Sanatçının Gençlik Portresi, Stephen Dedalus isimli bir çocuğun, çocukluktan ergenliğe geçiş sürecinde hayata, inanca ve cinselliğe dair sorgulamalarla dolu kendini arama yolculuğu olarak özetlenebilecek bir roman. Tabii bundan çok daha fazlası var. İrlanda’nın etkisini buram buram hissettiği Katolik kilisesine (genel olarak inanç meselesine) ve buna bağlı gelişen destekleyici/karşı siyasi fikirlere de bolca yer veriyor James Joyce. Üstelik bunları yaparken Stephen’ın ruh haline okuyucuyu ortak ediyor. Bunu da dil ve anlatımla yapıyor. Şöyle ki Stephen’ın çocukluk kısımlarının anlatıldığı bölümler çok rahat okunurken, bir “aydınlanma” yaşadıktan sonraki kısımlar tıpkı onun kafa karışıklığının bir yansıması gibi ağır ilerliyor. Okurken bazı bölümlerde çok sıkıldım ama bunun bilinçli bir tercih olduğunu, karakterin içinde bulunduğu ruh halinin birebir bir yansıması olduğunu da hep aklımda tuttum. Bir yandan da düşününce, özellikle ergenken yapılan bu tarz sorgulamaları anlatmak için seçilen bu yöntemin hiç de fena olmadığına inanıyorum. Çocukluk belli başlı fikirler duyularak geçirdiğimiz bir dönemken, ergenlikle birlikte bulanık bir dönem başlıyor ve doğrular yanlışlarla hızlı yer değiştiriyor. Stephen’ın da yaşadığı tam olarak bu. James Joyce da bunu çok iyi yansıtmış. Çok etkilendim.

بدون شک خیل عظیمی از خوانندگان در سراسر دنیا اوقات دشواری را برای گذران از این کتاب داشته‌اند. کتاب سختی برای خواندن است، اما شاید هیچ چیزی به اندازه داستان رشد یک نوجوان از کودکی تا جوانی، مربوط به زندگی خواننده‌ها نباشد. همه آن را تجربه کرده‌اند و جویس کار درخشانی برای ضبط کردن سردرگمی انتقال از کودکی به بزرگسالی انجام داده است.

انتشار این کتاب نقطه عطفی برای معرفی جریان سیال ذهنی در ادبیات بود. از آنجاییکه داستان بسیار شبیه زندگی خود جویس است جذابیت آن چندین برابر می‌شود و کتاب یک جورایی اتوبیوگرافی است. خواننده در طول داستان به نگاهی درون ذهن استیون ددالوس (شخصیت اول داستان؛ خود جویس) دست می‌یابد که بهش اجازه می‌دهد شخصیت پیچیده او را درک کند. جویس موشکافانه تنازع و کشمکش‌های بزرگ شدن را کاوش و خواننده حتی طرز فکر و ذهنیت استیون خردسال را نیز تجربه می‌کند. همزمان با جلو رفتن داستان بلوغ استیون هم پیشرفت می‌کند و خواننده به همراه او در سیاحت‌اش به بزرگسالی سفر می‌کند و در مسیرش نگاهی به آگاهی و فهم او می‌اندازد. تفکرات و احساسات استیون مانند بقیه نوجوان‌ها است و تاثیر وضعیت خانوادگی، جامعه، دین و بقیه فاکتورهای خارجی بر آن در داستان مشخص است. چکیده داستان کشمکش استیون با ایمان و اخلاق‌اش و فازهای مختلفی که برای یافتن خودش طی می‌کند است.

کتاب برای کسانی که به ادبیات کلاسیک علاقه دارند یا نویسندگانی که در شروع سبک جریان ذهن هستند جذاب است. همچنین برای کسانی که در تلاش برای فهم ذهنیت یک نوجوان هستند نیز مفید است. در حالی که دوره زمانی آن به شدت متفاوت است ولی احساسات و ناامیدی‌هایی که استیون تجربه می‌کند بسیار شبیه به نوجوان‌های مدرن است (البته منظورم یک نوجوان معمولی است نه این افسارگسیخته‌هایی که در کشورمان مثل قارچ زیاد می‌شوند). خواننده می‌تواند کلنجار و کشمکش استیون را با پارادوکس در ظاهر مهمل ولی در باطن درست استقلال فردی پیوند دهد. به طور همزمان، استیون می‌کوشد از بندهای که او را به زمین دوخته‌اند رهایی یابد، در حالی که اقرار می‌کند او محصول همان بندها است.

شاید تنها نقطه ضعف کتاب سخت‌خوانی آن باشد که در عین حال عامل جذابیت آن است؛ دنبال کردن ذهن کار بسیار شگفت‌انگیز و ناخوشایندی است! خواننده درونی‌ترین احوالات ذهن استیون را درک می‌کند اما احتمال این نیز وجود دارد که در افکار سست او گم شود. احساس می‌کردم انگار در وسط زندگی استیون بودم، اما متوجه شدم برخی بخش‌ها را بارها می‌خواندم تا برایم روشن شود. نکته مهمی که در خواندن کتاب نباید فراموش شود این است که استیون ددالوس خود جیمز جویس است. مرد هنرمند خود او است و در طول رمان وضعیت ذهنی خود را از میان کودکی تا بزرگسالی با خلق دیدی بسیار شجاعانه و نارس به نمایش می‌گذارد.

شبی که رمان را تمام کردم به خاطر تسخیر ذهنم توسط این کتاب ژرف نتوانستم بخوابم. فوق‌العاده ذهنم را به تکاپو واداشت. تجربه شگرف روحی و اشباعی بود. البته، خب، نه از اولش، در آغاز کار بسیار خسته‌کننده بود (یکبار حدود 11 سال پیش در نوجوانی سعی کردم بخوانم و نشد)، صاف شیرجه می‌زند توی ذهن شخصیت، آن هم یک کودک، نمی‌توانستم نفس بکشم، فقط می‌خواستم بیام بیرون و عطا را به لقایش ببخشم. فقط غواص‌های تمرین دیده می‌توانند به ژرفا بروند و کاوش کنند و دوباره به سطح برگردند. من هم کم کم یاد گرفتم و عاشق جست و جو در ذهنش شدم. استیون برایم خیلی عزیز است و به رشدش، بیداری معنوی‌اش، فردیت‌اش و روح هنرمندش افتخار می‌کنم. حریص لذت بیشتری بودم و از چیزهایی ک�� یافتم بیشتر هم خشنود شدم؛ فلسفه، تاریخ، روانشناسی، مذهب، هنر و خیلی چیزهای دیگر. برش‌های هیجان‌انگیزی از بزرگان می‌توان در آن یافت: افلاطون، لرد بایرون، اووید، دانته، هومر، دوما، هوگو، ارسطو، آکویناس، داروین، گوته، والتر اسکات و غیره.

خواندن این کتاب پیش‌نیازی است برای خواندن اولیس، هم از این نظر که اولیس ادامه این کتاب است، البته با وسعت و سختی چندین و چند برابر، و هم تمرین با سبک جریان سیال ذهن. در این سبک يک عنصر داستانی بيشتر وجود ندارد و آن ذهن است؛ شخصيت ها، پيرنگ، زاويه ديد، گفتگوها، کنش داستانی و ... همه در ذهن است، هیچ امر غیرعادی واقع نشده، هر آنچه رخ می دهد، می‌تواند برای همه ما رخ دهد و سخت در دسترس و آشناست اما در حقيقت هيچ امری واقع نشده است، هيچ چيزی رخ نداده است. خواننده از نظرگاه خود به يک هيچ می‌نگرد. پس چيست که اين روايت را تا اين اندازه باورپذیر می‌کند؟ آنچه باعث می‌شود قبولش کنيم آن است که در عالم واقع، در زندگی ما نیز چنین است؛ بيشتر امور واقع نمی‌شوند. اکثرا هيچ اتفاقی نمی‌افتد! رخدادی در کار نيست! اولیس اوج استیلای ذهن است و چهره مرد هنرمند در جوانی نقطه آغاز آن است.

خواندن کتاب با توجه به ارجاعات تاریخی و مذهبی بدون یادداشت‌های مترجم کار بسیار بسیار دشواری است. شاید نیاز به یک دستگاه متصل به اینترنت کنار دستتان باشد تا مدام ارجاعات را جست و جو کنید. جدا از داستان، زیبایی محض قلم جویس و حکمرانی او بر واژگان ستودنی است و جناب آقای منوچهر بدیعی واقعا شاهکاری در ترجمه چنین قلم توانمندی برایمان ارمغان آورده است. درخشان، اندیشناک، مبهم و بسیار محظوظ‌گر خواننده را در دنیای ذهن نوپای استیون سرگردان می‌کند و به زیبایی و دقت آموزش و پرورشی در هم می‌تند که فقط می‌توان گفت هنری شگرف است.

این رمان سفری از خردسالی تا هنرمند شدن را نمایش می‌دهد؛ همراه با بسیاری وقفه‌ها، اغلب همراه با انحراف از مسیر اما سرانجام رسیدن به مقصد. استیون مدام در تقلا با سه فاکتور بازدارنده است: خانواده، دین، ملی‌گرایی. تنها زمانی که از این قیود آزاد می‌شود و بالاخره این لنگرهای سنگینی که او را به زمین دوخته‌اند را بر‌می‌دارد می‌تواند یک هنرمند واقعی شود. الهامی از اسطوره‌شناسی یونانی در نام خانوادگی‌اش، ددالوس، وجود دارد که همانند آن صنعتگر افسانه‌ای او نیز می‌خواهد آزاد باشد و هنر واقعی را خلق کند، کاری که او هیچ وقت با این همه سربار نمی‌تواند انجام دهد. و سرانجام داستان به بهترین نحو قابل تصور تمام می‌شود و رهایی تکان‌دهنده‌ای رخ می‌دهد.

My first Joyce.
I could fill some lines just to be able to say I wrote something like a review but who would I be kidding? I couldn't possibly dream of writing a proper review on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
5 stars.
Simple as that.

CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH : STEPHEN DEDALUS VS. HOLDEN CAULFIELD


(Note : this is not part of the current ongoing Celebrity Death Match series organised by Manny but I thought I would revive it as a companion piece)

****************

BUCK MULLIGAN : Come on, kinch, you fearful jesuit. I’ve got a tenner on this so I have so get in that square ring and batter this lollybogger senseless.

STEPHEN : Pro quibus tibi offérimus, vel qui tibi ófferunt hoc sacrifícium laudis.

BUCK MULLIGAN : Give us a rest of your gobshite and pannel the wee dodger.

STEPHEN : Not so wee, he’s six foot if he’s an inch.

BUCK shoves him in the ring. HOLDEN CAULFIELD eyes STEPHEN miserably. His psychiatrist has explained that contests of physical strength and agility will raise his spirits and shake him out of his depressive spiral. He can’t say that he gives a rat’s ass about the whole thing. In fact he’d rather be pretty much anywhere but here.

THE REF pockets a tenner secreted insouciantly to him by stately, plump BUCK MULLIGAN.

BUCK : And another where that came from.

REF : Seconds away, Round One.

STEPHEN closes his eyes and walks vaguely about the ring, ashplant dangling from limp left hand. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o'er his base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably. I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. WHAM !

HOLDEN has been thinking he may as well get this feeble thing over and done with as quickly as possible and he has strode up and flailed – there is really no other word - a long thin arm vaguely in STEPHEN’S direction. More by luck than judgement he connects with STEPHEN’s bullockbefriending ear which then commences issuing gouts of redblooded blood.

STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her womb. Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayawayaway.

REF issues a standing count : A one. A two. A three.

HOLDEN sits down, scratches his private parts and produces a cigarette. lights it and sneers at the crowd.

REF : A four. A five.

HOLDEN : What a bunch of phonies.

CISSEY CAFFREY : Who are you callin a phoney and what kind of accent do you call that anyway? Is he an American? O Lor, he is as well. And aren’t they all rich? So they are. Here what’s your name darlin? You look awfy young to me.

HOLDEN : Well I act quite young for my age sometimes. It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head--the right side--is full of millions of gray hairs. I've had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true. I don't give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am--I really do--but people never notice it. People never notice WHAMBLAM! Ooof! Shit!

STEPHEN has roused himself from his solipsistic torpor and delivered a mighty blow to HOLDEN’S temple with the ash plant.

ASHPLANT : Jaysus, I felt that!

REF : Hey, back in your corner you holy terror, this is Marquis of Queensbury rules! No ashplants! I’m going to have to disqualify you forthwith! So I am!

BUCK MULLIGAN waves another tenner in his purview.

REF : If you do it again!

STEPHEN, disgusted with his actions, throws his ashplant out of the ring. It is deftly caught by LEOPOLD BLOOM , an all round decent fellow with a really plumpacious sexy milf of a wife with tremendous bazooms. Let me tell you. In fact did I ever mention that one time me and her were DING DING!

End of round one.

STEPHEN limps over to the prone form of his lanky young opponent. He rouses him, pats him down, hauls him to his feel, and apologises. By the time HOLDEN's vision clears he finds he's been propped in his seat and a beer is in his hand, proffered by the gay crowd whose relish of the contest appears to know no bounds.

LEOPOLD BLOOM pokes his head into the proceedings.

BLOOM : You know, lads, this isn't the way. life doesn't have to be all about biff bang pow and the best man wins and all. let's go down the pub.

Exeunt BLOOM, HOLDEN AND STEPHEN in the direction of the Butcher's Arms Public House.

BUCK MULLIGAN : Dedalus wins on a TKO!

CROWD : Did he bollocks!

General melee ensues.

O livro mostra o amadurecimento intelectual de Stephen Dedalus, alter ego do autor,bem como sua revolta contra os dogmas católicos e as convenções da sociedade de sua época.
Para ser sincero, acho que ainda não tenho um nível de leitura para entender James Joyce. Esse livro é todo enrolado , chato, com um enredo que não entendi , cheio de citações em latim...James Joyce não fala minha língua, parece que ele escreve para outra classe , não a minha!
Update: um ano já se passou desde minha leitura desse livro, e confesso que amadureci muito e com certeza mudaria minha nota para 3 estrelas, amadureci tanto que até me aventurei a ler Ulisses do mesmo autor.

Much as with my recent re-read of Dubliners it had been many years since the first and only time I'd read this book. Seeing my memory is a bit shit for the books I've read fairly recently, it's fair to say that much of this read felt like the first time. But, truthfully there is just a lot to the craft of what Joyce did that I wouldn't have noticed at that age - his ability to capture the rhythm and flow of multi-participant conversations (both amongst adults and youth) so exactly; his overall use of language, a mixture of beauty and precision; and overall the accuracy of his depictions of the various stages of growing up, each with their emotional and intellectual touch points and confusions, and the ease with which Joyce directs Stephen through those stages of maturation.

It really is incredible how accurately Joyce captures the perspective and voice of youth in the opening section of this book. There is a sense of awesome size all around Stephen, you can feel the large unknown world crowding in; there is this mixture of knowledge and ignorance, without a firm grasp of where one ends and the other begins, a grasping to understand and ensure proper understanding, but this jumbled welter of misunderstood facts and rumors and schoolyard gossip tangles together with the truth; and, of course, there is a sense of overall embarrassment and otherness that pervades childhood as one pokes at societal groupings and expectations and recognizes there are lines to be spoken and roles to be played and secretly just hoping that maybe this time one will guess correctly. He also captures that almost unthinking devotion to family and unquestioning commitment to the church (all wrapped up in awe and an overwhelming fear) that exists with fervor and innocence in many children. Of course, he captures most of this, and pays it the due that he does, as these are the things that frequently get left behind with age and maturity, and, as this is a coming of age story, it is imperative to the success of the arc that he gets it right. And of course he does, anything less is unthinkable.

As Stephen ages his desire to fit in is at times superseded by the strength of his own opinions (such as his defense of Byron in the second section), and the unquestioning commitments of youth begin to weaken, and replaced by a more questioning spirit:

This spirit of quarrelsome comradeship which he had observed lately in his rival had not seduced Stephen from his habits of quiet obedience. He mistrusted the turbulence and doubted the sincerity of such comradeship which seemed to him a sorry anticipation of manhood. The question of honour here raised was, like all such questions, trivial to him. While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms and turning in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging
him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. These voices had now come to be hollowsounding in his ears.

These sections of maturation and transition are just as nuanced and encapsulating as the earlier childhood scenes, suffused with awkward familial embarrassment, angsty floundering for independent thought, and a general aghastness at the adult world beginning to come into clarity.

I could go on (the extensive religious scene in III [both Stephen's internal anguish and the homily itself] is masterful, the repetition of phrases providing an interconnecting lattice throughout the text is subtle and extensively thought out, the exquisite conversation between Stephen and friends in section IV, blahblahblah), I could quote extensive passages of Joyce's incredible prose (The soul is born, he said vaguely, first in those moments I told you of. It has a slow and dark birth, more mysterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.) - as with my read of Dubliners, even in these early works Joyce was one hell of a writer, it's a damned shame he wrote so few books, but the breadth and scope of what he did write is absolutely stunning - but as with most classics I read, especially one of this stature, I really don't see the point. You should read this if you haven't, and you should probably read this again if you have. There is an incredible interniality to this book, one that finds itself deep in the thoughts and perspective of its protagonist, allowing Joyce to so fully capture young Stephen/James.

[General re-read plans for the next few months - I'm planning to work in the NDP text of Stephen Hero, Exiles, and the Joyce poetry in the next three months. And then, well, I'm looking forward to June.]

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, an explanation (or perhaps a rationalization) of his youth and the choices he made. It tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a pre-teen and later a teenager growing up in Dublin, Ireland around 1900. It’s told in five chapters that are really loosely connected vignettes with significant passages of time between them. Over the course of the novel, Stephen slowly drifts from his family, sheds the Catholic zeal that he’d picked up during his teens, and grapples with his allegiance to Ireland. By the end, Stephen has decided that he must leave Ireland for continental Europe if he is to fully mature as a writer.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is not the type of novel I typically read. I read it because I'm working my way through the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels, which is the point: to force myself to read classics outside of my wheelhouse. But this one was a real struggle, pure literary fiction that demands a level of close reading that I simply wasn’t willing to invest. I’d read a chapter, then read a synopsis of what I was supposed to understand from that chapter, and then go back and review the chapter to try to pick out the parts I’d failed to grasp the first time. I didn’t hate it—it’s obviously well written, and I really liked the middle chapter—but I feel like a lot of its purported greatness simply went over my head. Best of luck to those who give this one a try.

I read this book as high school senior, which I think is a fitting time. This book, quite suprisingly, made me look at and love literature in a way that I hadn't before largely because I connected with Dedalus in way I hadn't connected with any other literary character, not even Holden. Dedalus and I were both going through points of transition in our lives and we both were searching for some meaning, which meant, for us, that we would have to leave a world that was at once comfortable and painful and find something less delightfully masochistic. His poverty-ridden-but-still-home Ireland was much worse than my in-between-but-still-home high school, but we were both left searching for what was next and if that next was going to really have any bearing on anything at all. The problem with people like me (or Dedalus) is that we seek something larger than us to complete us and its hard to find, we are generally unfulfilled people by our own standards--Dedalus had to leave Ireland if only to find a voice for him and his people elsewhere and I went to college to be a teacher only to briefly go to law school because of my quest for something larger. It turns out, however, that the larger something is often an illusion. Despite Dedalus' departure from Ireland, his soul and spirit remained there and I think part of my spirit, or more precisely some memory of my development from teen to adult, brought me back to high school as a teacher. The memory is something I use to guide me to be the best I can be everyday while working to find my voice and help others find theirs.

n  When people ask me now why do you like reading, I will kindly point them to this book and the analysis of this book and off I go.n

Seriously though. This book has so many layers and metaphors and symbols that I was amazed upon finishing it.
Amazed at how much thought Joyce has put in writing this book.
Amazed at how many ideas he managed to write about in merely 300 pages.
And amazed at the depth he reached with this book.

Joyce is a modernist – meaning that I wouldn’t fully understand it without an analysis nearby. I recommend having it by your side after you finish the novel because it explains so much that the average reader overlooks – even the more scholar reader, I am studying literature and I can’t read Joyce without a helping hand to guide me afterward.

It’s a Bildungsroman – or a coming of age where the protagonist matures mentally from one point to another, it focuses on character change – and if you know me I love that SO SO much. Anything that is labeled bildungsroman/coming of age/character development-change is something that I will instantly grab.

The book is partially autobiographical and is in fact, a portrait of an artist in his young formative years.

⚠️n  Now, the book is complex. It doesn’t have the easiest readability because of the literary devices Joyce uses here and the narration.n⚠️

n  The narrationn is third person Point of view until the very end where it transits to a journal form. The tone and the writing are following the main character through the book – the first part is full of evocative descriptions and lyrical language only to have it become dry and boring by part 4 because of the life situations that Daedalus puts upon himself, and then reaching a point at the end where the language is more simple but it entirely belongs to the protagonist – nobody is telling his story but himself.

n  Languagen is also important in a political sense here, it’s a reflection of Ireland of the 19th century and the fight for independence. The protagonist wants to make a language his, and English isn’t that in the form that is around him. Although the political aspects of the book aren’t something that I specifically know but considering the fact that I am born where I live now, I do understand the struggle to express yourself without the binds of politics and patriotism, but still loving the land you were born in, and by writing you do make a small step in helping your land, and the people in it because that has shaped you to be who you are today.

n  Religionn is a big part of the book. At one end of the specter, Stephen, sins with prostitutes and rebels against the church only to see that all that did was damage to his psyche. On the other hand, Extremism in religion proves to Stephen that n  although he can withstand ascetics that doesn’t necessarily make him a better personn so he abandons a career in religion altogether so that he may live his life for art.

There was a critic of the church and how it delivers undeserved punishment, a segment that I enjoyed reading about, it’s ironic because every punishment here wasn’t fair and the people who were punished hadn’t done anything wrong.

Another interesting thing is n  how much thought Joyce put even in the etymologyn. The name of Stephen Daedalus.

If you don’t know about the Greek myth of Daedalus pause this review and go read it – it’s a good one.

Anyway, it warns you not to fly too close to the sun, but to still find a way to break free of the bonds that tie you. Which is exactly what Stephen did. Even his first name, Stephen is derived from St.Stephen, the first martyr; so in a way, that is another way that he abandons religion and finds his more pagan name more fitting to his way of life.

❗️❗️n  Art has always played a role in helping Stephen form his conscious and his sense of self!!!n❗️❗️

From his childhood and the stories that his father read to him, to his adulthood and quoting Aristotle and Akvinsky(Thomas Aquinas), Stephen has formed himself via consuming art and later creating art of his own – proven by the last segment of the novel which is in diary form, he isn’t quoting anyone but only his own words.

As I said at the beginning of the review this book is an answer as to why I like reading and why I have always liked reading from my childhood to now and probably until my death.

⚠️The problem here that I had was Joyce’s stream of consciousness. I have read Virginia Woolf prior and I find her stream of consciousness superior and more graceful, I would describe it as an effortless glide from one scene to another while Joyce has more of a sharper jump, rough around the edges. But you get used to it the more you read modernist books with this literary device, so it’s mostly habit and practice.⚠️

In the end, let’s give it up for Joyce for making a character undergo an entire character development and realizing that women are not “objects of idolization” (like the Virgin Mary) or “objects of lust” (like the prostitutes he used to visit) because he had only two categories for us until the very end, where he finally saw us as, who would have thought a normal breathing human being.

⭐️All in all, this is one hell of a novel. I really liked it. I will probably return to it in the future because this isn’t the type of novel you completely understand upon reading once. I would give all the stars in the world for this one, but sadly the maximum on Goodreads is 5 so there you have it.⭐️
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2nd reread - 21.1.2022.

n   "His throat ached with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds. This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar. An instant of wild flight had delivered him and the cry of triumph which his lips withheld cleft his brain.

—Stephaneforos!

What were they now but the cerementsjo shaken from the body of death—the fear he had walked in night and day, the incertitude that had ringed him round, the shame that had abased him within and without—cerements, the linens of the grave?

His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning her grave-clothes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable."n

Just as good if not better the second time around; Joyce remains the only writer who makes me feel a whole range of emotions and at peace with myself after finishing his work.

I am concurrently reading two enormously stimulating and intellectually challenging books - both of which I can recommend strenuously - My Bright Abyss and Holy Desperation.

Each of these, distinctly different and imperiously individualistic, is by a writer who takes James Joyce’s commandment to become the conscience of our race at face value.

Each does that differently - the former by a disinterested poetic conscience - and the latter by a socially committed religious conscience.

But each is - or has been for most of their life - a pariah.

A castoff from suburbia.

If you eschew the usual head games and (slightly more outré) games of concupiscence suburbia tends to excel at, you are likely one of us.

I say us, for with this book, like they with theirs, I first became a Stephen Dedalus.

The three of us may fake some kind of obedience to the norm, but our hearts will always be in those mystical epiphanic moments which make life worthwhile: those rare moments which are intimations of immortality, as Wordsworth puts it.

When life is a religious experience it is worthwhile.

And it has to be a life of timeless moments. A day without the maximum effort it takes to generate an epiphanic moment (or much better, a SHARED epiphanic moment) is a day not lived.

Joyce knew that. And he knew he could no longer make Ireland his home. For Ireland back at the turn of the century was ruled by a malicious devil - which Plato calls doksa, or opinion - the symptom of a stagnant society in ferment.

When a land is dangerously deadlocked - as we have witnessed in our own time - that same violent devil, doksa, rears its head: and we get viciously vapid tweets masquerading as moral substance.

But Suburbia rarely confronts, but festers.

Hence its release valve, in games.

However, to outcasts from conformity like James Joyce, Christian Wiman (My Bright Abyss) and Heather King (Holy Desperation) we must CHANGE. We must become Self-Aware. And more importantly than that, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, we must have faith.

Have faith that change is possible;

Have faith that WE can promote Change through Awakeness;

Have faith that the Kingdom is at Hand:

AND have faith that all our literary epiphanies PROVE it.

My first Joyce. I can see why he is compared to Woolf and can’t help but do so myself.

Much of this novel is so specific to the time and place of his Ireland that most of the references and much of the dialogue will seem inaccessible to anyone not willing to engage in near constant reference tracking while reading. Joyce is also a master of a version of English that I don’t speak. These two points along with my own natural tendency to fill in linguistic gaps poorly meant that I was limited by my own inabilities in following along with key details in the story. Which is fine from a modern American’s point of view because the story speaks to something universal in addition to speaking to a moment in time/earth.

I’m Hindu but spent some of my formative years in a conservative Christian neighborhood, read parts of the Bible and went to church with my friends a handful of times. Still I don’t think I truly empathized with Christian guilt until reading this. Father Arnell’s lecture on the Catholic model of hell was pure death metal

I am going to trigger a lot of shitty memories for people with this one, but do you remember the multi-stage fitness test from high school? Did you ever do it? Also known as the beep test or the bleep test. You, a bunch of other kids in phys ed class, 20 m of space between you and the line you have to hit. The first beep goes off, you run to the line. The next beep goes off, you run back. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And while you are repeating, the time interval between the beeps gets shorter and shorter. There are 21 levels in the test, with each level having anywhere from 7 laps (level 1) to 15 laps (level 21). I seriously recommend reading the Wikipedia article on this test, because hitting 21 is... well, let’s just say it’s not done too often. The Royal Military College of Canada, for instance, has a minimum requirement of level 9.5 for males and 7.5 for females, when you would initially think that anyone in the military should be able to finish this test. Rumours of David Beckham and Lance Armstrong having finished the test are unfounded, I think.

I always hated the beep test – and we had to do it once or twice a year. I was a chubby kid, and even when I was no longer chubby, I still sucked at running (Sidenote: why is my favourite football position midfielder? Evidently because I’m a masochist). We were graded on it, and it always brought my overall mark down. I remember the dryness in the back of the throat starting somewhere around level 4, at which point I would think “Breathe... breathe.” Then a rapid, ungodly acceleration to “Holy Christ I cannot feel my legs and my lungs are on fire” around level 7. My best ever one was 8 point something, I think. The really athletic kids would ring in around 10, 11. Why am I talking about all of this? It’s been two paragraphs and I haven’t even mentioned the book. Well, I just think it reminiscent of my journey with Joyce. Portrait was level 3 or so, and I know what’s coming. I know what’s next. Here comes the ungodly acceleration. But fortunately, my reading is nowhere close to my running, so I who knows. Can I finish the Joyce literary beep test?

n  Minor spoilers ahead.n

This one was much better than Dubliners, if only because I could cling on to a main narrative and hold on. I loved Stephen Dedalus, with all of the religious and mythical connotations his name evokes. I think I read Siddhartha far too early, because that, in combination with a favourite phrase of my parents’ ("Everything in moderation, Al"), made for a temperate childhood and adolescence. I don’t recall instances where I was wholly taken over by an idea, a movement, anything of the kind. I always looked for positive and negative points, preferring the fence to either side of it. The grass would not be greener if I sat atop the fence, seeing the colour as a spectrum, going from a darker hue of green to a lighter hue. Sure, this meant that I may not have reached the peaks of passion and fanaticism that particular ideas brought for my peers, but I was witness to plenty. Stephen’s ideas are all real to me, not foreign. His religious struggles ring true for him as a character – it makes sense that he had to follow the course to its logical end in order to switch tracks. Perhaps one of the most powerful moments in the novel comes in the third chapter, when Stephen is feeling guilty. Pre-marital sex on his mind, oh the greatest of sins! The sermon takes its sweet time, page upon juicy page, describing the details of hell. It sells an image. I read it on the subway, wearing 3 layers to protect against general Canadian weather. I started feeling stuffy and had to shut the book within a few paragraphs. That’s the good stuff. The real stuff.

As religion crossfades into art and authenticity, Stephen’s character begins to take shape. This, again, is believable. He is real. The final chapter is the best, in my opinion. Walking around, discussing art, beauty, reality, truth. He takes himself far too seriously, but that need not be a criticism. What aspiring author doesn’t? He broods, discusses Aristotle and Aquinas, and speaks Latin. Unbearable to some, but a joy to read regardless. Walking around the streets of Dublin, he is understanding more about himself and his relationship to nationality, Ireland, Catholicism. The two quotes that make the book worth reading happen on the same page – quotes that most pick out as the peak of this novel:

n  You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning.n

and

n  You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a life-long mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.n

My own relation to the quotes is clear to me – a Persian living in Canada, my home is Canada, my identity is dual, and my heart is the north, the snow, the frigid, dry, arid air of winter. I walk around Toronto, dreaming of one day immortalizing it on paper. I am aware of an ancient empire within me, thousands of years of history behind me, a genealogy that obsesses other Persians as Irish genealogies do Stephen’s contemporaries – that is, more than me. A need to emote pride that is based in...what? Looking to past political figureheads with regret, much like Stephen’s father and Parnell. How do you rise above? Where do you take a stand to define yourself, defend yourself against the voices in your own head? How do you become inspired by those voices that tell you to put it down, put it all down, create?

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s foreword is simple, and it points out one last bit of the beauty of this book. I agree with his view, so I will quote it in its entirety:

n  Where Ulysses swells with linguistic inventiveness and gleeful experimentation, Portrait wells with... well, what? Mood. Even now, twenty-seven years after reading it for the first time, its moods come back to me. The rain-drenched school buildings in the dusk, the circumambient sound of children’s voices, the dull thud of a foot striking a ball, the heavy arc of the ball in the dismal air. The smell of cold night in the chapel, and the hum of prayer. The family gathered together on Christmas Day, waiting for the dinner to be served, the fire burning in the fireplace, candles lighting up the table, the bonds and conflicts that exist between the people seated around it. The father, who talks with strangers in bars and tells the same stories every time. The narrow, filthy lanes in which the prostitutes huddle, the yellow gaslights, the smell of perfume, Stephen’s trembling heart. And the birds at evening, circling above the library, dark against the blue-gray sky, their cry ‘shrill and clear and fine and falling like threads of silken light unwound from whirring spools.’ n

Well... now it’s time to continue running the beep test. The back of my throat is getting dry and I am reminding myself to breathe. Until next time, until one single day in Dublin.