A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Name: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Author: James Joyce

James Joyce · 1916

Stephen Dedalus's journey from childhood religious terror to artistic vocation is the template for every subsequent novel about becoming a writer. Joyce established stream of consciousness as a literary technique here before perfecting it in Ulysses. Modern Library ranked it third.

The case against

on the retreat sermon
“Joyce lets the sermon drag on for at least seven pages”
a book blog
on the aesthetic theory talk
“things got noticeably harder to follow and less enjoyable for me”
a book blog
on his university friendships
“steeped in theory rather than brotherly affection”
a book blog
on the prose style
“it would be better to show rather than tell”
a book blog