The Winter of Our Oblivion

Joyce's works require a careful and measured approach. One cannot simply expect to embrace his universe wholeheartedly or lose oneself in an epic state of bliss. It is not possible to be a first-level reader of his books, in Umberto Eco's terminology. Instead, one must be a second-level reader, more concerned with how the story is told rather than what is being told. If not, the grey desperation of his characters can easily seep into one's own being, as their epiphanies are often about dullness, hopelessness, and a bleak acceptance of their lives and fates.


Dublin, the main character in Joyce's books, is the subject of his greatest epiphany. Stephen Dedalus' and Leopold Bloom's Dublin, as well as the Dublin of Dubliners and Finnegans Wake, is a dead and morose city where nothing seems to happen. However, this "nothingness" takes on Homeric proportions as each seemingly insignificant hero fights for the right to be just that - insignificant. There is a quiet dignity in these existences that are meant to be in the background, in their determination to prove that the background is also important. Perhaps this is why the book begins with a death and ends with "The Dead", emphasizing that the lifeless life they lead, lacking in ambitions and dreams, which seems to paralyze their actions and diminish their existence, is in fact life. It is a life of options never considered, a life of all that could have been but never was, a second-hand life that suffocates and cannot be redeemed. It is not important, not novel material, not exceptional - just life.


Like Eveline's life, whose hands grip the iron railing in a gesture that reveals the mentality of all the characters, their inability to change, and their clinging to routine. Every one of them is like Eveline, coming back from the docks, lost and sometimes missing their chance to become someone. The city is what keeps them prisoners, that small city where "everyone knows everyone else's business" (The Boarding House), from which one has to leave "if you wanted to succeed" (A Little Cloud), and which only at night wears "the mask of a capital" (After the Race). Its grasp is so powerful that even when they realize its ill charm: "I'm sick of my own country, sick of it!" (The Dead), they do nothing to escape, forever trapped in a background that blurs their contours and refuses to give them the spotlight.


No wonder the stories are all about unfulfillment - fifteen different kinds, each approaching major themes such as love, marriage, motherhood, career, politics, religion, but treating them in minor keys. The first three stories of "Dubliners" are told by three young narrative voices that evoke dubious or disappointing experiences in their growing-up process - like the death of and the encounter with a potential child-molester, or a first, unrequited love. The rest are told by an omniscient voice that blankly and monotonously reports on other occasions, good or bad, that have slipped away, desecrating one after another all human ideals: love (Eveline, A Painful Case), motherhood (The Boarding House, A Mother), fulfillment (A Little Cloud, After the Race), redemption (Grace, Two Gallants, Counterparts), patriotism (Ivy Day in the Committee Room).


The last story, The Dead, offers a synthetic view of this world through the image of Gabriel Conroy, whose apparently calm and settled life hides an angry resignation for missed opportunities in both personal and social life. The last image of the book, although no less desolate, is somehow cathartic, a burial of the hero's inner and outer world in the winter of our discontent, the winter of oblivion: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Everyday stories, without excessive complexity and unpredictable twists. The characters in each narrative are ordinary people, citizens of Dublin, each with their own expectations, weaknesses, and passions. The plain narration of the events focuses the reader's interest on the psychological profile of the protagonists, who through their daily interactions, habits, and experiences realistically present the atmosphere of that specific era, the people's perceptions, the customs and ethics of this place. From simple everyday matters of a religious or social nature to events of greater sociopolitical significance, the reader wanders through the rainy mountain roads of Dublin, crosses the traditional façades of the houses that stand like ghosts in the city, and is drawn in by the fog and the sound of the carriage that leads the residents to dark rooms with wooden floors that tremble along with the flames of the candles.

However, the mountainous atmosphere imposed by the reading can create a darker, less pleasant climate in some places. This, combined with the fact that I personally noticed significant differences in interest when reading each story, also determined my grading.

Neither of them had had an adventure before and they didn't seem aware of any incongruity. Little by little their thoughts became linked to hers. He lent her books, provided her with ideas, and shared his intellectual life with her. She was all ears. On occasions, as a retribution for his theories, she confided details about her life to him. With an almost maternal solicitude she urged him to open up his nature fully to her; she became his confessor.

If you like stories with abrupt endings that don't explain much, full of losers and drunks everywhere, this is the book I would recommend to you. Particularly it wasn't much to my liking and I think for example of my compatriot the writer Julio Ramón Ribeyro who made many stories of a similar urban style, dealing with similar themes and in decadent environments, but with a better style and above all objective in my opinion.

Joyce makes us participate in an interesting journey through some stages of childhood, youth and adulthood in the chaotic and overwhelming city of Dublin. In fact, there are some references that surely I don't know. I have looked for some characters like Parnell, an Irish politician of the time mentioned in a story, but still I couldn't help feeling a bit lost.

All the stories have in common the dissatisfaction of the characters in the expression of a decadent world. At times the stories seemed confusing to me and I felt that I was stuffed with dialogues, names and references that sometimes made me dizzy. I don't think that was the author's intention. Rather, I think that the message that he wanted to convey sometimes escaped from his hands.

"Now that she had gone forever, he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night, alone, in that room. His life would be just as lonely until, he too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory - if anyone remembered him."

Among my favourites are:

"A Painful Case": which tells the story of James Duffy who, being a bank clerk and leading a monotonous life, meets Mrs Sinico, a woman with whom he will have or try to have a relationship that is more than friendship.

"A Little Cloud": which deals with a dissatisfied type who has achieved little and meets his friend Gallaher who is successful on the continent, that is, in other European countries outside the United Kingdom, and it is a good opportunity to see a picture of stories of old friends and the liveliness of one of them to prosper in life.

The stories, as I mention, have a style that was surely innovative for the time although some can indeed become boring and I really liked very few. Certainly I plan to read "Ulysses" before considering that perhaps he is an overrated author.