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Editorial Review Book Description
Dubliners - James Joyce's stories of his native homeland - performed by a cast of 15 different actors originating from Ireland. Unabridged. The fifteen stories that make up this brilliant audio roam over a human landscape that stretches from the bleakest of despair to the most blinding of epiphanies. First published in 1914, the stories are as lucid and accessible as they are memorable poignant. As you listen to the cast of internationally famous stage and screen actors perform Dubliners, both the spiritually deadening atmosphere that drove Joyce from his homeland and the irresistible emotional pull it always kept on him to the end of his days become heartbreakingly beautiful. Dubliners is an audio experience that will only grow in richness with each time you listen. The stories and performers are: Sisters - Frank McCourt An Encounter - Patrick McCabe Araby - Colm Meaney Eveline - Dearbhla Molloy After the Race - Dan O'Herlihy Two Gallants - Malachy McCourt The Boarding House - Donal Donnelly A Little Cloud - Brendan Coyle Counterparts - Jim Norton Clay - Sorcha Cusack A Painful Case - Ciaran Hinds Ivy Day in the Committee Room - T.P. McKenna A Mother - Fionnula Flanagan Grace - Charles Keating The Dead - Stephen Rea Â
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Dubliners was completed in 1905, but a series of British and Irish publishers and printers found it offensive and immoral, and it was suppressed. The book finally came out in London in 1914, just as Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man began to appear in the journal Egoist under the auspices of Ezra Pound. The first three stories in Dubliners might be incidents from a draft of Portrait of the Artist, and many of the characters who figure in Ulysses have their first appearance here, but this is not a book of interest only because of its relationship to Joyce's life and mature work. It is one of the greatest story collections in the English language--an unflinching, brilliant, often tragic portrait of early twentieth-century Dublin. The book, which begins and ends with a death, moves from "stories of my childhood" through tales of public life. Its larger purpose, Joyce said, was as a moral history of Ireland. ... Read more Customer Reviews (104) 
Irish Stew
Because "Ulysses" is so imposing with its epic length and pages of solid, tiny text I decided to get my feet wet with "Dubliners," which is not quite half the other's length.From what I read with "Dubliners", I'll have to give "Ulysses" a shot in the near future.
Normally I'd do an obligatory plot summary, but that would be a pointless exercise because A) There are 15 short stories that comprise the book and B) None of them really has a traditional "plot" to speak of.Rather, "Dubliners" is a serious of what we in modern parlance would call "character sketches."Think of it as each story being a portrait of some person or scene done in painstakingly vivid detail.Each story focuses on some small moment that often leads the character to discovering a melancholy truth about life.
The first stories focus on children encountering the harsh realities of the adult world--a priest dying and an encounter with a creepy, crazy old man--and then move on to teenage love and then more adult problems of marriage, family, and politics before a final meditation on death in the aptly-titled "The Dead."
The way Joyce captures the humanity of each character is so stunning; he taps into the soul of these people to expose the secrets, wishes, hopes, and fears that reside within each of us.It's hard not to see a part of yourself in one or more of these characters, almost as if Joyce knew you over 90 years ago better than you know yourself right now.Because while the technology may change, the human psyche remains the same.
The reason I can't give this four stars is that like any short story collection there's a fatigue that sets in upon reading "Dubliners."The longer the collection goes on, the more similarities can be seen in the characters and the situations, the descriptions and the dialog.It's like listening to an album of music and noting that song 10 sounds a lot like song 5, which sounds a lot like song 2.There's really no way to avoid that fatigue unless the writer uses a completely different style each time.
As well, reading a book written over 90 years ago that's set in Ireland can be a challenge for a modern (not quite 90) year old American.Footnotes and such can be helpful, but it also interrupts the flow of the reading.
Still, Joyce's uncanny knowledge of humanity is well worth any fatigue or nuisances.
That is all.
Beautifully written but underwhelming
I enjoyed four of the fifteen stories in this book immensely. The others were great for their prose, depiction of people at certain junctures in their life, and reflection of Dublin at the turn of the Century, but otherwise not compelling.
"The Dead," his most enduring and evocative piece of short fiction, did nothing for me. I loved A Little Cloud, Couterparts, A Painful Case, and Eveline.
I read the Barnes&Noble Classic edition. The maps at the beginning of each story added no value.
After reading this book I'm ready for some contemporary fiction.
Great Vignettes Of Dublin Life and A Great way to introduce yourself to James Joyce
Admittedly Joyce's better known works can seem quite daunting to the uninitiated but here in these short character sketches a reader can begin to understand what all fuss is about and enjoy some wonderfully written short stories in the bargain.
The stories are consistently good and from the very first where a young boy encounters the death of someone he knows for the first time the tales and the characters are engaging. Highly recommended !
Untitled
I don't really have anything thoughtful to say exept that after reading this book multiple times, I think that it is tight, but breathes, and is choreographed as best as a human being could do, and in that regard, it is very much like a Beatles album, and should be esteemed in like manner.
Frustratingly short short stories
I had given up on James Joyce after finding "Ulysses" too murky and disorienting.When I mentioned this to a young handsome literature student in a Dublin pub, he suggested I try "Dubliners" instead.When I got back home I checked a copy out of the library and found it hard to believe this collection of stories was written by the same man who confounded me before. I found each story almost instantly engaging (except the one about the election; too far removed from my modern American experience, I guess), and most seemed to end abruptly.This may be why another reviewer wrote that the stories had no climax, but I simply wanted more.I'm here on Amazon to buy a copy because I still want more.
So did Joyce write these stories and then hit the Absinthe before writing "Ulysses"?Or am I thinking of Oscar Wilde...?
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