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    Dubliners
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    Dubliners
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    Dubliners
    Audiobook8 hours

    Dubliners

    Written by James Joyce

    Narrated by Donal Donnelly

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Published in 1914 after 10 years of argument with publishers over charges of “obscenity,” these stories were once described by Joyce as “a chapter in the moral history of my country.” Their collection in one volume offers a unified vision across the Joycean literary landscape, where a claustrophobic and “paralyzed” Dublin spirals outward to a wide ranging, boundless universe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateJan 31, 2014
    ISBN9781440798283
    Author

    James Joyce

    James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. He came from a reasonably wealthy family which, predominantly because of the recklessness of Joyce's father John, was soon plunged into financial hardship. The young Joyce attended Clongowes College, Belvedere College and, eventually, University College, Dublin. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, and eloped with her to Croatia. From this point until the end of his life, Joyce lived as an exile, moving from Trieste to Rome, and then to Zurich and Paris. His major works are Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan's Wake (1939). He died in 1941, by which time he had come to be regarded as one of the greatest novelists the world ever produced.

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    Reviews for Dubliners

    4/5

    63 ratings59 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Incredible narration by Donal Donnelly. One of the best ways to take in Dubliners
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this collection because I doubt anyone writes short stories like this anymore. Dubliners is composed of vignettes looking into the lives of ordinary people and does not aspire to show extraordinary moments but rather the small ones that happen everyday. Although many of the stories feature epiphanies rendered from these small moments, others simply depict in realistic fashion an experience that could happen to anyone with no reflection by the character whatsoever. My favorites from the collection are Araby, Eveline, Two Gallants, The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Clay, A Painful Case, A Mother, Grace, and of course, The Dead. One may notice I have listed there 10 of the 15 stories, and I suppose that is a reflection of how much I loved the book. It did take me over a year to complete, if only because I kept putting off reading The Dead because I wanted a suitable moment to give it its due consideration.
    • 4/5
      I chose "really liked it" because there were some stories that I really loved. There were others that were interesting but didn't grab my attention as much.

      The stories I loved were: A Little Cloud, The Dead, and A Mother.

    • 4/5
      While shopping for books recently on Amazon, I was trying to upgrade my reading list through the addition of some “classics” that I’d avoided in the past. In doing so, I discovered a couple of relatively short works by authors that were somewhat intimidating by reputation. Having done a little research, I was pretty sure that authors such as Camus, Sartre, Joyce and Faulkner would probably not be to my liking. Nevertheless, I picked up Camus’ The Plague and Dubliners by James Joyce, emboldened by their brevity. In hindsight, I’m glad I did, though I’m unlikely to delve much deeper.This short (140 relatively dense pages) work is a compilation of short stories centered upon the Irish city of Dublin near the turn of the 20th century. These short stories are VERY short, most in the range of 5-10 pages long. I don’t necessarily dislike short stories, however I like for my short stories to be at least long enough to actually tell a story and this collection fails in that regard. Many of the offerings merely paint a tapestry, albeit in beautiful prose, but fall short of actually engaging the reader. In truth, there are no “stories” as much as vignettes. They were very reminiscent of many of the short Hemingway stories I’d read; beautifully written, but too short to capture my interest.I was quite disappointed after having read the first three or four very short vignettes, but it soon became apparent that the short stories were coalescing into a larger picture and the reader begins to get a more complete picture of the city, its people and their culture. Then, the final story, The Dead, proves a fitting capstone to the collection. Far longer than the other stories, at about 30 pages, it is by far the most powerful and memorable of the stories.Bottom line: This is a very short book containing very short stories, most of which are TOO short for my taste. Taken as a collection, however, they serve the purpose of making the reader familiar with the city, its people and their period in history. The final work makes the entire effort worthwhile. It was a two star effort through the first half, becoming three star as the stories coalesced, vaulted to four star by the final story.
    • 3/5
      It is surprising how easily our perception can be influenced. When it comes to classic literature, this is doubly so! How long have you had the idea that reading James Joyce is just too hard? Well this year our book club took the challenge and Joyce’s Dubliners has scored the highest yet. We were all in agreement that the writing was superb and that Joyce has that very Irish knack of telling a tale that is entertaining yet sorrowful. As we have said before … no one does it like the Irish!It was commented that the narration serves as an observer to what, in anyone else’s hands, would be ordinary, everyday stories. But Joyce has a way of bringing his characters to life with everything that makes us human. Clever turn of phrase and descriptive language all come together to weave a picture of Dublin at a time that it was truly Irish. Our discussion included an interesting look at Joyce himself and some of the challenges he faced getting published. As a group we also try to do a little background into authors. I helps to round out our discussions and also adds an extra dimension to what we learn from the literature we read.We shared real life experiences in Ireland and had plenty of opinions on the traditions and uniqueness of the Irish people. We also felt we were able to pin point the difficult position the country and its people were caught in at the time of Dubliners publication. Somewhere between the modern and traditional world. Something that only a writer of Joyce’s calibre would be able to deliver.
    • 5/5
      Reading Joyce is like what reading was like when you were a kid - an almost physical experience. He is so good at creating an atmosphere, you can almost smell the air of turn-of-the century Dublin as you follow his characters through their quietly unsatisfied lives. 'Dubliners', in 15 sketches of hugely different people, gives you a very profound sense of what this city (and in fact the entire country) was like at the time, suspended in limbo; clinging to tradition in a sometimes mechanical way, yet yearning to be part of a bigger world. This is most pronounced in the story 'Eveline', where a girl is torn between duties to her family and the promise of a better, happier life abroad with her sweetheart. All in all, 'Dubliners' was a great read and something I'd recommend to anyone. I really like short stories and episodic novels (Dubliners falls somewhere in between I think, because the 15 stories add up to something bigger) because they allow you to catch your breath in between. I'm still a little anxious to touch 'Ulysses', its hugeness and impenetrability being rather legendary, so 'Dubliners' was my way to dip my toe in the water. I also think Irish history and culture are very interesting, and you get a lot of that (references, so keep wikipedia at hand) as well.
    • 4/5
      Joyce's simple stories keep one gripped. Wonderful collection and a great introduction to Joyce.
    • 5/5
      First read Dubliners in the early 90's... re-read it again in 2005 or so along with some critical essays. Probably in my top 50 of all time... will be making that list once I have all my titles uploaded and reviewed. I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath for that.
    • 5/5
      What can be said of James Joyce, the son of John Joyce, that hasn’t been said already? He was the partially blind bard of Ireland and at the same time the only heir apparent to Shakespeare himself, whose four works of prose fiction are each masterpieces, and whose “apocrypha” (by which I mean his work outside of prose fiction, including verse poetry, drama, and an early version of Portrait called Stephen Hero), if not of the high standards set otherwise, holds literary merit and esteem in its own right.Dubliners, Joyce’s first masterpiece and only collection of short stories, carries in its pages all of the self-assured sophistication and willingness to break rules Joyce was famous for, but a much lesser degree of the “obscurity” he would pioneer in his next books and take to its fullest extent and conclusion in the dream freakout of Finnegans Wake, which would famously be called obscure by Ezra Pound, who wrote The Cantos . Dubliners is one of the greatest collections of short stories in the English language, if not the greatest collection. Centering around Joyce’s idea of the epiphany, or moments of great reflection, introspection, or realization, each story centers on the moment when a given character’s true self is brought out. It may be somewhat hard to understand and slow going at first, but once you catch on to what Joyce is doing – I caught on about half way through – then you will be hooked.“Two Sisters”, the first story, starts the collection on a dour note. A boy in mourning over his mentor, a priest named Flynn, isn’t sure how to deal with the ramifications of his first brush with mortality. Spiritually connected with the last story, “The Dead”, this story with its abrupt ending (mid conversation) shows that Joyce is not about to hold your hand through this collection. You’re going to have to dig in and find the purpose of the story yourself- there is no moral help, no conventional use of plot, and no tropes, allegories, or indicators.And that’s just the tone of the stories as they go through. The narrator doesn’t help you with anything and the characters are left to voice themselves and moralize on their own. To give you a little more information, “An Encounter” is about two boys’ acquaintance with an old lecherous pervert, “Two Gallants” details a couple of con men who find a maid willing to steal from her employer, “A Painful Case” is the realization of a man who rebuffs a woman that he has condemned her to a life of loneliness and isolation. These are the types of stories you can expect to find within the world of Dubliners.These are all great stories and each has its own unique, individual flavor, but the crowning jewel of the set would have to be “The Dead.” At around 15,000 words, some would consider this to be a novella, but its themes and materials are actually inextricable from the rest of the collection. It really is the consummation of all of the other stories, an intensification of what is happening throughout the rest of the book. It also breaks the most rules. First off, the story tricks the reader by starting out with a focus on one of the minor characters in the story. In fact, not only is the focus on the door maid Lily, but even her thoughts are exposed right from the beginning sentence which starts, “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.” Since the story takes place in a sophisticated upper-crust party, it was obviously not the case that she was literally run off her feet. The narrator was simply using the kind of words she herself would have used to describe her situation, and so a kind of deep penetration into her thoughts was achieved.This is, of course, strange and unusual, because Lily is not the main character of the story, as I have stated. She is merely a side character. The main characters of the story are a husband and wife named Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. But this isn’t the only act of trickery the author participates in. Even the setting is illusory as events shift from the party to the place Mr. and Mrs. Conroy are staying at with little or no connection between the two on first glance. Close reading is rewarded, though, as the connection becomes apparent on the second or third read of this amazing short story. Unfortunately, it is impossible to discuss all of the aspects of the works of Joyce in a relatively small space for readability, but hopefully my evaluation can serve as a roadmap and a help to you on your travels through this complex, rewarding book.Keep note that this is the first Joyce book to be written and as such should be the first Joyce book you read if you should ever decide to take an endeavor through Joyce’s world. I can imagine plenty of people trying to start with Ulysses and just getting lost. It’s important to pick up the ideas of what James Joyce is doing early on as he builds on these and adds to them as he progresses.
    • 4/5
      Sad to say, but I have never before read anything by James Joyce although I knew this was a serious omission in my reading life. I took the easy way out, and started with Joyce's short stories, Dubliners, set in middle class, early 20th century Ireland.I do like the way that some of the stories were loosely interconnected, the way a character in one would pop up again in another. And I liked the earlier stories, the ones with children and then adolescents, best. Some of the writing is lovely, and some of my favorite quotes are:“The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot.”“He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never game alms to beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.”“He had dismissed his wife so sincerely from his gallery of pleasures that he did not suspect that anyone else would take an interest in her.”Joyce's descriptions of characters were wonderful. To me, however, the stories were not, for the most part, especially interesting. I'd finish one and think, “Is that all there is?” Perhaps I'm just a reader who needs more definitive conclusion, more action, perhaps I just missed the point and am showing my ignorance. I'm going to give Joyce another try. But not just yet.About the specific edition I read – avoid the free Kindle edition. The occasional typo didn't bother me too much, but in the story “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” the free Kindle version was missing the entire “The Death of Parnell” poem, and that poem was integral to the story. Fortunately, I had an old copy sitting on my shelf, and I switched to it. However, my rating is based on my opinion of the writing, not on any particular edition.
    • 4/5
      A wonderfully eclectic collection of stories, all taking place in Dublin and all having to do with human relationships, be it between friends and family, spouses, parents and children, employees and their bosses, and so on. My personal favourites were An Encounter, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, A Painful Case, A Mother and The Dead. Of these, one is about an encounter between a strange old man and a boy, another about a demanding stage mother, one about an young man meeting an older woman, another about a man and wife and old memories coming to the surface. A few stories didn't engage me quite as much; such as one having to do with motor racing, another about a gathering of committee members, which are themes that hold less appeal for me. My first experience of James Joyce had been Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and, having difficulty making heads or tails of it, I had been discouraged from reading anything else by him, but I'm glad that another LT member (Cariola) recommended Dubliners, because the quality of Joyce's prose throughout is a pleasure to discover, and his attention to detail in describing various scenes and small, quiet moments are quite beautiful in their lyricism.
    • 4/5
      a lesson in accessible joyce. some stories are easier to get into. others are in his own impenetrable style. i started this in paper, finished on an e-reader. a vote in their behalf, i'm cylcing four books while commuting; i typically get to three in a round trip. i looked forward to 'dubliners' (and the others as well).
    • 5/5
      Are you afraid of James Joyce? Have you heard horror stories from folks who have tried to read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake? Take a deep breath and pick up a copy of Dubliners--or better yet, listen as I did to a stunning audio version, in which fifteen stories are read by Irish actors and writers, including Frank and Malachy McCourt, Stephen Rea, Colm Meany, Fionnula Flannigan, Brendan Coyle, and Ciarin Hinds. Trust me, you won't have any of the difficulties here, in this early Joyce collection, that throw some readers off his work: no stream-of-conciousness narrative, no sentences that go on for twenty pages, no quirky dialect that you can't decipher. Just lovely, often very moving stories about ordinary people living in Dublin in the early 20th century. Two of the best known, "Araby" and "The Dead," you may even have read in a high school or college lit course, and both are tenderly rendered by the readers. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      The most interesting thing about this collection of James Joyce short stories is not that they are accessible (in contradiction to so much of what Joyce has written); but that they are the epitome of the old cliché “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” That is to say, few of these stories really stand out. Yes, there are a couple of exceptions. But the majority are just okay stories. However, taken as a whole, these provide a fascinating picture of the town where they all take place. As the stories unfold, the people become more and more real, and the town takes on a shape.The intent of these stories was two-fold. The first was to stand on their own. Not all that successful. The second is to paint an overall picture, and that they do with much better success.It is said that this collection is a good introduction to Joyce. Could well be. As I say, they are quite accessible. But I can say that there is an underlying enjoyment to reading the stories that sneaks up on the reader.
    • 4/5
      A collection of short stories from one of the darlings of the modern literary world, James Joyce. Though I mock, I do believe Joyce is deserving of his reputation (I just become irritated by some of the pretentious attitudes toward him that I discovered in literature classes) and his short stories are justifiably acknowledged as exemplars in that genre. Each of the fifteen tales depicts a slice of Dublin life from the early twentieth century, and all are colored with Joyce's judgment towards his native land. As he wrote in a letter, he felt that Ireland had become paralyzed, swamped in a nostalgia for the old days and an inertia that prevented it from the progress of other countries, and that Dublin, in particular, personified this attitude (my paraphrasing of his words). As a result, many of these stories have characters who are longing for change, or dream of bettering themselves, but in the final analysis are stuck in their situation and make no forward movement whatsoever. This theme - and many others - link the stories. They also have a progression that Joyce himself explicated, as the stories move from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, ending with stories about public life. Narratively, however, each piece stands alone, and the characters do not cross over. The way that these stories nonetheless are intricately connected through theme, symbolism, and style demonstrates Joyce's skill as a writer. They are very good short stories, and they are interesting as individual pieces and equally interesting to read for the more abstract connections that bind them as a whole."Dead" was my favorite. This is the final, and longest, story in the collection, and was written well after the others. In it, Gabriel attends a festive party at the Miss Morkans' house, where a tension runs beneath Gabriel's skin despite the jolly crowd. He has several painful encounters, and ends the evening with an unwelcome revelation from his wife that causes him to face mortality. I also particularly liked "Clay", in which Maria receives a sad prophecy and she's the only one who misses its significance, and "The Boarding House", the story where Mrs. Mooney uses unscrupulous feigned ignorance to marry off her daughter; I've read "Araby" so many times that I don't know if I like it for its merits or for its familiarity. Don't expect these stories to be mood lifters. Joyce was intentional about depicting negative portraits. His style is crisp, with lots of straight forward detail rather than lyrical flourish. He wanted to present life in gritty detail, often mediocre life, and the moral dilemmas and stagnation that he observed in his Dublin. These stories are crafted with fine writing and thematic resonance, and therein lies their value. Read them for their power and meaning, and enjoy the power of the short story form.
    • 4/5
      Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the Irish middle class. Each story is about a different person or group of people, and they are not really connected to each other in theme until you get to the last two pages of the book. At that point, you come to realize Joyce's purpose in writing this collection, and it all comes together for you.This is one of those books that I could not put down, had a profound affect on me emotionally at times, and yet, I doubt there is any one moment or character that will stick with me. In a way, that's the genius of it in that it perfectly captures the prosaic life of the middle class. In the end, one begins to lament the meaninglessness of his own life and the fact that most of our lives are not really worth telling stories about. Joyce celebrates this commonality in a moving way by telling it to us straight with little flourish, which would serve to make it maudlin. Come to think of it, I guess this book might just stick with me a little longer than I thought.
    • 4/5
      James Joyce has always been a very intimidating author for me. His books Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are infamous for how difficult they are to read. I decided to start with Dubliners and see how that went before diving into another one of his and I’m glad I did. Even though I approached it with trepidation, I really enjoyed it. I’m sure I’m not supposed to say this, but Dubliners reminded me of Maeve Binchy’s short story collections. Her books, The Return Journey and London Transports, give glimpses of the lives of Irish and English people going about their daily lives and this book does the same. Both Dubliners and Binchy’s collections give readers well-written characters that they care about by the end of the story. The difference, of course, is that Joyce’s writing it much more poetic, but still, they have a similar feel. It’s odd to think about how controversial this book was when it was first released. Its content seems so tame compared with today’s standards, but at the time publishers were turning him down because it was too “lewd” because there were references to drunks, etc. I think my two favorites in the selection were “A Little Cloud,” a grass-is-always-greener story, and “The Dead.” To me, Joyce managed to blend the three vital elements of a great short story: good characters, an interesting look at their lives and beautiful prose. Here are a few examples of Joyce’s wonderful way with words…“A dull resentment against his life awoke within him.”“But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generations, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belong to an older day. ““His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”If you’ve been thinking of trying this author out, but aren’t sure where to start, I’d pick this one up and go from there.
    • 3/5
      I like James Joyce's writing much more when he's speaking as a child than as an adult; his child-narrators seem to embrace a certain delicacy and sense of wonder that I find riveting. Meanwhile, his adult narrators seem to me to be about as flat as the adult characters seem in the earlier stories. I read the Norton Critical edition, which had some really awful, distracting notes--terms constantly and unnecessarily defined, story elements explained in an uncomplex and possibly incorrect way (ex: in "An Encounter" the notes tell us that green is a signal for homosexuality, though the text by itself would leave this wonderfully open to interpretation).
    • 4/5
      Several short stories set in Joyce's hometown of Dublin, Ireland. His stories capture the essence of human nature; from all classes of society and different aspects of life. His stories entail happiness and love to sympathy and remorse, to regret and loss. Each story encompassing a different emotion and leaving the reader feeling enraged and melancholy amongst others. Written in the early 1900’s yet the stories can be relevant to current times.
    • 4/5
      DublinersJames JoyceAug 14, 2010 Joyce writes of the characters in Dublin in the first years of the 20th century, before the great war. His people are ordinary, poor or middle class, often unhappy and wishing for better times. The protagonist in his story “A Painful Case” realizes much too late what he meant to another woman, and realizes he was unable to grasp life as he wished to. The story in the “Dead” seems to be about something else until the end, when it becomes one again of unrequited love and loss. The stories often end without a clear resolution, a question in the mind of the reader about the fate of the characters, or the meaning of the events. They are absorbing, and emotionally affecting.
    • 4/5
      Unassuming stories of everyday life, and from every phase of life. Some are vignettes, some almost feel underwhelming... but intentionally so.I have to say, though, that 'The Dead' is a GREAT story. It is one of the best stories I've ever read, and touches on the themes of all the other stories for a powerful and resonating close. And it starts out so much like the other ones, like a vignette, but then it continues past that vignette and goes deep into the character's psyches.I also liked 'A Painful Case', where an unlikeable old man couldn't bring himself to love a woman due to his own hangups until she is dead, and 'Little Cloud', in which a man realizes the mundane-ness of his life in comparison to his famous friend who just came back to Dublin for a visit. However, the worst of these stories are rather boring. The weight of the everyday dialogue and references to obscure irish politicians of the day doesn't help a story like 'Ivy Day in the Committee Room' which takes many pages to go no-where and say nothing interesting in the process.
    • 3/5
      Capturing the essence of middle-class Ireland in the early 1900s, this is a collection of 15 short stories changing in mood and character, but constant in theme. The age of the protagonists rises from the first story to the last, but all are engaged in some sort of defining internal moment or thought. The last story, The Dead was perhaps the most profound example of this, but it is possible to capture that defining moment in each tale. The Dead was also the most moving story, for me, although I was also touched and disturbed by both A Painful Case and Clay. I confess, not being an appreciator of Irish Lit, most of the rest of the stories did little for me, but I am in awe of Joyce’s short story telling ability, nonetheless.
    • 3/5
      I don't think the fifteen separate stories in this book will stick in my mind, but the general feeling most likely will. The feeling of Ireland around 1900, seen from different positions in society. Teenagers skipping school, boys and girls in love, workers, politicians, religious disputes, elite dinners. An interesting book.
    • 4/5
      A collection of short stories, each depicting a "Dubliner," this is arguably the most accessible Joyce. But Joyce can be a tough read if you aren't prepared for it. That's why I think this collection of shorts format is a great place to begin to see if you like Joyce. Joyce did NOT write to be accessible, though. It's work reading Joyce. For some it's a labor of love. For others it's just work. For me, it's just work.
    • 5/5
      I have owned Joyce's Ulysses since I was 17 and have yet to get past the first thirty pages. I found his earlier book, however, to be quite readable.Characters and pacing, both brilliant. Exceptionally well crafted. I finally realize why Joyce is counted among the great writers.
    • 5/5
      My mother used to call me a Jackeen. I thought at first she was calling me a Dubliner, an Anglicised city boy, which is one of its meanings and insult enough from a Culchie like her. A Culchie is someone from the Irish countryside. Keep up at the back. It turns out Jackeen also means a drunken waster, which is more probably what she meant, but the two definitions are one and the same to her I reckon.Joyce, in The Dubliners, never uses the word but there are one or two of both types of Jackeen scattered throughout the collection of short stories.The book reminds me of an Ian Dury album. He makes the ordinary extraordinary. He takes the small and mundane moments of everyday life and turns them into celebrations of existence. The stories start with tales of childhood and convey the tension and detail that consume a child’s life perfectly and continue throughout lifetimes until the last story, The Dead, which finishes with the best piece of writing I have ever read.The perfect book to have in your pocket when waiting for someone in a pub. Preferably someone unreliable who wont turn up on time.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable enough, a great introduction to Joyce if you have never read--certainly more accessible than [Ulysses]. I read these short stories very closely thanks to an Irish lit undergrad course and got to see a recurrent theme of paralysis (emotional, physical, and psychological) throughout the stories.
    • 5/5
      Excellent collection - favorites include "The Boarding House" about a strong woman trying to marry off her beautiful daughter before she picks some ne'rdowell who wouldn't be able to support her - it's brilliant because the mother is manipulative but you don't really see any true maliciousness in her actions - something so hard to do.
    • 4/5
      Two things that struck me about these short stories. One, the writing is so vivid. Mr. Joyce focuses a tight lens on the details - and everything comes alive. Two, these stories are less stories in the sense of narrative than stories in the sense of catching a glimpse of a life - like looking through a window at a moment or two in an on-going story. The trick in this is that the window catches just that moment that tells the whole story.
    • 5/5
      second only to A Portrait of the Artist... to me.