Ireland, Ireland...I"m coming Home...

Listening to Jeffrey Foucault right now...man, he's good. If you don't know him yet, find him. He's a folk singer, and he's just really good. My understanding is that his new CD is even better than his already fantastic older albums.

Anyway....just as a warning, this post might be a tad disjointed. (Did I use that word correctly?) I just finished "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and I'm going to attempt to put my thoughts into some semblence of order for you, my reader. (Wish me luck.)

Part of the problem, I think, is that I read this book right after Bob Dylan's Chronicles. You see, Portrait is just about as antithetical to Chronicles as two books could possibly be. And, by this I mean in structure and form. Chronicles was almost a blur of ideas and thoughts, it was mercurial and fast paced, reading almost made your heart beat faster in order to catch up with Dylan's thoughts.

Portrait, on the other hand, was exactly that...a snapshot. Although, "snapshot" is a poor word choice, because it truly was a "portrait". Snapshots can be taken quickly in succession so as to suggest movement and action. A portrait is, by necessity, much more painstakenly produced...it is the result of a great deal of effort on two fronts: the artist, who has to capture all of the details, and the subject of the piece, who has to stay still for the duration of the sitting.

Joyce accomplished this task in spades. This work was THICK with detail; each page was another layer in the painting, adding to and highlighting the work as a whole

One of the interesting details that came up throughout the book was the repetition of the color grey....(the grey sky, the grey water, the grey beard, the grey hair, etc.) At first I didn't know what to make of it, but upon completing the story, it becomes apparent that Joyce chose the color grey with good reason. The blandness, the monotony of the grey throughout the story contrasts with the bright and vivid colors that are very carefully distributed sparingly in the text. If I may go back to the metaphor of the painted portrait...imagine a faded and timeworn painting that has just a spot of color remaining from the original creation....it stands out and is that much more meaningful because of it's proximity to the drab colorlessness of the rest of the piece.

Joyce does offer an interesting summarization of the themes in the book near the end of the fourth chapter. The book is divided into five parts, and they are: To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, and to recreate life out of life. (p. 172)

The book does, indeed as the title would suggest, convey a portrait of the artist as a young man....you are given a glimpse at what happens in a young mans life to see how he gets to where he ends up. However, it is important to note, that as in all pictures....it is not fair to expect a complete and fully accurate view of the subject. The pictures cannot show what has happened in between images, and it's difficult to truly understand the individual, to relate to the individual, to feel a connection to the individual without these key moments.


Hmmmm....I don't know if I've succeeded in shedding any light on this book or not...but, having finished it...that's what I'm thinking. So, there ya go.

Going to begin "A Dirty Job" by Christopher Moore now. (It's a bit of an abrupt change, to be sure, but I'm ready for something a little lighter.)

All right...thanks for stopping by.

Tommy