Rating: 
Summary: conflicts in life
Review: This book is an interesting book about Stephen's life in college and how he had to overcome obstacles of family problems and his religious belief of God. It tells how he struggles with life in the real world. The style writing of the book was easy to read, but some of the vocabulary words were hard to understand. I liked the book because it tells about Stephen's life in college and so on. I liked the part where he stood up to the rector and told him that it was wrong for Father Dolan to punish him. I liked the part when Stephen went to the university because it was the part where he really started to mature and felt comfortable with his new friends. He felt free to write in his journal about events that happened in his life. The book was interesting talking about God (Jesus) and what happens to sinful people. The bad part of the book is when Stephen sinful for sleeping with the prostitute. He shouldn't have slept with her because there are consequences to his actions.
I would recommend this book to teenagers and adults because this book is hard to understand for younger children. I would recommend this book to college students because the book starts in college and goes on.
Rating: 
Summary: Not absurd, but definitely challenging
Review: Unless you are a genius, you will not really enjoy this book with only one reading. Everything about this book is right, especially its literary structure. Joyce took about ten years writing it. At one point, it was a much longer book, but he chiseled it down to this jewel.After my first reading, I felt a sense of accomplishment. But I knew there was more in the book than I got out of it. It was like Joyce dared me to reread it. My second reading was pure joy because I was able to grasp so much more of the book's structure than the first time around. He writes in stream-of-conscious, and understanding that is the real challenge. Events and creative language may appear random at first, but after looking at the novel's 'big picture,' you can see order. The plot revolves around Stephen Daedalus' (James Joyce) coming of age, both as a young man and as an artist. Daedalus' personality and values contrast that of his Ireland, family, religion, etc. This is an auto-biography with plenty of artistic license. 'Stephen' was Christianity's first martyr. Daedalus was the creative genius in Greek mythology who made the Minotaur, the labyrinth, and Icarus' waxen wings. These types of detail pervade the novel. Take nothing for granted as you read. This Penguin copy ISBN# 0451525442 has an excellent introduction. Do not start without reading an intro first. You will miss out.
Rating:
Summary: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Review: James Joyce's first novel, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916, sets out, in the form of a fictional (auto)biography of Stephen Dedalus, the programme of Joyce's artistic vision. An elliptical work by any definition, "Portrait" proceeds by fits and starts, offering the reader glimpses, sketches, portraits, if you will, of defining moments in the formative years of Stephen Dedalus, from earliest childhood through his education at university. While certainly the specific story of a single individual in late 19th and early 20th century Ireland, Joyce manages to produce a narrative that is personal, national, and even universal in its significance. As much as "Portrait" can be said to begin anywhere, the text itself begins with childhood reminiscences, from a uniquely immature voice and with the universally recognizable fairy tale entrance, "Once upon a time..." That the novel takes as its main point of view the consciousness of Stephen Dedalus, this seemingly fanciful beginning clues the reader into envisioning the tale to follow as a modern take on the developmental narrative. The goal is not the rescue of a woman, although women feature prominently and problematically; the enemies to be conquered are Stephen's own immaturity, his own doubts, and the stagnant traditions of family, political, and religious expectation; the prize sought is not gold, but an idea of the self upon which Stephen can make his way in the world. "Portrait" is divided into five sections or chapters, each detailing a different phase of Stephen's quest for self, or as the title suggests, for becoming "the artist". The first part has Stephen face his first and longest lasting challenge - his roots; specifically, his family and the political and relgious tensions that hold them together and threaten to rend them asunder, as well as his early school years, wherein he must come to terms with outside authority. The second details his movement to Dublin, and his attempts to deal with various adolescent difficulties: peer pressure, his father's declining circumstances, and the awakening of sexual desire. From this point on, "Portrait" has set the main themes that Stephen must wrestle with in order to grasp his place in the world. Stephen's quest leads him through short careers as a sensualist and as a religious devotee before leading him to art. In order to fulfill his destiny as an artist, Stephen must, as all good fairy tale children, wander the world alone, living as his cunning and wits guide him - away from his family and even his country. Hence the universalizing aspect of "Portrait": like most people, Stephen Dedalus must finally leave familiarity for the dangers and promises of the outside world. Stylistically, Joyce's narrative mirrors the developmental level of Stephen at each of these five crucial moments of his life - from the short attention span of a child through the nearly pedantic focus of the theorizing artist, Joyce's technique filters through an adult consciousness the various stages with a grace that makes a largely third person novel seem as though it emanates from a palpable personality. As Virginia Woolf saw, even in the early 1920's, Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist" was at the forefront of a new way of writing about the very essences of human life in its day, and remains a landmark text of modernism.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant in Places, Absolutely Tedious in Others
Review: "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man" is many things. Perhaps most importantly it is a bridge work - it spans the divide between more accessible (but brilliant) work found in his collection of short stories, "Dubliners" and the less accessible (and that's a clear understatement for Finnegan's Wake!) but superlative work of his later years. To some extent, then, we expect some patchiness as Joyce is finding his feet here. Another aspect to the novel is that it is largely autobiographical covering Joyce's time at two Jesuit colleges and Dublin University. Much of the factual substance has been removed - it's an autobiography focussing on state of mind, brief glimpses into his world as his father's fortunes diminish. His heavily Catholic upbringing - high on guilt and corporal punishment - laying the seeds for an eventual rejection of faith altogether. His extreme emotions concerning a girl that he just meets briefly a few times. The book is also a sounding board for Joyce's philosophical views on beauty and aesthetics. Long "conversations" fill the pages with discussions on Aristotle, etc. and witty literary jokes. Most of this is, to put it politely, utter tedium I'm afraid. Pretension at it's worst. There are writers who can introduce such philosophical rants in their works and bring it off (Dostoyevsky for instance) but here Joyce fails to keep any semblence of pacing, or even beauty, in the words. Another example of this excess can be found in the description of a retreat that he goes to towards the end of his years in Jesuit school. Now this retreat is a pivotal moment in the book and gives rise to the most beautiful writing - a stunning description of the cathartic nature of Catholic confession - so it is worthy that it is treated in some detail. Unfortunately, what we get is pages and pages of two entire sermons on the physical and emotional nature of hell. Accurately distilled this could be moving, riveting and thought-provoking. As it is it's mind-numbing. Yet the book is still very beautiful. It deserves to be read and it deserves to be read slowly. Joyce, at his best, is one of the most lyrical, poetic authors ever to have molded the written language. So, read it - but be prepared to have to force yourself through a couple of sections.
Rating:
Summary: Probably My Favorite of All Time
Review: I read this book when I was a teenager and, although I couldn't understand it all, of course, I was enthralled, enchanted, intoxicated, inspired by it ... Poetry, like music, communicates without always being understood. Since then, I've lost count of the number of times I've reread it. It captures so well the feeling of being a child, ... the upbringing of an Irish Catholic, ... the growth of an artist, ... the experience of writing a poem, ... the birth of an adult soul from the womb of childhood!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I was reading the book and thinking it was an interesting, yet limited, portrait of that young artist, until I got to the last 50 pages and it blew me away.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Get too Excited
Review: I am uncertain what all of the fuss is about. This was my first Joyce, and the only reason that I attempted to read _Ulysses_(which I did not finish) after I had finished this book, was because I thought that not that many people could be wrong about James Joyce's brilliance. Well, in my humble opinion, I think that they are wrong. Joyce was enthralled with his brilliance; his arcane references force one to constantly be flipping back and forth between notes and the novel itself. There are times in the novel where Joyce seems to hit an idea right on the money, but those times are few and far between. Never again will I pick up a Joyce novel for pleasure, it will be done only if I am forced to in a class. The reason that I am giving this book 2 stars instead of only 1, is because I was able to stomach it for the duration of the novel, unlike the aforementioned _Ulysses_. This book was of no use to me; the only purpose that it will serve in my life is that I am now able to say I have read some Joyce.
Rating:
Summary: Quintessential Joyce
Review: Joyce enriches your literary space like nothing else... This edition is pretty handy and inexpensive, and has some nifty notes at the end to put you in context of a million little things that you might miss otherwise. Analysing the stature of this literary classic is probably an exercise in redundancy, so no attepts at that. So go ahead, pick it up and explore Joyce for yourself! Happy Reading..
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Summary: Lynch really brings the Portrait to Life
Review: John Lynch does a beautiful job bringing a new outlook to Joyce's work. One thing about reading Joyce is that you are drawn into his inner world of consciousness that you tend to become desensitized to the raging outside world. This happens with the Christmas dinner fiasco. One becomes so centered on how Stephen is interpreting this incident, the calamity at the dinner becomes distant. This is also true of the fire and brimstone sermon and the beautiful confession afterwards. Lynch wakes us up!
Rating:
Summary: Master edition of a master work
Review: I recently re-read this edition of POTA and was pleased to find the experience even more exhilirating than when I read the book first in college 25 years ago. The notes and essays are invaluable to an American Jewish reader of a book so imbued with issues critical in Irish Catholic life and history. The issues raised are, above all, universal. Read it, and read it again!
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