A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Here’s a book that immediately grabbed my attention. Although somewhat garrulous in the middle when the main character Stephen is trying to cope with his inner conflict dealing with his rebellion of the catholic church, this book has many moments of brilliance and genius. This picture of Joyce I found is important to me because, in the first part of the book, when Stephen is a young boy in school, the voice of the novel is so unique and the stream of consciousness of young Stephen is one of my favorite parts of the book. I also appreciate how Joyce changes his style in the middle and makes it more romantic, like young men tend to be in their teens, and in the end, his style becomes much more dramatic to suit Stephen’s development as a person. In my opinion, this young novelist, James Joyce, definitely has a promising literary career ahead of him. I’ll leave you with the opening sentence of the novel, which is an example of Stephen’s consciousness as a child and has been pleasant to hear ever since I got a copy of the novel.