Another Great Moving On Book from James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

When you're younger, you usually would receive strong suggestions from people around you on what you ought to do later when you grow older. They include parents, elders, and friends. Most of them don't really know what they're talking about except they just think they know you that well, mainly because they've taken part in rearing and taking care of you from childhood, one way or another. But their suggestions are most probably projections of their own dreams that they have missed out in pursuing most relentlessly; each one of us face so many, grueling distractions as we go through the many phases in life. 

Even authors, including James Joyce (who's one of my favorites), experienced something similar. And he wrote a book about it, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," which is considered by critics and readers as among the top English-novels of the 20th century. With this note in mind, I ventured to read the book and have found out it's among those books you can use as a tool to help you take action in moving on with your life, whatever stage you are in now. If you have the chance, find the time to read it, even if some of its chapters can be dreadfully boring (because they dealt with dogmas you'd rather not hear about these days as they sound like you're reading a paid political advertisement LOL). The book's not a thick tome and has some of the most beautiful lines I've relished reading aloud so far from books that have come my way.

Btw, some other thoughts I've got on the book are copy pasted here from my Goodreads.com account. Enjoy!

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce


My rating: 4 of 5 stars




I read this mainly because I like the way James Joyce writes in the English language, which I'm grateful to be using myself in most of my writings. I also have become aware that Joyce knows his languages very well, which tools he's used to be in supreme command of the details of what he wants to share and tell his readers. And I know I've a long way to go so that I could write as best as James Joyce did, even with his tendency to use words that needed to be checked using the dictionary to assure me that they're exactly what they seemed to me when seeing them in his works. Note that this particular book's not easy to read, which is usual with most of those works of Joyce that I've read to-date.






But I gained so much from the mere pleasure of listening to myself reading his words in soft whispers while in transit to and fro my destinations here in NYC. He's one of the few authors who has made me do this, which reading technique had made me experience better and in a more charming manner what he wants to share with this book. To my ears, his lines are wonderfully poetic and they sound beautiful (almost like making a grand flower arrangement using spring flowers straight from anybody's flower farm) when read in hushed tones.






The book's main storyline is really simple (I've convinced myself to be so), which most regular readers must have encountered one way or another in some other books written in the past century. It relates the journey of someone who tried to break free from his inhibiting past in order to lead the kind of life he dreamt for himself. Joyce creatively does this sharing of his story by making use of all available tools he knows about language, which in this case happened to be English. For example, switches in time frames can be read and noticed as you go about reading each word making up the lines found in the book. In my case, I happened to notice it more strongly toward the portions where he narrated the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church.






Really, those portions can be too much for any reader who's not familiar with the ways of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. I prodded on by the earlier parts so I proceeded to read beyond those annoying portions. And I was glad to have survived reading those narrations about those fearsome dogmas, which I know are still used by some these days to scare out people from living more meaningful lives. They're very familiar even in other religions.






From those parts of the book mostly on the other half leading to the book's ending, I was enthralled and soon realized how elegantly his style was in constructing his lines to narrate what happened to the book's characters. Even the minute passing of the hours of certain days were caught and described most aptly, which helped my imagination to relive the emotions of those moments being described. And this sensual delight I felt and it continued as I went on slowly reading and taking pauses every now and then to do my other daily works.






Some pages were, admittedly, really boring (in addition to those dreadful, so many pages that illustrate the dogmas of the Church), such that I really had to stop reading the book at least 3 times and decide to read some other books on hand. In the process, I learned a lot about Joyce from this book, and I could relate well with him because we had similar experiences when we were of the same age. Just like him, I could have pursued and make a stable career out of the priesthood myself, being the eldest child in my family and the extended family I have from my mother side. It's also dictated by tradition, somehow, although it's not written somewhere (as usual). As I recall it, it's sort of a belief in the blessing the family would receive if I become a priest. A grandfather, who's a cousin of my maternal grandmother, was a priest and he was also the eldest in his family.






But just like Joyce, we decided to change course. Looking back, I hold no regrets, which I assumed was the same with Joyce, and given all the difficulties thrown our way when we opted to choose a different path. And I'm glad and felt reassured I've read Joyce on his story about his experience in a time when most young fellows would just follow what their elders (who usually have good intentions in their hearts) would (strongly) suggest to these non-thinking youths to do so.






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