I had the opportunity to read this play in a reading group, which took place over 3 sessions at http://sweny.ie/site/readings/.

Upon reading, I found that the play is a bit dated. The pacing is rather slow, and at times, it feels laboured. However, if one is familiar with Joyce's other writings and themes, it still holds a certain level of interest. It delves into the complex and often晦涩的 world that Joyce is known for creating.

It's important to note that this play is not for the faint of heart. It requires a certain level of dedication and a willingness to engage with the material on a deeper level. But for those who are up for the challenge, it can offer valuable insights into Joyce's literary genius and his unique perspective on life and society.

I have finished it overnight - or almost. I haven't read much of James Joyce, and this might be the second time I stumble across his work.

I didn't begin with a classic like Ulysses, which most people have heard of. Instead, I delved into a part of the huge labyrinth that he imagined, wrote, and created as an Irishman, like no one before him. One could perhaps link it to Giacomo, another masterclass associated with the realness of his mind.

James Joyce wrote people as lands and lands as people. In this very play, Richard was Joyce's reflection and also that of Ireland. He wrote as an exiled person, both in real life and in this play. No doubt he was into meta-commentary. He probably even preferred to communicate through books rather than in real life (which is well-received here).

I have longed for Irish art my whole life. I feel entitled to love each and every one of them. They are my people (not really). To make it more relevant, Bertha could be seen as the Palestinians and Richard, with his never-ending victimhood, could be Israel (which is indeed interesting).

Anyway, I'm an easy reader, and this work deserves all the stars. I can't understand why some people have a hard time with it....

So, Joyce was a cuckold.

Or perhaps he wanted to be, or maybe he didn't want to be but desired an open marriage to pursue women on his own. However, he also didn't truly want that because he allegedly loved his wife.

In other words, this book successfully explores numerous different themes such as jealousy, possession, freedom, resentment, and love.

On the surface, the idea may not seem novel (at least not to my experience; it was likely scandalous for the time). But he manages to approach the subject with a rawness that most real-life triangle stories lack.

Nevertheless, I will never forgive him for naming the principal male characters Richard and Robert and the principal female characters Beatrice, Bertha, and Brigid.

It might be a lot easier to follow when actually watching the play, but for reading the script, it's an absolute nightmare trying to distinguish who is who when all their names look so similar.

This aspect really detracts from the overall reading experience and makes it more difficult to fully engage with the story and its complex themes.

Oof, oh boy.

Yeah, Joyce wrote a play. That's why he didn't write two plays. This isn't a case like his poetry, which is unremarkable but acceptable and goes down easy. No, Exiles is more or less a failure.

The biggest issue with it is the dialogue. James, what happened to ye? It has neither the lively full-bodied character dialogue of works like Ulysses, nor the low-key nigh-realistic dialogue of Dubliners. It's either bafflingly didactic or shamelessly mechanical. The entire play is mechanical, with characters interacting for reasons no less shallow than "it's time for us to have dialogue together now."

Not only that, but Joyce litters the page with so many directions that are either needlessly controlling or just plain needless because anyone would have picked up on it. All of the flaws in this essentially boil down to Joyce not knowing how to work in this medium.

And on top of all this, the actual substance of the play is a really uncomfortable airing of all Joyce's dirty laundry, a confessional of all his weird neuroses through an actual cuck/counter-cuck incident in his life. To be sure, there is nothing here that isn't in his other works, but since he's inept at writing a play it doesn't have that separating film of the artistic filter.

So he's putting really awkward sensitive material into the lines of people who would never say the things they're saying to anyone (in both content and form), which is intended to be pronounced under bright lights in front of public crowds. In literature, similar ideas with the right execution make the Circe episode shine. Here in a play, it's difficult to read let alone watch.

It's like if DFW wrote a TV pilot in which the main character who is very transparently himself does drugs and throws chairs at his girlfriend before getting on a payphone and calling long distance to propose to a fan he met last year. Why would anyone want this? In Joyce's notes he has all these pseudo-philosophical ideas behind the characters, so while there are definitely ideas and symbols being used in the play, it may bode even worse that they aren't coherently communicated in any way.

The trouble with writing this is I'm actually making it sound more interesting than it actually is. Not only does it not work, it's just boring most of the time. I would have trouble recommending it to anyone, because if you're reading it out of curiosity it won't take you further than 10 pages, and while I read it mostly for completion's sake I recognize that's more my fault than anything. But, if there's one bit of worth I got out of it, it's the massive laugh I got from Joyce's note saying that his self-insert character is supposed to be modeled after the "On Women" incarnation of Schopenhauer. Not Recommended.

Richard: ¿Me tiene confianza? ¿Siente que me conoce?
Beatrice: (de nuevo con timidez) Es difícil conocer a alguien aparte de uno mismo.

“Los grandes escritores siempre escriben su obra de teatro” me dijo un amigo que además de escritor, también ha publicado las suyas. Esto es verdad, pues se pueden enumerar numerosos casos de autores que, aunque eran novelistas o cuentistas, escribieron obras de teatro. Y James Joyce no fue la excepción. Esta pieza está influenciada, aunque lejanamente, por uno de los mejores dramaturgos de fines del siglo XIX, Henrik Ibsen.

“Exiliados” posee los condimentos propios de Joyce, con un pequeño giro a la complejidad de las relaciones humanas entrelazadas en un triángulo amoroso y equilátero entre los personajes principales: Richard, Robert y Bertha. Beatrice, la pareja de Robert, queda un tanto relegada, pues no termina de darse cuenta en qué enredos cayeron los otros personajes. Toda la trama gira alrededor del adulterio, el deseo carnal y la traición. Robert quiere poseer a Bertha, la esposa de Richard, ambos recién llegados a Dublín con su hijo Archie. Bertha accede, y Richard sabe de este juego y, lo que es más evidente, lo acepta. Todos logran “jugar” con la persona que más buscan, y de ahí surgen las complicaciones del drama.

La calidad argumental de Joyce para mantener a todos los personajes en una misma hebra es impecable. Richard, atento a la posibilidad de que Bertha sucumba ante la persuasión de Robert, lo reflexiona a modo de enseñanza hacia su hijo: “¿Tú entiendes lo que es dar una cosa? Mientras tengas una cosa, pueden quitártela. Pero una vez que la has dado, la has dado. Ningún ladrón puede quitártela. Es tuya para siempre una vez que la has dado. Eso es dar.” Hasta este punto puede llegar Richard ante la inminente posibilidad de que Robert acceda a una noche con su esposa. Si Robert lo logra, no podemos saberlo hasta el tercer acto, en el cual se genera un interesante contrapunto entre los personajes.

Adulterio, traición, aceptación, sometimiento y duda son los ejes centrales de esta obra de teatro diseñada a la perfección por James Joyce. Una vez le preguntaron a Joyce cuál era la potencia máxima para mantener a la gente unida, si la fe total o la duda. Y Joyce respondió: “No, la duda es la cosa. La vida está suspendida en la duda como el mundo en el vacío. Puede encontrar eso tratado en cierto sentido en Exiliados.” Indudablemente, esa es la esencia principal que regula esta amena obra de teatro.

A renowned, complex masterpiece.

Dramatically, the Ibsenian erotic "triangle" encounters Joyce's common obsessions (what is "homeland", "faith", "bond", "freedom", what is - in short - "soul"), in a pure, romantic and larger-than-life work, yet also burdened.

This combination of elements creates a captivating and thought-provoking narrative. The Ibsenian influence adds a layer of depth and intensity to the exploration of these themes.

Joyce's unique perspective and writing style bring the story to life, making it a truly remarkable piece of literature.

The "triangle" serves as a vehicle for examining the intricacies of human relationships and the various forces that shape them.

Overall, this work stands as a testament to the power of great literature to engage, inspire, and challenge our understanding of the world and ourselves.

I'm not overly enthusiastic about theater plays when it comes to reading them. However, it just so happened that one landed in my hands, and initially, I really enjoyed it.

"Exiles" is a small book that you can breeze through quickly, but in the end, it leaves you with a certain sense of frustration.

Here we have a convoluted love story with a loving quadrangle. None of the four characters truly knows what they want. They are crushed by consuming passions that wear them down, yet no one takes any action to make them a reality or extinguish them forever.

They don't act; they only dream.

After all, the book doesn't have a lot of action, but it intrigues you. You want to know if Bertha loves Robert, if Richard stays with Beatrice, and so on. It's a bit sappy, isn't it?

You're left hanging because the ambiguity that has been floating throughout the text from the beginning doesn't disappear until the end. Ah, Joyce's style.

Beyond the amorous problems that consume the protagonists, we also see many things that generally concern Joyce in his writing: the artist's struggles with his own demons, exile (the writer himself experiencing this).

Although it's not a text that overwhelms you, "Exiles" remains, ultimately, a book worth reading, especially for Joyce's fans.

After several years, I finally returned to reading James Joyce, a writer I read in my high school years. What a great return to his complex world!

Using as a base some phrases that he himself wrote in letters to his wife Nora Barnacle during their courting days (for more information, I recommend reading "Love Letters to Nora Barnacle"), Joyce constructed his only play, which is about Richard Rowan, a writer who has returned from exile with his wife Bertha and their son Archie, not imagining that the return to his native Ireland will uncover the truths about his marriage, such as his infidelity with Beatrice Justice and Bertha's with the journalist Robert Hand, Beatrice's cousin and Richard's childhood friend.

Despite the brevity of the text, Joyce manages the love triangle between Richard, his wife Bertha, and Robert, Richard's friend and Bertha's lover, excellently. Unlike other stories of this kind, Richard and Bertha know that they are unfaithful to each other, but they accept that based on not losing the love they still have deep down, in addition to experiencing some kind of passion with someone else.

But as the play progresses, the author delves deeper into this triangle, taking into account the manipulation that Bertha imposes on the others, the control that Richard tries to maintain over his wife (even at the cost of allowing her to have a lover), and Robert Hand himself, a man who, despite his seductive appearance, is actually a passionate man who seeks in Bertha a true love that she probably does not feel.

Reading the footnotes, it is interesting how, despite the simplicity of his writing (I would say that this is a good book to start with James Joyce's work), the author relates the plot to several of his most outstanding works, especially "Ulysses", from certain streets of Dublin to the fact that the entire plot takes place in some days of June, just like in "Ulysses".

It catches my attention that the characters share certain initials: the only child has the initial A, the women (including Brigid, the housekeeper) have the B, and the men the R. Taking into account the housekeeper, who does not become a very important character, I think it was a way for the author to order his characters and keep the story in an orderly way, especially if we take into account that this was his only play.

One of the best-known characteristics of this book is its ambiguous ending, which makes us wonder what happened to Beatrice and Robert, and above all, what path the marriage of Richard and Bertha takes once their feelings are clear.

In conclusion, it is an easy book to read, with an apparently simple plot but with a great depth of content. It is a book that makes you think once you finish it. Will this be my first play in my Top Best Reads 2022? We'll find out!

Five stars. I had a strong need to read this play which consists of three acts and was published in 1918.

It explores themes such as infidelity, jealousy within a love triangle, perhaps also ambition and writing.

The book I read also includes Chamber Music from 1907, 'POMES PENYEACH' from 1927, The Holy Office, and two others. It has a total of 234 pages.

"GAS FROM A BURNER" is extremely passionate. I truly loved it. Just imagine the year 1912. There are so many things I could learn from this work.

The poems within, like the one that starts "Because your voice was at my side, I gave him pain", are so touching. It expresses the complex emotions of the author.

The second poem, which begins "Be not sad because all men prefer a lying clamour before you", gives a sense of comfort and encouragement.

These works offer a unique perspective into the literary world of that time and are truly a joy to read.

Albert Camus is a renowned figure in the literary world, being both a great novelist and a talented playwright. His works have had a profound impact on generations of readers and thinkers. However, like many other great artists, Camus also had his own set of problems.

Camus grappled with the complex issues of human existence, such as the meaning of life, the nature of evil, and the search for freedom. His exploration of these themes was not always easy, and he often found himself facing difficult questions and moral dilemmas.

Despite these challenges, Camus continued to create works that were both thought-provoking and deeply moving. His novels, such as "The Stranger" and "The Plague," and his plays, such as "Caligula" and "The Misunderstanding," are considered classics of modern literature. Through his writing, Camus was able to offer unique insights into the human condition and inspire others to think more deeply about their own lives.

I am recommending this for two reasons.

The first is that the introduction is by Conor McPherson, a highly regarded playwright. His works, such as THE SEAFARER which is currently making waves on Broadway, draw inspiration from the greats like Joyce and Yeats. This gives an added layer of depth and authenticity to the volume.

The second reason is that this particular edition contains a twelve-page set of notes by Joyce himself. Having these personal insights directly from the author is truly a remarkable find.

It's also convenient to have EXILES available on its own. Previously, I had only noticed it being included in THE PORTABLE JOYCE, which I thought had gone out of print. However, as of January 15th, 2007, it has been corrected and is still available, with the proper dashes instead of quotation marks in DUBLINERS and PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN.

Now, I want to recommend the publisher's webpage: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk. This edition coincides with a 2006 revival of EXILES at the National Theatre in London, adding to its significance.

Actors will surely love this series. At the front of the book, there is a full-page list of many plays published by Nick Hern Books. The list not only provides the titles but also indicates which works are modelled after other playwrights' works. For instance, after Caryl Churchill's THYESTES, it clearly states "after Seneca." I find this aspect quite amusing and informative.

Additionally, this book points out that EXILES was actually performed in New York during Joyce's lifetime, specifically at The Neighborhood Playhouse in February, 1925. Interestingly, Joyce wasn't present at the performance. That same month, THE NEW YORKER magazine premiered, and I'm curious to know if they reviewed the play.

Someday, I hope to do more than just listen to radio performances of ULYSSES (after Homer) every June 16th. For now, I've just re-read DUBLINERS and am truly amazed at how much wisdom and depth the book has gained since I first read it. (A little joke inspired by Mark Twain.)

A tradição joyciana de projeção do autor em um mundo irônico ainda é perceptível aqui. However, it is not on the same scale as in his other works. Constrained by the logistics of the theater, this small adventure of Joyce suffers from crises of identity. It struggles to find its true self within the limitations imposed by the theatrical setting.

As a result, it gets lost in the forests of the melodramatic costume comedy. The narrative threads seem sterilized, lacking the depth and complexity that are characteristic of Joyce's writing. Despite these shortcomings, there are still glimpses of the author's unique vision and talent.

Perhaps with further exploration and refinement, this work could have achieved greater heights. But as it stands, it remains a somewhat flawed but still interesting addition to Joyce's body of work.