James Joyce's a Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Bloom's Notes) (Paperback)

by James Joyce (Editor) "ONCE, UPON A TIME, and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was..." (more)
Key Phrases: esthetic image, ardent ways, enchanted days, Father Arnall, Portrait of the Artist, Brother Michael (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Autobiographical novel by James Joyce, published serially in The Egoist in 1914-15 and in book form in 1916; considered by many the greatest bildungsroman in the English language. The novel portrays the early years of Stephen Dedalus, who later reappeared as one of the main characters in Joyce's Ulysses (1922). Each of the novel's five sections is written in a third-person voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, from the first childhood memories written in simple, childlike language to Stephen's final decision to leave Dublin for Paris to devote his life to art, written in abstruse, Latin-sprinkled, stream-of-consciousness prose. The novel's rich, symbolic language and brilliant use of stream-of-consciousness foreshadowed Joyce's later work. The work is a drastic revision of an earlier version entitled Stephen Hero and is the second part of Joyce's cycle of works chronicling the spiritual history of humans from Adam's Fall through the Redemption. The cycle began with the short-story collection Dubliners (1914) and continued with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (1939). -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
handsome new editions . . . . eminently readable with good, clear typefaces and text unencumbered by note numbers --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea House Publications (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791045668
• ISBN-13: 978-0791045664
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (245 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,207,489 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tough read, but more than worth it, February 15, 2003

By	Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

I'm always up for a good challenge, whether it be in books, music or movies, and from what I've heard Joyce is about as challenging as they come in the literary world. However, since it seemed like "Ulysses" or "Finnegan's Wake" would be a bit much to start with, I found myself reading "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" as an introduction to his work. And although I found this book about as easy to get into as Princeton, it was about as rewarding as well. "Portrait" is certainly anything but a light read. Joyce's meandering narrative and serpentine prose can be confusing to say the least, and on more than one occasion I had to read a sentence about five times in order to figure out what I had just read. For all its verbosity, though, "Portrait" is an essential read because the story of Stephen Dedalus carries so much resonance. I'm about the same age as Stephen was in this story, and I can relate pretty easily to his search for answers. Growing up in Ireland around the turn of the twentieth century, Stephen faces existential questions that should ring true for a young person coming from any culture at any time. He tries to find satisfaction by giving in to his lust, and when that doesn't work he goes all the way to the other end of the spectrum in seeking fulfillment through religious devotion. In the end, however, neither of these extremes provides Stephen with the answers he's looking for. Stephen's story demonstrates one unfortunate fact of life: when you're seeking meaning, there are no easy answers. Ultimately, as Stephen tells his friend Cranly, he decides that his solution is to "express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can," even if it means making mistakes or being spurned by society. In "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," Joyce outlines some important ideas that have since become prominent in literature, notably noncomformity, self-expression, coming of age, and the nature of religious belief. This book may not have been perfectly written, but since Joyce was aiming so high it's easy to overlook any imperfections in his style. "Portrait" was written with plenty of intelligence and soul, so it's easy to see why it's still read after all these years.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not easy but well worth the effort, June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Mass Market Paperback)

I've seen some reviews that criticize the book for being too stream of consciousness and others for not being s.o.c. enough. The fact is, for the most part it's not s.o.c. at all. (See the Chicago Manual of Style, 10.45-10.47 and note the example they give...Joyce knew how to write s.o.c.). A better word for A Portrait is impressionistic. Joyce is more concerned with giving the reader an impression of Stephen's experience than with emptying the contents of his head. What's confusing is the style mirrors the way Stephen interprets his experiences at the time, according to the level of his mental development.

When Stephen is a baby, you get only what comes in through the five senses. When he is a young boy, you get the experience refracted through a prism of many things: his illness (for those who've read Ulysses, here is the beginning of Stephen's hydrophobia - "How cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat jump into the scum."), his poor eyesight, the radically mixed signals he's been given about religion and politics (the Christmas meal), his unfair punishment, and maybe most important of all, his father's unusual expressions (growing up with phrases like, "There's more cunning in one of those warts on his bald head than in a pack of jack foxes" how could this kid become anything but a writer?)

It is crucial to understand that Stephen's experiences are being given a certain inflection in this way when you come to the middle of the book and the sermon. You have to remember that Stephen has been far from a good Catholic boy. Among other things, he's been visting the brothels! The sermon hits him with a special intensity, so much so that it changes his life forever. Before it he's completely absorbed in the physical: food, sex, etc. After it he becomes just as absorbed in the spiritual/aesthetic world. It's the sermon that really puts him on the track to becoming an artist. One reviewer called the sermon overwrought. Well, of course it's overwrought. That's the whole point. Read it with your sense of humor turned on and keep in mind that you're getting the sermon the way you get everything else in the book: through Stephen.

After Stephen decides he doesn't want to be a priest, the idea of becoming an artist really starts to take hold. And when he sees the girl on the beach, his life is set for good. That scene has to be one of the most beautiful in all of literature. After that, Stephen develops his theory of esthetics with the help of Aristotle and Aquinas and we find ourselves moving from one conversation to another not unlike in Plato (each conversation with the appropriate inflection of college boy pomposity). In the end, Stephen asks his "father" to support him as he goes into the real world to create something. I like to think that this is an echo of the very first line in the book. The father, in one of many senses, is the moocow story. The story gave birth to Stephen's imagination and now it's the son's turn to create.

This is such a rich and beautiful book. I suppose it's possible for people to "get it" and still not like it, but I really think if you read and re-read, and maybe do a little research, the book will open up to you the way it did to me.

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the edition to get, April 29, 2005

By	Caraculiambro (La Mancha) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Wordsworth Classics) (Paperback)

If you're gonna buy a copy of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," you can't go wrong with the Wordsworth Classic edition. Its advantages are several:

1. It's extremely cheap.
2. It features a very long and immensely insightful (32-page) introduction by Jaqueline Belanger, which includes a biography, publishing background, sections on language structure, irony, etc. There are also many suggestions for further syntopic or critical reading.
3. The thing is complete and unabridged.
4. There are extensive footnotes at the end, which are keyed throughout in the text, explaining all the Latin and the extinct realia of Joyce's world.

In short, get it.

As for the work itself, it's a very good prepper for "Ulysses:" I started that novel without having done this one. Later I came back to this: much was made clearer. Don't make my mistake.