This was my first attempt at reading Joyce, and I’m glad I did. Back in high school, my English class was assigned this book to read but I was a bit of a slacker and didn’t get around to it till now. Everything I have been reading about Joyce explains how he was an Irish Catholic who wrote incredible prose, and this I found to be true during the reading of this book.

The story is a bit autobiographical, and switches smoothly from first to third person by the end of the novel. Stephen Dedalus, the main character of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is introduced in the beginning of the novel as a lonely young boy. He goes to Catholic school, comes from a working class family and is teased a lot by his mates. During the middle of the story, we find Stephen coming to terms with his religion and ideas about the world. By the end of the tale, he has gone through some sort of transformation. I think anyone who has been through puberty can grab something from this book.

Joyce’s writing, however, is not to be taken lightly. He deals with fairly complex concepts in a few areas of the book, and sometimes it lulled me to sleep. I have heard that reading his book, Finnegans Wake, is one of the greatest literary challenges that the classic English canon has to offer, and that is what I am going to work toward. My next Joyce work that I would like to tackle is Ulysses.

4/5 Stars. 289 pages. Published 1916.