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a long piece about a horny boy and an experienced woman
It’s Bloomsday. James Joyce is a megalith on the Irish literary landscape. Yeats and him cast long shadows over Irish writers even to this day. I doubt I’ll ever be as good a prose writer as Joyce, or as good a poet as Yeats, but I hope I’ll discover my own voice and style that will be considered genuine “McHugh” by those who read my work when I’m dead and dust. Today I’ll start with a look at A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, which is a semi-autobiographical account of a young man’s life from boyhood to rebellious adult writer. Most people say it’s useful to examine…
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examining The Dead
In the run up to Bloomsday on Wednesday, which marks the 100th anniversary since the fictional events occurred in James Joyce’s Ulysses, I’m going to look at some examples of Joyce’s material. Of Joyce’s work, I’m particularly fond of his short story collection, Dubliners. Most people plump for Ulysses, or if they’re trying to be particularly impressive, Finnegan’s Wake. As someone interested in the short story form, Dubliners strikes me as the pinnacle of achievement. Let’s start with his most famous story from that collection: “The Dead”. I won’t analyse the entire story, though I highly recommend everyone reads it, but I’ll quote the opening paragraph: Lily, the caretaker’s daughter,…
