Dubliners

Rating:
Summary: A portrait of a city's soul
Review: These fifteen stories create a world. They present different aspects of the life of Dublin .They foreshadow the themes of Joyce's more extensive works, " The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake".
They present a picture of a city curiously static and dead, and yet somehow miraculously alive. It is quite fitting that the concluding story, the longest story really a novella is called " The Dead"
The stories present not simply a variety of characters and types but also insight into varying moments of life and soul's development.
About them and through them there is nonetheless an uneasy and unquiet feeling about life's fundamental disatisfaction. And this when the poetic intensity of Joyce's language pervades and presents throughout a quiet and deep beauty.



Rating:
Summary: Poetry as Prose
Review: This is a wonderful collection of stories by the unique James Joyce. This book reads like impressionism on paper, painting transcendent watercolors with language. Each story is a portrait of Dublin life, but the Dublin portrayed here could have been any city in the world, full of pain, joy, laughter, sadness, regret, and Humanity. This book is the best place to start with Joyce, because the narrative hasn't developed into the ambiguity found in later works such as Ulysses. For first-timers, Dubliners is the Joycean work that is most friendly and affecting. But it's still miles away from any other author's work (Including JOyce's own).

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: When I first started it, honestly, I couldn't stand it. Only until I was able to discuss it with some very learned people was i able to understand in a way that made sense. This, though frustrating initially, is an amazing thing. When one realized that almost every sentence that James Joyce writes is a work of art on its own, they are forced to acknowledge both Joyce's amazing talent and the beauty of the language when used to its full potential. I could say what the stories are about, but it is just something that you should experience for yourself. I will however say that the last story, "The Dead," is just amazing. It has to be one of the best novellas ever written in English.

One word of warning, however: Don't read this book expecting a happy ending. Most all of the stories are somewhat depressing and shows the life that so many lived in Dublin.