no friends like the old friends, she said, when all is said and done, no friends that a body can trust.

    Indeed, that’s true, said my aunt. And I’m sure now that he’s gone to his eternal reward he won’t forget you and all your kindness to him.

    Ah, poor James! said Eliza. He was no great trouble to us. You wouldn’t hear him in the house any more than now. Still, I know he’s gone and all to that. …

    It’s when it’s all over that you’ll miss him, said my aunt.

    I know that, said Eliza. I won’t be bringing him in his cup of beef-tea any more, nor you, ma’am, sending him his snuff. Ah, poor James!

    She stopped, as if she were communing with the past and then said shrewdly:

    Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I’d bring in his soup to him there I’d find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open.

    She laid a finger against her nose and frowned: then she continued:

    But still and all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he’d go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again where we were all born down in Irishtown and take me and Nannie with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages that makes no noise that Father O’Rourke told him about—them with the rheumatic wheels—for the day cheap—he said, at Johnny Rush’s over the way there and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that. … Poor James!

    The Lord have mercy on his soul! said my aunt.

    Eliza took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate for some time without speaking.

    He was too scrupulous always, she said. The duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed.

    Yes, said my aunt. He was a disappointed man. You could see that.

    A silence took possession of the little room and, under cover of it, I approached the table and tasted my sherry and then returned quietly to my chair in the corner. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deep revery. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence: and after a long pause she said slowly:

    It was that chalice he broke. … That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still. … They say it was the boy’s fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be merciful to him!

    And was that it? said my aunt. I heard something. …

    Eliza nodded.

    That affected his mind, she said. After that he began to mope by himself, talking to no one and wandering about by himself. So one night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn’t find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down; and still they couldn’t see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel and the clerk and Father O’Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him. … And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like softly to himself?

    She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened; but there was no sound in the house: and I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle chalice on his breast.

    Eliza resumed:

    Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself. … So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him. …

    AN ENCOUNTER

    IT WAS JOE DILLON who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of The Union Jack, Pluck and The Halfpenny Marvel. Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon’s war dance of victory. His parents went to eight-o’clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling:

    Ya! yaka, yaka, yaka!

    Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that he had a vocation for the priesthood. Nevertheless it was true.

    A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and, under its influence, differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape. I liked better some American detective stories which were traversed

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1