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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
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    Written by James Joyce

    Narrated by Donal Donnelly

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    James Joyce's tour de force: a work that brought a new vitality to language and revolutionized the narrative structure of the novel. Published in Dublin in 1916, the novel recounts the internal and external events in a young artist's life, and the evolution he takes in his discovery of a vocation. In this largely autobiographical coming-of-age story, James Joyce describes the awakening young mind of a middle-class Irish Catholic boy named Stephen Dedalus. The story follows Stephen's development from his early troubled boyhood through an adolescent crisis of faith- partially inspired by the famous ''hellfire sermon'' preached by Father Arnall and partly by the guilt of his own precocious sexual adventures- to his discovery of his ultimate destiny as a poet. Written in a unique voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, the novel explores questions of origin, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 28, 2008
    ISBN9781436142205
    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

    59 ratings47 reviews

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    • 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.
    • 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
      [Review of the Naxos Unabridged Audiobook Edition]I'm trying something new for me with listening to Irish narrators read James Joyce and this audiobook edition of his "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" performed by actor Jim Norton was a terrific start to this. Norton's performance of the narration along with his singing of all the musical rhymes and lyric sections bumps this up to a 5/5 rating with the 1 hour long section of 'hell and damnation' sermons delivered at Stephen Dedalus's Belvedere College alone worth the price of admission and quite chilling to boot. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness style may be a bit hard to follow aurally though and I did find myself referring to my old paperback copy frequently and still looking up some of the more obscure Irish and Latin references (easy to do on-line these days) but those are minor quibbles. 2012 is a big year for Joyce fans with his works entering the public domain and already one test case (google "The Cats of Copenhagen") of someone breaking grandson Stephen Joyce's previous publishing embargoes, so if you've been intimidated by Joyce previously, consider trying out an audiobook version.
    • 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
      Alright, I’m not going to lie: it’s probably best that you not go into these books unprepared. The journey from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake (which includes Portrait and Ulysses) is studded with hardship and probable failure. Let’s take a good hard evaluation of where you are: you’ve just finished Dubliners. I know you have, because if you haven’t, then you need to re-evaluate your position and realize that you’re going to get nowhere and fast. It’s said that a number of people fail to finish Ulysses. This is true because a lot of people don’t do their homework and read Dubliners first. It’s also true because Ulysses is James Joyce’s most famous book, and readers often like to think they’re hot shit and can start with that.Many a reader ends up fallen on the road of Ulysses, but don’t let that lead you to rashness when you read Portrait. In fact, I would argue that most of the people who failed to read all of Ulysses would have just as soon failed at Portrait. It contains in essence early versions of techniques that would appear in Ulysses. That being said, is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man a lesser work of James Joyce’s? That is to say, is it one of those works of art that just so happens to get eclipsed by a later piece by the same artist?Probably the best example I can think of outside of this would be Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction. To me, Reservoir Dogs showed many of the things that would make Pulp Fiction great, but what makes Pulp Fiction the superior movie can pretty much be summed up in the character of Jules Winfield, who has an epiphany and decides to change directions in his life- much like a story out of Dubliners, albeit highly stylized and exaggerated.That being said, does this mean that Leopold Bloom is Ulysses’s Jules Winfield? I will discuss further when the topic comes up. For now, I can only tell you positively that A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is no Reservoir Dogs. It is, in fact a masterpiece in its own right, and any supposed inferiorities it must contain only appear as such because it pales in comparison to Ulysses, the greatest novel of the 20th century- and that by a good length of head and shoulders. How can I say this? Simple. All you have to do is compare this relatively small book (Joyce’s smallest novel) to anything William Faulkner ever wrote and you shall quickly see not only where Faulkner derives his technique, but who achieves that technique to a greater degree and with more skill. Yes, it’s that good.Also, we can note that there are quite a few properties that differentiate this incredibly interesting small novel from its younger, bigger, more well-known brother. First, the text has been touted as being outright autobiographical by James Joyce. Naturally, it covers a lot more time than the diurnal Ulysses or the nocturnal Finnegans Wake. It gives the reader an excellent start on Ulysses by introducing the characters of Stephen Dedalus (who is James Joyce) and Simon Dedalus (who is John Joyce), both playing large characters in that work. It also shows itself to different in its themes from Ulysses. While the latter can be said to be variously about father-son relationships, the love between man and woman, and Shakespeare (amongst others), the former is about the roles country, religion, and family play in life, the development of the artist as such, and Aristotle and Aquinas (amongst others).To discuss further the plot, the novel traces the life of Stephen Dedalus as he goes through childhood and adolescence and chronicles his personal journey to become an artist. True to habit, James Joyce loved to use real life for his fiction and used it extensively not only for this book but for all of his books and all of his other work. There’s not much in terms of science fiction or invention here, although I have read an unconvincing argument Cliff’s Notes tried to rally that Stephen Dedalus was not James Joyce at all. It really pointed to what are ultimately minor differences between the character and the person.The book chronicles an accident Stephen had where he broke his glasses, was forced to read without them despite the fact that his doctor told him not to, had a stand with a prostitute in Dublin, and experienced a fiery sermon (or catechism) by a priest and felt subsequent guilt about his stand, and then explained his complex philosophy to his peers which derived from Aristotle and Aquinas. These events are important enough on their own, but the real draw is in having Stephen’s thoughts presented on the events throughout. Once again, not light reading by any stretch, but something akin to reading The Sound and the Fury if you need a point of reference.
    • 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.
    • 2/5
      I know it's a great classic, and I love things Irish, but I couldn't make it through this book. Autobiographical story of james Joyce's youth. The Thomas Wolfe of Ireland; doesn't know when to quit writing description. Pages upon pages about how the Catholic church laid plenty of guilt on and caused major political rifts among families. Give me Angela's Ashes anyday!
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      This is the only Joyce book I've ever been able to get through. I loved it though. I thought it would prime me for Ulysses, but I've never been able to handle that book.This was marvelous. Magical even.
    • 2/5
      Definitely a disappointment, after the glowing reports I'd gotten from reviews and from friends' recommendations who've read the book. There were some inspiring passages that I really resonated with, like Stephen Dedaelus's conversion experience, eventually disinherited.. or his walk along the coast where he describes the scene in such detail that you know James Joyce is speaking out of personal experience... But if you don't identify with the author at any point, how can you even want to suffer through it? In general, this book is a rambling exercise in pointless intellectual thoughts, which is anticlimactic enough to feel entirely purposeless. What IS the story, anyway? Ok, a boy grows up... and fantasizes about girls and sex a lot. Where's the story there? I've rarely been this hard on a proven "classic" before, but I'll make an exception. Note to editors: please don't put footnotes in your novels, it's incredible annoying no matter how much you might think it illuminates the text. Repeatedly suggesting that the reader isn't understanding something in a book SO vague that, clearly, NOTHING should be understood, and then only citing irrelevant history, dates & all, behind the song or the building or the person just mentioned, is infuriating. I mean, I take all this trouble to page ALL the way to the back of the book for an explanation that may somehow transform this whole tiresome reading experience for me, and you're giving me a 3-paragraph long HISTORY LESSON? How about making your first and only footnote about the elusive point of this book?
    • 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 started this book in June and just finished it. I was really hoping to love this book. I don't know why, but ever since middle school I believed that James Joyce would become one of my all time favorite authors. I felt an unexplainable pull towards him, but I decided to wait until I was in college to read him because I heard that he was difficult. Boy, is he ever! I enjoyed a few of the passages in this book, particularly the priest's sermon on Hell (which will haunt me until my dying day) and Stephen's monologue on beauty and aesthetics. So much of the novel just went straight over my head, though. The interaction between the boys completely eluded me. At times, Cranly came off as bipolar to me. I couldn't understand their extreme reactions to things and how they would pick a fight over nothing (Cranly being the worst of all of them about this), but I guess that's how boys are? I also didn't like how they would always use Latin in their everyday conversation. It made them seem very pretentious. Perhaps that was the point of it. I have to take some blame for not enjoying this book that much. I turned my reading of it into work rather than pleasure. Since I didn't have an annotated copy, I had to look up all the Irish slang and Latin phrases. I made sure that I always had a pen and highlighter with me, and for the first half of the book I always had to have my laptop available too until I decided to print out the glossary I was constantly referring to.I put so much effort into it because I knew that I would reread it one day, and I wanted to make sure that I would be able to focus on the story rather than the academics of it. I'm a bit too turned off from it right now to begin rereading it right away, but maybe after a few months I can prepare myself to pick it up again. And hopefully I'll enjoy it much more.
    • 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.
    • 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
      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.)
    • 5/5
      Loved it. I feel disappointed that I found myself relating to Stephen: I think Stephen is kind of an asshole. Then again, I am kind of an asshole. Most young people are. "Smithy of my soul..." = beautifulLovely reverberations. I'd love to write a book with a centrifuge, wakes and reverberations like a finger to a puddle.
    • 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.
    • 3/5
      Very enjoyable for its influential literary style. As someone reading from quite a different generation, the story wasn't enough to keep it afloat on its own but more than makes up for it in punctuation. Moved through it fairly quickly, so would be worthy of a second read to reveal more depth- it is certainly there.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable book with lots of symbolism. It is very readable, unlike Ulyses or Finnegan's Wake.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 1/5
      While I recognize that this book had some new ideas for narrative structures, it really is just a series of scenes in which an arrogant little prick of a teenager jerks off and then feels guilty about it. Not at all entertaining.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      The exception to my rule that novels whose protagonists are sensitive young men aspiring to be novelists are too insufferably self-regarding to be enjoyable. Joyce pulls it off, but he is a really good writer I guess. I still love the fifty page sermon about hell.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      Joyce's Portrait is a Kunstlerroman (a novel depicting the maturation of the artist), comparable in some basic ways to Hesse's Demian, released a few years later. We see Stephen Dedalus rise from the mysterious ether of childhood into worldliness, soon caught up in a crisis of Soul, and one of a particularly Catholic nature. His transformation into "the artist", really, is a late point in the work, though its brewing all the while before, a more subtle and altogether more implicitly tense period of development than of Hesse's Demian Sinclair. Joyce though, with good humor, does not leave all at this. He is not only tracing the profound development of the artist, but holding up a mirror of mockery to this development, accentuating maudlin emotion, pedantry, and conceit. Both aims work well most of the time, The latter when the text oozes absurdities. Latin as the preferred tongue of schoolyard talk, the college dean's ignorance of metaphor, the long and detailed hellfire sermon. Stephen's reactions to all of these. The whole last section, at the university, illustrates well his conceit and pedantry, though it is in part sincere and true, maybe to a fault insofar as it is not wholly effective. All that is sincere in this work about the artist is best conveyed, as it usually is, in moments of profound revelation. Joyce, a real craftsmen of language, executes these moments beautifully. The language makes the story, literally. Joyce's use of voice and language evolves along with the character. The concise sentences of the child and his internal, often confused, thought processes. The rambling explication and wisecracking of the adult artist, at the other end. Stephen Dedalus, transcends the bounds of country, religion, and language in his quest. Joyce, just as well, excavates what lays within those bounds of identity through all three components, especially the last.This book is a ripe peach. Bloated in the best ways and often sweetly rewarding, though it does have its hard and sour moments. No doubt I am stuck on Hesse's dark and pungent berries of Jungian transcendence. If I had come to this work first, I might have put it on a pedestal above all others, or given up on it, or worst of all, thought myself a prick. We are all Stephen Dedalus, us mad artificers.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      I have read one other book by James Joyce and was prepared for the dense language that is the first hurdle in reading his work. But aside from having to reread lines and paragraphs, or even pages at a time I thoroughly enjoyed this book.It is the life of a young Irish man named Stephen Dedalus, growing up from childhood to adulthood, and encountering everything his life was set up to be. It is the story of his struggle to accept religion, and his path to what he will one day become. The story shines the light on this young inquisitive mind, and the processes the mind takes from being a boy to being a man. You encounter the turbulence it goes through via religion, love, lust, friendship, and passion; and how the mind is ever changing on the quest of life and purpose.
    • 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!