After struggling to complete Ulysses last year, I was not looking forward to another of Joyce's offerings. I was assured by an Irish friend that this one was more readable, and fortunately it was. Dubliners, not to be mistaken with the popular Irish folk band, is a collection of fifteen short stories set in the titular city of Dublin. The book is an anthology of realist 'slice of life' experiences of the middle classes. There is no particular plot to speak of, being little other than moments frozen in time, which I actually rather enjoy. There is a framework of ageing, with the early stories dealing with childhood, then through to middle age, and finally old age and death. There is also a consistent theme of drinking culture, which affects the characters' lives in various ways. I preferred the earlier stories to the later one, and those centering on personal, rather than civic life.
As with any short story collection, there will nearly always be favourites, but a special shoutout to early entries 'An Encounter' and 'Araby.' The former is about two schoolboys who encounter a perverted old man whilst playing truant, and masterfully captures the familiar experience of being in a dangerous situation as a child. 'Araby' is about a boy taken with his friend's sister, and his first precocious stirrings of infatuation as he fails to secure a gift for her. The more depressing, cynical stories of middle age include the worst of the bunch 'Ivy Day in the Committee Room', which is just boring old men discussing politics. Big yawn to that one. The last story is the longest, of novella length, and is a melancholy reflection on mortality which I found quite moving. Overall, not a bad book, and one of Joyce's earliest.
Rating: 3/5
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