Last
Wednesday I finished James Joyce's A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and it was a fantastic read. The style is somewhat uncanny, since the
first half of the book flows like a single thought, but once you get on the
track, it just keeps going. The
stream-of-consciousness form is one that can so easily slip and crumple into a
morass of garbage on paper, but Joyce pursues it well.
The book is
a chronicle of Stephen Daedalus, Irishman and artist. Time is pleasantly linear, but
discontinuities are managed by a simple line break mid-chapter, so let the
reader beware. The character of Daedalus
dominates the scene. Other characters
orbit him like tiny satellites, insignificant but present and mildly
influential. Functionally, the book is
an educational history. Daedalus'
progress through all levels of schooling in early 20th century Ireland
provides the backdrop and the fuel for the progression of the story.
Stephen
Daedalus is magnetic as a character. As
his mind swoops low and whirls high on the currents of religion, obedience,
lust, and learning, the reader cannot but remain fixed, awestruck, at the
iridescent Daedalus, shimmering between lovable and hateful, laudable and
pitiable. As stomach turns or heart
exults, Daedalus presses on, titanically imperturbable in a protean life. One feels as though he may neither cheer nor
boo Stephen Daedalus, for it would avail nothing. Poe's "Alone" would be a fitting
epitaph to this book:
"From
childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were-I have
not seen
As others saw-I could
not bring
My passions from a
common spring…"
If you have
the time, I recommend this book as a fascinating character study, especially as
a development of many Roman Catholic themes and a neo-Platonic discussion of
art. As a sidenote, this neo-Platonism
is thoroughly rejected by my proposed Goal of Art, which accepts createdness
and rejects emanationism. The Roman
themes are also very interesting to a Protestant like me, since they so often
start in Scripture and then diverge as they get "interpreted" into
fancies and suppositions.
Let the
reader beware, however, because this book does work through some very dark
reflections on sin and its results. It
is also a very addictive book. I bought
it last Monday.
