Rating: 
Summary: A stream-of-consciousness masterpiece
Review: Joyce is an immaculate writer who is probably the best master of the english language in the twentieth-centur
Rating:
Summary: one of the best books of the twentieth century
Review: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is easily one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. Rarely is such a mastery of the English language encountered. James Joyce has an almost uncanny ability to create images and feelings out of words. He manages to describe a place and also the feelings of the main character when he's in that place with teh same set of words.
The story itself is almost inconsequential. As I read it I was so caught up in Stephen's self-destructive spiral that I could never pass any sort of moral judgement. I had to like Stephen because he was so human. His dilemmas and his emotions were so real, and Joyce was able to bring them to life with his words.
As a previous reviewer has said, it is true that to understand certain parts of the book, it helps to have a little background on Irish politics at the turn of the century (or at least know who Parnell is) but a few minutes of internet research will do that for you. As for strange words and slang, the language becomes more elevated as Stephen grows up (a touch of genius, if you ask me) so that's not really much of a problem. Stephen's final break with tradition as he answers the call of Daedalus, his namesake, is magnificent to read. All in all, this book is definitely worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: The best edition of "A Portrait"
Review: Depending on one's taste and level of concentration, James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is either tedious flop or a wonderful cornerstone of world literature. (I believe the latter.) I won't go into a discussion of "A Portrait" here because if you are looking at this particular Viking Critical edition, you've already committed yourself to reading it. The value of this edition lies in the critical essays and notes at the end. The notes will help the reader along, as they explain some of the terms and/or conditions that are particular to Joyce's Ireland. The essays are, each and every one, valuable tools. Whether it's an examination of Joyce's life, the creation of "A Portrait", the influences it would have, etc., every essay is a heavy-weight that enchances an understanding of the book. (At least it did for me.) If you're seriously considering reading "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" this is the edition to use.
Rating:
Summary: Joyce's Mastery of Literature and the English Language
Review: I began this book not knowing much of what to expect from it. I generally like classic novels, but I also like to have a clearly-framed plot and several well-developed characters. "Portrait of the Artist" has none of this, and as that started to become apparent as I read, I was worried that I would not even want to finish the book. Instead, I finished it in a couple nights, and I now consider it one of the best books I've ever read. What's most amazing is that the idea to this book is so simple. It's about a boy (this one, Steven Dedalus, happens to be Irish), growing up and struggling to discover his niche in his surroundings. A theme so totally simple and done so many times before and since. But the author is what makes all the difference here. The eloquence of Joyce's language and his beautiful descriptions are hard to believe came from one mind. I feel some authors get so caught up in their vocabularies and metaphors that they lose the ability to connect the object of their descriptions to the reader. This is never a problem with Joyce. His development of Steven Dedalus, from boy into young adult, progresses perfectly from the start to its inspiring peak at the book's close. The Modern Library ranked this as their #3 book of the 20th Century (Joyce's "Ulysses" was #1). While putting a rank to the best books of a 100 year period is somewhat ridiculous to me, I don't know if I could name 2 books that I've read from that time frame that are better. And that is what surprised me most about this book.
Rating:
Summary: Signet Classic!
Review: If you're considering purchasing this book, or if it's being forced upon you and you are having a difficult time, or if you are like me and want to read and actually understand writers like Joyce, purchase the SIGNET CLASSIC edition of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." There is an absolutely fantastic introduction by Hugh Kenner that is, IMHO, indispensable. You can get all the SparkNotes and whatever else you want, but Kenner's intro is very concise, to the point, extremely clear and better than anything else I've ever seen as far as beginning to understand this classic.
Plus it's less than 5 bucks!
Rating:
Summary: Splendid First Novel from James Joyce
Review: "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" is a fictionalized account of James Joyce's early life. But more importantly, it was a bold, radical departure from previous novels, since it possessed such a richly lyrical prose describing the artist's self reflection and maturation during his adolescence; perhaps it was the first important novel on self consciousness and realization published in the 20th Century. Its protagonist, Stephen Dedalus - whom we will encounter again in "Ulysses" - is none other than Joyce himself, striving to reconcile himself with the demands of his family, his faith and desire for artistic freedom. Ultimately it will be artistic freedom which wins out, as evidenced by the radical transformation of Joyce's initial, simplistic prose, to one which is truly poetic by the novel's conclusion. Set approximately around the time of the great Irish politician Parnell's death, Joyce offers fascinating insights into his early education, his relationship with the Catholic Church and his emerging sense of Irish nationalism, fueled by his admiration for Parnell. While this is not Joyce's best work of novel-length fiction, it certainly foreshadows his subsequent literary triumphs such as "Ulysses".
Rating:
Summary: A Portrait of 20th Century Literature as a Young Form
Review: James Joyce is the single most important writer of the 20th century. Simply put, the form of the novel exists in two stages - pre-Joyce and post-Joyce; no other novelist approaches the impact on the literary landscape that Joyce acheived in perfecting his style. The story behind the actual writing of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (originally entitled Stephen Hero) is that Joyce began writing basically a semi-autobiographical account of his childhood up through his early adulthood. He then decided that he wanted to convey the events of his life in a form other than direct disclosure. The rest, as they say, is history. Enter stream of consciousness. Enter free association. Enter Freud, Shakespeare, Greek mythology, the Bible, Catholicism, the complexity of man, the simplicity of man, social class,and Irish lifestyle (to name a tiny portion of what this novel presents) without ever having to mention many of these influences by name. What it really boils down to is that this novel began a revolution in the way literature is read and written. Sounds over the top I know, but think about it. What Joyce experimented with here he later advanced in Ulysses (which is even better than A Portrait) and totally submitted to in Finnegan's Wake (of which I didn't understand a single word). His direct influence ranges from Faulkner to Proust to Nabokov. For those who are just getting into literature and may not know those names, those three are heavy hitters. Like sumo-wrestler heavy.
The content of the novel itself reveals the inner character of Stephen Dedalus and, in turn, of James Joyce himself. As I said before, this novel is both largely biographical as well as psychological, perhaps more important in what it says about the human mind in general than what it says about the Irish mind of early 1900s Dublin. And frankly its just beatifully written. This is not Joyce's finest work (that would be Ulysses), but it is certainly one of the foundations upon which modern literature stands. And for that reason, even if you don't like Joyce's work (which is your loss to say the least) you have to respect it. To respect it is to at least read it. It's a tough style, but it's worth it. Trust me.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Hero
Review: Portrait of the artist is a vitally important novel for anyone interested in writing, writers, genius, repression, Catholicism, intellectualism versus dogmatism, the life and mind of James Joyce and novels as an art form. The writing style mutates and develops throughout the story, reflecting the different ages of Stephen Dedalus, from the baby talk and visceral imagery of his parents, governess Dante and Uncle Charles in his early childhood, through his schooldays as he wrestles with his intellect, his faith, his sexual awakening and his guilt to the advanced articulate and experimental style he invokes in his late adolescence, including an experimental journal at the end of the novel.
The themes in Portrait of the Artist cover the whole spectrum of growing up, but the principal drama surrounds the intellectual development of Stephen. He is a formidable mind, a free thinker. But his faith impells him throughout towards the narrow minded dogmatism of the Catholic Church. At times, the church holds the upper hand, as Stephen is terrified into confessing his sins with prostitutes in the face of Father Arnall's legendary, sensual, brutal 'Hellfire' sermon on the fate of sinners who don't repent before god. But Stephen wrestles with such demons, and grows, and fights, and ultimately prevails. He sees the image of the rotting cabbages in in the kitchen gardens and considers the disordered symbolism of this as more appealing to his natural essence than the neat tidiness of the shrine to Mary.
Stephen realises he must leave this claustrophobic restrictive life behind. The end of the novel chronicles his last days in Dublin before leaving Ireland. His conversation with Cranley forces home the realisation that Stephen is growing up, his childhood is behind him, and, most importantly, he is prepared to err and make mistakes, even if this means damnation. He is able, as he says 'To discover the mode of life or art whereby your spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom'.
Stephen, with all his passionate intellectual talent, is ready to hit the world, and the forces such as Father Arnall who seem ready to stamp on such independence with vitriolic counter ideological pamphleteering cannot stop him. Thank God for that. The original title of the book, Stephen Hero, is apt indeed.
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Summary: Young genius takes flight
Review: Portrait of the Artist is Joyce's Kunstleroman about the growth of sensibility in a young genius. The novel is luminous and because it is early Joyce, it's accessible as the writing style is straight ahead narrative modified to reflect the writer's age in various stages of his youth. It is easy to witness the writer's sensibility heighten as he matures: his sense of protest, his growing perspective of his life, church and nation. Proust and Joyce wrote at about the same time but met only once briefly in an awkward exchange and Joyce lived for years in self-imposed creative exile in Paris. In the later chapters there are stylistic similarities between early Joyce and Proust, whose style and narrative voice are consistent throughout the 4300 pages of La Recherche du Temps Perdu. However, Joyce's narrative technique changed radically as he grew as a novelist from Portrait to Ulysses and finally to Finnegan's Wake. In Joyce's willingness to experiment unfettered by style, voice, syntax, genre and diction he changed the English language: he left it better than he found it. Chapters 4 and 5 are brilliant and take flight like Daedalus, the inventive hawkman. If you seek an entry point into Joyce's work, this relatively simple, straightforward novel is your window. "To speak of these things and to try to undestand their nature and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we have come to understand -- that is art." I can't encourage you more strongly to explore Joyce -- he was the most luminous genius who ever wrote a novel.
Rating: 
Summary: The substance is in the self analysis
Review: A previous reviewer states that this book doesn't focus on substance, and that the substance (for him) is in the story. While I don't disrespect this view, it does seem unnecessarily limiting for oneself as a reader.
In my opinion this is an innovative book because it focuses on internal response rather than external action--the internal is the substance of Portrait. Of course being innovative doesn't make it good--it's the fact that it does this introspection very well, completely, and unapologetically that makes the book a successful endeavor. One of my favorite moments is the first full paragraph of 254, which starts "A louse crawled over the nape of his neck...".
I can understand that to some, this endless recording of introverted response might seem self-indulgent in its excess, but I think that the length and dramatic language is needed to express the depth that is inside, not just little Stevie Dedalus, but all of us.
Isn't this one of the prime purposes of art? To force us to look at ourselves in a way that we haven't before? Of course, if we don't give the piece of art a fair chance, it can never succeed.
Unlike other reviewers--I'm not reviewing based on whether or not I agree with the main character's conclusions (and therefore James's conclusions), but on whether or not the artist achieved his aims.
Incomprehensible? It's only incomprehensible if you expect to read a clear and informative essay. That's not the purpose, it's to convey the innermost thoughts of one individual--and these thoughts/feelings/responses are not always perfectly clear--in fact, they rarely are, in any of us.
Why a 4 instead of a 5? Because Portrait feels more to me like a series of stories that only happen to occur chronologically, rather than a bonified novel. I don't feel like I've gone from point A to B when I'm done. Maybe this aspect is unavoidable given the true goal of the book, as I've interpreted it, but I'm just being honest.
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