How do I understand this book?

holy fuck imagine having such shit taste
the hell sermon is the best part

What exactly is appealing about listening to an account of absolute torture and suffering in intimately constructed detail

By its very definition it is the last thing any sane human would want to hear about

not him, but i like it because the fumbling attempt at visualizing infinity is legitimately beautiful

Hmm.

you are me from 3 years ago.

Near the end of each chapter Stephen goes through an experience that is a sort of epiphany/awakening for him. Then near the beginning of the next chapter the epiphany/awakening is cut down/belittled. Example: In Chapter I, Stephen stands up to Father Dolan by going to the rector. He is celebrated as a hero upon his return to his classmates. I personally believe for full understanding of the import of this moment you need to have a decent historical knowledge of Parnell and Hamilton Rowan But in Chapter II, Stephen's heroic actions are essentially mocked and laughed at by his father. So there is this rise and fall structure throughout the novel.

I was raised Catholic and you're retarded.
First Eucharist and private school don't exactly drastically shape your life more than any secular private education or any repressive and expectant family life regardless if secular or otherwise.

Oh, I didn't realize you were raised Irish Catholic IN IRELAND near the turn of the 20th Century. Please do tell how your contemporary American Catholic upbringing is reflective of the one represented in the novel.

Most of chapters 2,3, and 4 center around Stephens struggled with his faith. Chapter 3 specifically has as its centerpiece a description of hell and eternal reckoning that is, at least I think, supposed to shock and terrify Stephen. Problem is it falls totally flat on the modern, noncatholic, areligious reader. A lot of the challenges that Stephen face are crises of faith, and the whole book is more or less an indeibtment of catholicism. If you never really concerned yourself with the church, the book will have much less impact.

Modern catholic schools do not compare.
The Jesuit approach to teaching Catholicism in the youth is reflected in the intensity of Joyce's descriptions of Hell - I don't think modern American catholics can even come close to understanding the psychedelic torture a kid back then was subjected to.
Your entire education was interwoven with faith, imagine if everyone you ever learned something from was also a religious fanatic. It permeated everything. God was an absolute truth.
They could instill in people a genuine Fear of God, (honestly more like a deep emotional scar) that never fully leaves you. It's an upbringing/experience shared by a lot of people in Ireland, mostly in the older generations, and that's why it's a common theme in Irish literature.
Readings with this perspective add another whole level of emotional depth to Portrait of the Artist

Does anybody know of an ebook with annotations?

The only Joyce I've read was Dubliners, and the copy I had included annotations. It made it so much easier to understand since I don't know much about Irish culture and history.

I used it as kindling. It was either it or Robopocalypse. True story.

This. But you also must have grown up on the patty fields of Eire, with a minister reading from the Vulgate, whilst you turn over the wet sods and potatoes. It helps if your dad was an alcoholic who made poteen illegally and sang Gaelic songs to you.

This was unironically my childhood, isn't it mad how much of rural Ireland lived quite happily in the 1960s until interent access hit us??? There's probably still uncontacted tribes living peacefully in the depths of connemara

You dont, thats the poing.

>it falls totally flat on the modern, noncatholic, areligious reader
This is bogus. The guilt Stephen has to deal with and his disillusionment with society as it stands are both widely applicable. A modern, nonreligious reader might identify with him even more closely, since that's basically where his journey takes him.

The hell sermon is indeed the best part of the book by a mile. Just feel yourself sitting in those pews, your face beginning to flush as a knowledge of your sins comes over you, your stomach tightening.

You are me now 0.o

Read 100 pages last week, switched to Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" and like the prose better.
>Inb4 women anything

That's really interesting. Do you know Gaelic? I've been interested in learning it and have checked it out at a surface level. If you know it, how hard is it to learn? And is there any literature worthwhile written in Gaelic? Sorry for the bombardment of questions.

James Joyce was the Irish equivalent of a house negro. He denied the hibernian race its rightful identity as a barbaric, heroic pre-modern race.

An Irishman cannot remain true to himself by adopting a (((persecution))) complex and hiding his vulgarity in an internal monologue.

When I read it I looked up every name and reference on Wikipedia as I was reading. There were like 3 things on every page I had to look up.

>tfw finished stephen hero this week
>tfw started re-reading portrait yesterday
>tfw read 100 pages today like it was nothing

joyce is a god.

some people are sensitive enough to want to ignore suffering. others are too sensitive to ignore it.

Which one i left my copy in one of those

Actually, as a non-catholic I find most of Joyce's catholic context in Portrait to be pretty understandable, just because you aren't Catholic or religious doesn't mean you can't fathom having faith.

Joyce is only really obscure during some stories in Dubliners where the entire lining of the plot and meaning lies within some obscure catholic culture.