Didn't enjoy Dubliners

I read this recently and don't quite understand the praise. I enjoyed a few stories and I appreciate the idea of creating a book that encapsulates how people interacted and felt in a certain city in a certain time, but most of the book bored me. I didn't take much away from it either. Can someone explain why people seem to love it so much?

Please be honest and tell me if you are a pleb. Something tells me you are a pleb because if you weren't a pleb and you still didn't like this book, you'd at least have a more thoughtful reason than "I just didn't get it lol."

If you are a pleb, it's okay. Some books just aren't meant for plebs.

Ulysses >>>>>>>>>> Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man > Dubliners > (Average Quality of the Western Canon)

Portrait takes Joyce one step further but it's not until Ulysses that it becomes totally apparent that he's the GOAT.

But if Dubliners failed to move you in any way yeah you're probably a pleb.

I don't think I'm a pleb.... That's your call I guess. I liked several of the stories and loved a painful case and the dead. Ivy day in the commitee room was terribly boring and a few other stories just weren't too interesting. I didn't see a point in stories like that one other than to display a facet in Dublin society at the time. Also, this was the first collection of short stories I've ever read and I didn't like not having a novel to return to at the end of the day. Tell me why you liked it so much?

It's pretty bad. People on this board actually tryhard at reading and you'll get shit from them. Incredible; I know.

Please be honest and tell me if you are a pseud. Something tells me you are a pseud because if you weren't a pseud and you still didn't agree with me, you'd at least have a more thoughtful reason than "you're a pleb for not liking this book"

What stories did you like most?

>;

>Ivy day in the commitee room was terribly boring
It's one that hasn't aged very well. You have to remember: Parnell's shenanigans were within recent memory when Dubliners came out. It's like referencing Monica Lewinsky now. Sure, Bill's out of office, but everyone still knows what happened.

what lol
portrait is his worst book

I liked it, it made me feel nostalgic for a time and place I never lived in
The ending wasn't anything special, but wasn't disappointing either

I wonder what the world looks like through your eyes. Everything must seem so magical and bright.

>The ending wasn't anything special,

>The ending wasn't anything special,

you have no soul

And of course, Finnegans Wake (>>>>>>>>)^32 Ulysses

Did I just not "get it"? I had a similar reaction to the ending in The Stranger
To be honest though I've had unreasonably high expectations for endings since reading Moby-Dick

Jesus dude... The fuck? Honestly, what the fuck?

Yeah and I didn't even start with the Greeks, just starting the Iliad now. It's okay

GOAT:
1. The Dead

MASTERFUL TIER:
2. A Painful Case
3. A Little Cloud

EXCELLENT TIER:
4. Counterparts
5. Clay
6. The Boarding House

GREAT TIER
7. The Sisters
8. Eveline
9. An Encounter

GOOD TIER
10. Araby
11. Two Gallants
12. A Mother

ALRIGHT TIER:
13. Ivy Day In The Committee Room
14. Grace
15. After The Race

Sisters too high.
All of good tier too low.

Other than that it's pretty agreeable.

Move up Clay, Eveline, Araby
Move down The Sisters

what do I need to read for a basic background on the political and religious situation in ireland at the time? I feel like there are a lot of references here I'm missing.

Check out some O'Casey plays

lol

I'd move Eveline and Araby to excellent tier, a mother should probably go into great tier at least, and Ivy should go into good tier.

I didn't really understand the ending to Clay though. Can anyone explain it to me?

what? some will do a pretty good job of giving context

What were you expecting going into it and what did you get out of it? Did you have any particular stories you liked or disliked?

For me, I think Joyce evokes a time and a place very well. Even though the stories are very short (with the exception of The Dead, which still isn't very long) I found them all really rich in characterization and prose. Joyce is one of the finest prose stylists in the English language IMO. You say the book bored you, could you elaborate a little? The focus of the stories wasn't really plot, or at least the plot was pretty understated. If the stories seem anticlimactic to you, it's an indication that you should be paying less attention to the action or progression of the story, and pay more attention to the psychological development of the characters the stories are focusing on. Every story (or nearly every story) centers itself around a revelation of sorts, a collision between the old way a character perceived something and a newer, intrusive, and more nuanced perspective. Also to keep in mind is that the three dominant institutions in Ireland at that time were the family, the nation/state, and the church and that most characters define their identities in relation to these things.

Dubliners is overrated in this forum. The Dead is a minor masterpiece, but not enough to have this book in the top 100 lists.

>lists

he will just be left in an even deeper reference hell

...

Was Mrs Kearney in the right in A Mother, or was she being a bitch?

She was a top lad and doesn't afraid of anything

The original helicopter/stage mom

If you've read it well (meaning slowly) cover to cover more than once, and you still don't "get it", you are either 1) some sort of moron, 2) unfit to judge, possibly due to inexperience with other works of literature, or 3) trolling. Go look for other comparable works of literature in form and content. This isn't supposed to be like Dick and Morton or whatever the fuck kaleidoscopic wonder-fag material is popular now. Joyce's uncanny ability to reveal the soul is on full display here. If you're patient, the squalor *and* grandeur of Ireland of Joyce's time will rise from the pages. And we sit around with cameras strapped to our fucking heads wondering if anyone will ever invent a time machine.

> Not being changed utterly

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

It's good, but not life-changing by any means
It just didn't resonate as much with me personally

You're probably just not very interested in the state of Ireland 100 years ago, which is okay. I loved Ivy Day in the Committee Room, it was one of my favourite stories, because I'm a British history student who finds the period in UK/Irish history fascinating. And Grace is just fucking hilarious when the friends of the Protestant Mr. Kernan start talking up the Catholic Church to convince him to go on an alcohol abstinence retreat.

>“Tell me, Martin,” he said. “Weren’t some of the popes — of course, not our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old popes — not exactly . . . you know . . . up to the knocker?”
>There was a silence. Mr. Cunningham said
>“O, of course, there were some bad lots . . . But the astonishing thing is this. Not one of them, not the biggest drunkard, not the most . . . out-and-out ruffian, not one of them ever preached ex cathedra a word of false doctrine. Now isn’t that an astonishing thing?”

For me it was more about the build up to the epiphany. Like many of Joyce's characters, Gabriel Conroy is a bungling loner.

I bet Veeky Forums wishes they were as smooth as Corley from Two Gallants

Are you fucking 12 years old? How the fuck does that not resonate with you? Are you literally autistic?

This Tan gets it.

I bet /llit/ wishes their life wasn't like Mr. Duffy's from A Painful Case

;_;

So the gift she touched while blindfolded was clay, which symbolises death

You mean like how Joyce ab-so-fucking-lutely killed Romanticism with his works? #BURN

Before calling others autistic, try and use some empathy. I understand and appreciate that it is beautifully written and a satisfying finish to a long and meticulous build up.
But to say it was mind-blowing or life-changing, especially in the context of other literature, isn't true for everyone

The ending heavily implies that Maria is trapped within the domestic life forced upon her by her elders. Her only escapes from this trap are death -- the titular clay, in the game, traditionally symbolizes death on the part of the player -- or the Church, shown in her picking the religious book in lieu of the clay.

Basically, Maria's fucked six ways of Sunday.

Wonderful story, though.

woah
well it's either that or the fella from A Little Cloud. although tbf he is not >no gf

>Can't understand a point of view different from their own
>Accuses others of being autistic

Classic.

You remind me of my mother. She is incapable of apologizing to people when she hurts their feelings. If she says something that is rude or insulting, and you take offense, she will without hesitation question the authenticity of your emotions, or worse, act as if she is the victim of your feelings; she will accuse you of criticizing her (through play-acting, of course) and take deep offense if you are visibly offending by anything she says. The mind games are terrible so I tend to avoid her and people like her like the plague.

You have to understand that a person's feelings are involuntary. You can, of course, train yourself to feel certain things in certain situations, as is the course of becoming an adult that can cope with an uncaring world, but why would you bring that learned behavior to a private, personal reading of fiction? Do you read so you can please other people? It seems silly to me to do so.

You can rationalize, and justify why Joyce is the greatest writer of all time, all you want, but you're not going to change someone's feelings by doing so. It's a fool's errand, much like "art appreciation", which should really be called, "how to enjoy things for status so you can impress your pretentious 'friends'".

It doesn't matter how good you think Joyce is. Don't try to tell people that their feelings about it are wrong.

>It doesn't matter how good you think Joyce is. Don't try to tell people that their feelings about it are wrong.
You were doing good up until this part.

You're right; it was unnecessary; I had already made my point.

My sincerest of apologies.

Araby is straight masterful, one of the shortest (if not shortest) stories and does an excellent job at characterization and getting to the heart of Joyce's trademark moment of paralysis

kek

Based on the crowd's reaction to her performance after the first part of the last show, it would seem that her daughter is talented. If her mom just fucked off instead of being a bloodsucking harpy and ruining her reputation then she may have gone on to better things. The journalists might have focused on the show instead of the backstage drama.

So many what ifs.