Book Review: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)

Another new type of post: I'll occasionally be writing short reviews of books I've recently read... maybe you'll decide to read the book (or learn that you shouldn't).

First book: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce.

Joyce is considered one of the best novelists of the 20th century (if not the best), and Portrait of the Artist is considered one of the top novels ever. (His other work Ulysses may be even more eminent in the literary world, though.)

Anyway, Portrait of the Artist is an autobiographical piece of fiction describing a boy's coming-of-age in the context of various Catholic schools he attends. Joyce's facility and artistry with language is incredible, adding so much depth and richness to the text on a micro level and really allowing the reader to feel many of the emotions of Stephen Daedalus, the protagonist. It was also an interesting book for me in that it described a lifestyle totally different from mine—largely defined by religion. In addition to learning some new religion-related vocabulary (soutane, thurible, sacristy, etc.), I was reminded that there is more to life than the mechanical, scientific, predictable side; there is the passion and commitment to the sacred and to personal beliefs and ideals. Sometimes some of us (including myself) would do well to keep this in mind.

Unfortunately the overall story line felt a little fragmented and incomplete. The book is 5 chapters, each about a separate time in Stephen's life, so the story is inherently fragmented at least chronologically. However, while the chapters are unified around the theme of Stephen's personal development, it just seems like they jump around to different stages of his life. Maybe this was at least partly intentional but when I was finished with the book I felt a little bit of nagging dissatisfaction—like I hadn't really gotten to know the protagonist that well because he changed so much in the time between chapters.

Overall I do recommend this book. Despite what I thought were some shortcomings, I still enjoyed Joyce's ability to portray Stephen's thoughts and emotions in a moving and insightful way.

Links #2

Some more links:

• Long article: The Independent: "The dark side of Dubai"

• Long article: New Yorker: one reason why health care in the US is so inefficient. (Has nothing to do with the proposed "public option" plan.)

• Long article: New Yorker: interesting piece about the link between ability to delay gratification and succeed in many areas of life, with other implications.

• Long article: Telegraph: piece by a former Tamil Tiger (and female, too) of her experience.

Links #1

Time for a new (lazy) type of post: a list of links to some articles that I've read recently and think you might find interesting. I distinguish them by their length, but I don't want you to not read one because I call it "long"—often my willingness to impose their length on my loyal readership means that they are not to be missed.

Here are the links:

• Short article: Salon: opinion article about how the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting this year was not reported on many major TV networks because it implicated them in a scandal.

• Short article: Columbia Journalism Review: about the dangers of using Wikipedia (and how major news outlets sometimes misuse it).

• Medium-long article: NYTimes: about credit card companies trying to analyze which of their (prospective) customers are most likely to pay their credit card bills. Also an insight into the immorality of credit card companies.

• Long article: The Atlantic: about why business management theory is not really that helpful in the business world. Read if you're interested in going into business; can be of interest otherwise, too.

More to come shortly (which for this blog means within a month).