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My first Joyce. The right choice. A collection of stories that some may describe as beautiful, others as boring, maybe even brilliant, but that I want to describe as “apt��. Dublin is richer, I am sure, due to the fact that it has Dubliners to represent it. From the first story, The Sisters, to the last, The Dead, each story is apt �� it is perfectly appropriate, perfectly suitable and fitting for the occasion which it describes. Not a word is out of place. No character does or says anything that is alarming. There are many pieces of praise and criticism that are widely available, all concerning themselves with the careful dissection of this collection, down to a word-by-word level. Lots of these pieces mention the 4-way split in overarching themes for these stories: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life. With these 4 pieces, you dive into Dublin, seeing the interaction of trials and tribulations across a variety of ages. Class, caste, gender, societal issues, all apparent in a manner that does not take away from the main point of any story.

With Dubliners, I got a little bit of everything. Some stories were interesting to witness from a third-party perspective (I wonder if saying that is arbitrary, seeing as most stories are experienced as such). For instance, An Encounter, where two boys skip out on school for a day, seeing what life brings them. They come across a strange, weird, shady character�� an older gentleman that is weirdly obsessed with “beating�� little boys. Yeah�� I got as creeped out as the main character of this story. Some of the tales were boring. Ivy Day in the Committee Room, a story about a collection of people canvassing in preparation for the mayoral elections, had lots of elements about Irish nationalism and independence. I am sure it would have meant much more to someone for whom these issues are a matter of pride and blood. Where this collection was at its strongest, however, was when it was conveying the pathos of everyday life �� this is a phenomenon that is similar across nations, time, and class structure. Counterparts, a story that brings to a sharp focus the problem(s) of alcoholism, does much more than just present a set of stereotypes about the Irish. It characterizes the ailment in a person, Farrington, who is not going about life willy-nilly. He is trying, he really is. You find yourself caring for his life, holding a moment of silence for his troubles, and accepting his massive flaws as a human. A Painful Case, a story that shows the depth of loneliness, the abyss that becomes a leech to certain people’s personalities, as they become increasingly unable to shake off the narcissism surrounding solitude in favour of a genuine human connection. And finally, who can read Dubliners without commenting on The Dead? The climax of the collection, a story that highlights the relativity of all of our lesser or greater concerns in relation to mortality. If you read nothing else but one story from this book, let it be this.

I have learned more about Dublin and the Irish with this one book than I may ever have done. Any city would be lucky to have such a candid encyclopedia to its name.