Dubliners: Book review

When I plucked Dubliners from a shelf in my local bookstore, I did so out of pure curiosity.

Written in 1905 by Irish author James Joyce, Dubliners is a collection of short stories detailing the dreams and failures facing the Irish middle-class at the turn of the century.

Dubliners has long been a staple of high school English study, and for that reason it is often loathed.

Certainly on appearance it looks like a boring novel, and some of the tales will stretch the patience of Generation Y readers.

Fortunately, the book redeems itself through substance and layout.

Written during Joyce’s formative years as a writer, Dubliners has a unique feel to it.

While it is clear the author is still experimenting with ideas and writing methods, the short story format employed makes for easy reading.

The simplicity of the narrative and the need for a definitive ending mean that readers of all levels and paces can easily read from beginning to end.

Despite more than 100 years having passed since the book’s release, the tales themselves are still relevant today.

In choosing his subjects and their situations, Joyce focuses on the human experience rather than getting bogged down in time and place.

The chapter ‘A Little Cloud’, details a married clerk’s desire to move to London and become a journalist. Here Joyce doesn’t bring the particulars of journalism into focus, instead the point of the story is to showcase the regret felt by the clerk for getting married and not seeing of the world.

The fear of settling down without having followed one’s dreams is something that people can identify with.

With the reader able to consume the material from a position of familiarity, Joyce can make his stories simple without a need for background information.

Despite this, Joyce’s inexperience is clear and the constant tweaking of his writing style can be frustrating, often changing the voice of the narrative from third-person to first.

Verdict: On the surface Dubliners may seem like another lousy school text, but delve into its pages and you will find a world of dreams, despair and redemption. Joyce’s literary style may bore at times but the authentic human experience imbedded in the pages cannot be denied.