Rating: 
Summary: Portrait of the Artist as a Boring Man
Review: Wow! Do people actually read this disjointed stuff for pleasure? That being said, I do give this book a middle-of-the-road 3 star recommendation because it does have its uses. I keep a copy by my bedside at all times. If I'm ever suffering from insomnia, I simply pick up this book and start reading because it's guaranteed to have me sawing logs in less than five minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: Steven Hero
Review: It is a great peice of writting, and beautifully orchestrates the kunstlerroman of a gaumless youth into a quick-witted adult... truely a novel for the ages. Although is becomes almost soporific at times, Joyce made his novel seriatim, while still embolming a stream of consciousness. If one has the chance, do read!
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful but ponderous.
Review: I will re-read this novel at some point more slowly.The prose was beautiful but if that is all I look for in literature, I would read the poetry of Burns or Shelley. A novel should tell an interesting story and this does not. The undercurrent themes of the conflict between the Church and the stuggles of the Irish people are interesting as are the conflict that a young man fels as he begins to question the tenets of the Church and family.
Rating:
Summary: Bristles with coloured textures
Review: Portrait is a wonderful novel, don't let anyone tell you differently. All of the simple minded dunderheads can complain all they'd like; those who are "in the know" will certainly appreciate their abscence from the table of literary discussion. I am ashamed the preponderance of narrow-minded HS students "forced" to read classic novels only for them to vociferously elucidate everyone on why they "suck". Portrait finds its desired audience and finds it well. Will it find you?
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I first read this book in high school and found it ponderous and prosaic. Now, ten years later, I've just read it again for an M.A. class on Joyce. What a difference ten years can make! Joyce's prose is stunning. It reads like a dream. The "epiphany" sequence at the end of Chapter Four is a tour-de-force of stunning visual imagery and emotion. One of the best books ever!
Rating:
Summary: The classic adolescent mindwalk
Review: To relate to this book, one must have undergone a singular thing: life. Joyce tends to strike readers as esoteric, and this may very well apply to his later works, but the simultaneously silken and granular, static and dynamic, putrid and esthetic language of this book constructs within its contratictions and eddies of variety a vision of the adolescent experience so vivid and voratious that a single word reflects that vision as truly as a particle of light reflects the object of its illumination. The perfect preparation for "Ulysses", this book will gently dip the reader into the murky waters of stream-of-conciousness prose as well as acquaint him or her with Joyce's philosophical viewpoint. And if none of that interests you, the prose (in particular the lyrical "child-speak" of the first chapter and the sleepy, fluid imagery of the second section of the fifth) is quite simply a feast of adjectives and verbs so dripping and tremulous that the reader might sense them squirming on the page. This novel will echo thickly through the artistic plane of the mind that we all to some degree possess.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful book not to be spead-read!
Review: This book displays some of the most beautiful prose ever written, (especially the part with the "bird girl" at the end of the fourth chapter). The secret to enjoying this book, however, is to not try to fly through it. Read it slowly to appreciate the language and the meaning. It is a beautiful book and it is NOT POINTLESS!
Rating:
Summary: Complicated, but excellent
Review: When I first started reading the novel, I was confused beyond belief at what the heck James Joyce was talking about, but about 10 pages into it, I became completely enthralled in the story. I identify with Stephen much more than one should, probably, because I'm pretty messed up psychologically, but I found this to be a wonderful book. If one does not just read for the plot and instead looks at themes about life and growing up, this is a great piece of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: And You Thought The Spanish Inquisition Was Dead.
Review: This is a book that English Literature professors love to use as a torture device on their unsuspecting students. Written in the undisciplined, post-modernist style, Joyce's book is painful to read and utterly incomprehensible to all except for the five or six people on earth who actually think sloppy, self-indulgent writing infers greatness. If a student were to hand in a piece of work like this for a grade, that student would promptly receive an "F".
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: Now, usually I'm one of those "everyone's entitled to their own opinion" people, but everyone who read this book and just wrote it off as boring or stupid or hard to understand or whatever other comments that often get tacked on to this beautiful book may just have been (a) Not intelligent enough to understand it (b) Not mature enough for it. (c) A sad combination of both. The reason I say that is this: I first attempted to read this book when, in retrospect, I hadn't achieved an appropriate level of intellectual maturity: in my misguided youth I set it aside as impenetrable, overly convoluted, and (yes, I know) boring. Happily, I picked it up again, mostly because of all the literary hype surrounding it, touting it as a Great Book. This same hype made me a little apprehensive about it, since it would be hard for it to live up to all of that. However, I shouldn't have worried: Portrait is a wonderful book not to be missed by anyone with any intelligence. I'm the first to admit all that stream of consciousness business can be irritating and intimidating, but to me it hardly registered in the book. Portrait completely transcends that. Yes, it's pretty fascinating to analyze, but its a work that can stand on its own. Beautifully written, deeply meaningful, its an enrapturing read. Don't pass this up because it was written by James Joyce...It's not even that long, and it bears little resemblance to his other works (ahem, the TRULY imprenetrable Ulysses, the dead bore The Dubliners) in my mind. To me, this is the book he wrote which actually lives up to the reputation of the great writer James Joyce. So do yourself a favor, and click that shopping cart.
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