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    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    Audiobook8 hours

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    Written by James Joyce

    Narrated by Jim Norton

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    This fictionalised portrait of Joyce’s youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Read unabridged by the incomparable Joyce expert, Jim Norton.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateAug 1, 2005
    ISBN9789629545918
    Author

    James Joyce

    James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. He came from a reasonably wealthy family which, predominantly because of the recklessness of Joyce's father John, was soon plunged into financial hardship. The young Joyce attended Clongowes College, Belvedere College and, eventually, University College, Dublin. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, and eloped with her to Croatia. From this point until the end of his life, Joyce lived as an exile, moving from Trieste to Rome, and then to Zurich and Paris. His major works are Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan's Wake (1939). He died in 1941, by which time he had come to be regarded as one of the greatest novelists the world ever produced.

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    Reviews for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    3.5/5

    128 ratings82 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I am usually not a fan of big celebrities reading the classics. They tend to make it about the performance and not the work. Not so with Colin Farrell's brilliant rendition of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Farrell's tone is deadpan and understated. His reading makes the work sound as if it were written yesterday. Extremely entertaining and equally sublime.
    • 3/5
      I read this in preparation for a Joyce class I will start next week, focusing on Ulysses. I am very glad I did, because this book has inventive style, a gripping storyline and a representation of social issues not unlike Quebec's in the 50's and 60's - and is a good introduction to the kind of experiments Joyce makes in Ulysses.The development of an artistic mind striving for freedom is fascinating when put in Joyce's lyricism and grand eloquence. I was scared by Joyce at first but now I feel more confident than ever that I can enjoy and appreciate his work.
    • 4/5
      James Joyce. Really, what more needs to be said about something bearing his name?If you haven’t ever read Joyce, I imagine I should probably go on. In A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce sets off on a novel that defines Joyce in the literary annals. The novel, a semiautobiographical account of Joyce’s own upbringing, starts with the Artist (called Stephen Dedalus) as a young child, and progresses through his young adulthood. As he ages, not only does he glimpse the world through older and clearer lenses, but also the writing style and vocabulary reflects his advancement in learning.Reading the book provides the participant two things (among others): First is the interesting way through which Joyce crafts his narrative to age with the protagonist, and second is the interesting story it tells.I recommend this, especially if you are considering scaling Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. Portrait will give you a glimpse of what to expect as you’re dangling from one dangerous precipice or another.
    • 2/5
      I know it’s a great classic, which is why I read it. But can I just say that I could barely understand what was going on through the whole book without sounding like a complete idiot? I had been planning on reading Ulysses but maybe not.
    • 4/5
      It seems to dwell a little bit on the whole church scene. And the other thing is that it's better to say only the interesting things.Also too much damn politics. All that, and that it's really too boring to criticize properly. (7/10)
    • 1/5
      I don't usually bother to write bad reviews, but this book takes the cake for me. Reading that whole sermon about hell was already hell in and of itself, and that's only one of many things wrong with this book. Why must you torment me, Joyce? I only wanted to read a novel of yours, for heaven's sake. I'm surprised I had it in me to even finish it.
    • 5/5
      Another one of those I tried to read in High School and just couldn't finish. When I sat down as a grown-up and rea it, I cursed myself for waiting so long. Beautiful, captivating, and a great introduction to Joyce, who's not exactly an easy read overall. He's worth it though.
    • 5/5
      The classic Bildungsroman. Of course, I hate to use the term Bildungsroman cause you sound like a pompous ass. However, since I am in fact a pompous ass, it works out ok.
    • 4/5
      I don't much care for the later parts in the book, but the beginning--Stephen's childhood--is, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most beautiful bits of words ever put to paper. That alone is reason to pick this up, and as a sort of "gateway" book between the easy-to-read Dubliners and the notoriously difficult Ulysses, it works beautifully.
    • 5/5
      My all time, hands down, favorite book. The classic coming of age tale of Stephen Dedalus in late 19th, early 20th century Dublin is the golden stadard of wordsmanship. A Portrait is challenging but rewarding with pleanty of depth but more accessible than some of Joyce's later works.
    • 1/5
      Totally worthless.
    • 3/5
      I have a mixed review on this classic. There is no use telling the story as there are plenty of reviews here. I had not read Joyce before but I thought this would be a good start. I admit it's difficult reading for any novice but Joyce's flow, structure and pure beautiful use of the English language is outstanding. It's probbaly best read in chunks. My favorite part was the description of Hell. If that does not get you thinking nothing will. Not my favorite book but if your thinking about reading Joyce it's a good start.
    • 3/5
      Dubliners is more readable, but not the most brilliant. Ulysses is the most brilliant, but not really that readable. This one is right in between.
    • 3/5
      One of the great shames of my life is that I gave up on Ulysses after only 30 pages. I am the kind who finishes a book – no matter what. But somehow I couldn’t do it – I just couldn’t build up the gumption to read through Ulysses.With the promise to myself that, someday, I would dive in and attack Ulysses again, I decided I would take a shorter route to approaching Joyce. Accordingly, I picked up this book. When I started, I was afraid I was in for disappointment again. The “moocow” and “tuckoo” and songs that smack the reader at the start of this book are not conducive to “Maybe I’ll just pick this up and read it on the plane.” (Of course, no one approaching Joyce should think that – I just use it as an example.) But, in relatively short order, the sequence of events and story that was emerging began to make sense and the tale began to draw me in. This story is in parts interesting (primarily in the telling of tales) and in parts boring (primarily in giving us far too much theory and philosophy of why the people are who they are) and, as a whole, a decent look at Stephen Daedalus’ growing up.With all that being said, what makes this so great a book and Joyce so great a writer? I cannot tell you. I found it an interesting book, well-written, but with nothing to make me think it is a classic. After completing the book I read the introduction (I learned the mistake of introductions and spoilers in other books) in order to gain new insights. I only made it so far. It was dense academese that, had I indeed read first, would have driven me away from ever trying to read this book. So, I will just have to go on without understanding why this book should be considered more than good, indeed great. However, it is good and, as with any good or great book, there will be images that stay with me. And now I am encouraged to return to Ulysses and try again. (I’m just going to guess it will still be a couple of years.)
    • 4/5
      James Joyce's Ulysses from what I can gather is Ground Zero for all I detest in modern literature: the stream of consciousness technique with its confusing nonsequitors, the lack of quotation marks, and often crudeness. On the other hand, I do remember very much liking his short story collection, Dubliners. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is midway between Dubliners and Ulysses. In fact, I read it because I decided I wanted to give Ulysses a fair chance and was told reading Portrait first is a must, since it's something of a prequel. It's the coming of age story of Stephen Daedalus, one of three central characters in Ulysses.Portrait does have those hallmarks of modern literature I feel so much distaste for. Quotation marks are replaced with dashes--I read that James Joyce found them "eyesores." So now I know who to curse for all those wannabe artistes utilizing a practice that makes dialogue much, much harder to parse. Thanks ever so much Joyce! Although it was less confusing I admit than with a lot of faux Joyces--Joyce has a way with the rhythm and structure that did make things flow well. And stream of consciousness? Yes, it's there--although with a lighter touch than in say Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, and I never found myself going "Huh???" And there are the occasional crudities--prostitutes, lice, fart jokes. We're not in Victoria's Britain anymore!For all that, yes, I did like this a lot more than I expected. I have to admit it--a lot of the prose really was beautiful and called out to my magpie soul transfixed by the shiny. The title is a misnomer for we don't start with a young man, but with an infant and two-thirds of the book are taken up with childhood and adolescence. And that stream of consciousness technique worked beautifully in the beginning in evoking the mind of a child. Starting with a "once upon a time" fairy tale beginning and ending with the diary entries of the emerging artist, Joyce brilliantly depicts the different stages of a maturing psyche from small boy to devout teen to angry and estranged (and inspired) young man. There were times I wanted to cheer for and hug Stephen--such as when he as a small boy dared to go to the Rector to complain about the brutality of a teacher. And times when I surprisingly could recognize myself in him.I rather admire aspects of Joyce's writing rather than loving it here enough to call this a true favorite. Among other things, Joyce does go on and on at times. Such as one really, really long drawn-out discussion between Stephen and a friend about aesthetics that made my eyes glaze over. And I still don't much like the modernist touches in Joyce's style. Give me Austen or Forster--or Chabon or Byatt or Atwood for that matter. The brother to William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf and father of Don Delillo, E. L. Doctorow, and Cormac McCarthy? Not so much. But even I can admire the psychological richness and the pretty, pretty prose in this one.
    • 5/5
      Excellent wording and so well written it is scary.
    • 4/5
      Good. Not Great. This being the only Joyce book that I have read so far, I can see how many academics see him as one of the greatest writers ever. However I can't see what their love affair with this book is. I think it was a well-written book but nothing jumped out at me that said that this book is one of the all time top five, as it is constantly rated. It is just a story of a young boy in Ireland who becomes a man but it doesn't come across as some work of brilliance. Again it is good not great. A great storyteller with a not so great story.
    • 5/5
      I hesitate to give this book or any book perfect marks, although this book comes close. Superbly written with deep philosophical and religious underpinnings, this book approaches the realm of the sublime. Does perfection exist in book form? I usually think of Dickens or Dostoyevsky, but this book comes close.
    • 4/5
      Reading James Joyce is a curious experiment.Although this is the second time in two years I have worked my way through the labyrinth of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and even though both of those times I read the book for class, I still find myself missing things. Someone will bring something up and my reaction is, "What? When did that happen?"Perhaps, it's all a part of Joyce's evil plan to trap us all into eternally reading his books. The thing is, the first time I read Portrait, I hated it. I hated stream-of-conciousness and I hated Joyce's pompousness and Irishness.However, this time in reading it, I felt like the book hated me. Joyce's style makes it feel like I'm being kept in the dark on an inside joke. The language is so dense that I can barely get a sense of what's going on. But, still, I think I liked the book.Or, maybe, I would like the book if it would just let me in on its secret.
    • 3/5
      An autobiographical novel, it is very conventional compared to where he was going for the rest of his life. He chooses his framework characters, the male parts of the Daedalus family, and thyeir relationships to the growing Stephen.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable book with lots of symbolism. It is very readable, unlike Ulyses or Finnegan's Wake.
    • 3/5
      I would consider this novel a semi-autographical account of Joyce’s teen years. As Stephen Dedalus he struggles with becoming a man and questioning all that has been taught to him by his father and teachers regarding love, beauty and religion. Their voices telling him to be a good Catholic and a gentleman have become hollow sounds in his ears. In thought and deed, women have become his main source of sin and though the thought of eternal damnation frightens him, it is so difficult to walk a straight and narrow path.Other than my favorite line in the story, ”To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!”, I found the book contained only brief moments of brilliance. At times I could not follow Joyce’s train of thought and his peculiar way of changing scenes was unsettling. Perhaps a reread is necessary to fully appreciate this book.
    • 4/5
      high school required
    • 4/5
      I read this as a precursor to attacking Ulysses and was not sure what to expect. It was not a difficult read but it does demand your attention -it certainly wasn't the book I picked up when I was tired. It follows the development of a young Irish boy, Stephen (closely modelled on Joyce's own life) to adulthood.What I loved about it was Joyce's grasp of language, his use of his erudition and the sheer daring of some of its passages in dealing with its subject matter- particularly with respect to Catholicism and the political and religious tussles in Ireland at that time as well as the temptations that both test young Stephen and inform his choices.Each of the five chapters follows its own arc and I found that I felt quite differently about each of them. As Stephen ages, the complexity of the langauge and ideas evolve with him and by the final chapter, having been to hell and back, I was completely convinced by the mental development of Stephen and his mastery over his own conscience. If you are interested in originality, style and economy of words to convey a plethora of connections and ideas, then don't let it languish on the shelf any longer!
    • 5/5
      I first read this novel during my participation in the Four-year Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago. I have since read and reread this classic work by James Joyce. It is a portrait in words of the coming-of-age of a young boy in Ireland. As a portrait its words resonate with the ideas of Aristotle and the faith of Roman Catholicism and the spirit of music. Music, especially singing, appears repeatedly throughout A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen's appreciation of music is closely tied to his love for the sounds of language. I remember being told by a close friend that Father Arnall’s sermon on Hell was the same sermon she heard while a youth in a catholic neighborhood in Chicago more than fifty years later. Stephen is attracted to the church for a brief period but ultimately rejects austere Catholicism because he feels that it does not permit him the full experience of being human. From the opening lines, “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 coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo”, Stephen grows in awareness and towards his artistic destiny through the words that delineate the world around him. Joyce's use of stream of consciousness makes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man a story of the development of Stephen's mind through words as he grows through experience. Stephen's development gives us insight into the development of a literary genius. Stephen's experiences hint at the influences that transformed Joyce himself into the great writer he is considered today. Stephen's obsession with language; his strained relations with religion, family, and culture; and his dedication to forging an aesthetic of his own mirror the ways in which Joyce related to the various tensions in his life during his formative years. In the final moment when he goes "to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience" of his race he raises a banner that seems emblematic of the life of the author of this inspiring novel.
    • 3/5
      (Original Review, 1981-02-16)"April 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."How much I love/hate Joyce when I read about him...how could he have denied his mother on her deathbed? That act disturbed me - he did not even kneel when she died.I am not speaking of hypocrisy here just thinking of a young poseur who was thinking of himself above all - as you do at that age - especially if you are the ''favourite'. How much are the writings of Joyce autobiographical? Is the 'real 'Stephen Dedalus - AKA Joyce - a 'self-obsessed arsehole' - and did Joyce realise that about himself during his writing? As regards the Portrait Joyce changed the original title from ‘Stephen Hero’ - why did he do that? When did Stephen stop being a Hero?Read it again recently - skipped loads of 'the sermon because being brought up a Catholic have kind of heard it all before but have never been on a Retreat where apparently, in the olden days, you would receive the hell-fire message in spades. I found it interesting in the book that Stephen had to find an anonymous confessor to his 'sins'. He seemed too proud or ashamed to confess to a priest at the school who may have recognised his voice.I think one of the best things I learned from The Portrait was how much Joyce loved his jovial, irascible Father. The last chapter in The Portrait seems a bit of a 'cop-out' with its diary entries...a bit rushed-but maybe that was all meant.The last entry is particularly poignant (vide quote above)The bits that stick in my mind aside from the obvious passages (Hell Fire Sermon ) are the childhood passages, Dedalus remembering his uncles' tobacco smoke, listening to and trying to make sense of the adults arguing about current affairs as a bystander, the bewilderment of starting a new and strange school and trying to understand and navigate the adult rules and language of the constitution chimed with my own memories of childhood. The child is the father of the man, I think Joyce says we cannot shake off these experiences, they form who we are. You are always going to be an exile from them even if you leave physically and geographically.
    • 4/5
      et ignotas animum dimittit in artesOvid, metamorphoses, viii, 18
    • 3/5
      Joyce uses beautifully poetic language, and his portrayal of Catholic guilt was magnificent. However, the frequent jumps between the present and the thoughts in Dedalus's head made this a frustrating read.
    • 5/5
      Impossibly good (as is all Joyce). For weeks after finishing this one, I wished that I were an Irish Catholic schoolboy, and I threw myself into a fit of reading Byron.
    • 3/5
      In youth, Stephen begins to experience doubts about god and the church, as well as his faith in the way he perceives the world. Finally as a young man, he solidifies his beliefs in the world and moves toward creating his life as an artist. There is some really beautiful writing in this book, and I most enjoyed those sequences when he's walking through whatever town he's living in at that time and his emotions are fluctuating as he experiences the world around him. However, there are also long bouts of sermonizing and lecturing, discussing things in a purely theoretical manor, which really dragged on the story. I lost a lot of interest through those passages. While I definitely can't claim that this is a great book, I saw enough beauty throughout much of it to make it through to the end.