Which story is the best and why is it Araby?

Who cares

Yes A little cloud is brutal in that sense. Somehow I get the sense of a man who never grew up. Who never "lived." It's hard to say if I'd call him a coward or simply a dupe. Since his friend Gallagher is a completely vulgar person, it's easy to see the irony. But I agree The Dead is the best.

>having favorite chapters of novels

wtf is wrong with you

I really don't buy into this "If you're not from X country you'll never understand Y work of art, etc"
the human mind is capable of creating philosophy, science, everything in between and beyond BUT will never understand why italians don't like pinapple on pizza? bullshit

They're all self contained stories are you even serious right now

Joyce's advice on his novels is quite cute.

"Just read it aloud. Preferably in a Dublin accent."

Of course you can understand Dubliners if you're not from Ireland. Dublin has changed considerably over a hundred years. But, as someone who lives in the city, there's a special pang of descriptive delight when he mentions a street you know and one can see it so vividly, in the pearly luminescence of his gaslight towers, that it's like the white page inks to a sepia photograph.

Dublin is a pretty Veeky Forums place but people have this staggering and quite ironical anti-intellectualism too. Last night I was drinking and someone came up to me and said "you like the kind of cunt who reads books". So many Irish men have become lads, literally, big children, who will look through everything in melancholy irony, with a smile on their face, in the tint of a half-washed guiness that has the iron aftertaste of a bloody thumb.

Leave it to a middlebrow Irishman whose brain is poisoned with nationalist cliches to misunderstand Joyce

A painful case desu
Araby and The Dead are obvioulsy great
Clay is the most underrated IMO

There are parts of Dublin that I enjoyed very much. It is undeniably a cool experience to try a random pub and discover it was Joyce's drinking spot one hundred years ago. But the sheer number of tourists and gross tourist traps with cartoon leprechauns felt almost humiliating. It For every open air bookmall you have like twenty hop-on tour buses. I liked walking around but I wouldn't want to live there

"I am grateful to be in a city large enough to be called a capitol of Europe, but small enough to be understood as a whole." One of my favorite Joyce quotes.

The charm of Dublin lies in it's size and relentless village filth. It's like a potent disease, contained with the filmy membrane of the Pale, ready to swallow up in a drop. And always, always, there's some foul gossip ready to be jewled out to a freind or listener, kissed or spat back into a prying mouth.

The tourist crap is annoying though, and I bump past ten chinese tourists every day in my university. But there are plenty of friendly Dubliners who would happily show you some more hidden spots, and the cobble of Grafton street, after the rain, in the night, lit up red and yellow in lights with every bump sparkling a rough sadness, is an undeniably beautiful sight, and so too is the black harbour of Dun Laoghaire at night, or the white bluff of the cliffs at day. There are many more than a few fantastic place to drink and walk.

Jackeens are already the children of Ireland, personally I'm thankful they contain themselves mostly to their city

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

This hits me too close to home. I hear it ringing through my mind constantly.

i just want to say that i like Two Gallants

I liked the opening paragraphs

So did Joyce