Review of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce
3.5 Stars.
“A day of dappled seaborne clouds.
The phrase and the day and the scene harmonised in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose?”
I've come to dislike the act of using stars, but as soon as I finished this book, I knew it fell within the space between 3 and 4 stars. Higher than the relative enjoyment of a three due to way Joyce's words unfurled across the page to the same cadence as my appreciation towards his craft, lower than a four since I did not achieve much emotional pay off from this book. I don’t provide these stars as a direct measure of its value, but instead as a way to simplify some of the nuances of my reading experience.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiographical novel based on James Joyce's own life, the protagonist renamed as Stephen Daedalus. The mention of the myth to which Stephen's surname references is often called upon in this novel, an ode to both Icarus and the inventor himself, artist as creator and the consumed. Joyce's prose is beautiful, and his appreciation for language itself is evident, from their rhythm to their meaning. I don't think I've ever marked so many passages in a book before just for their sheer beauty. As someone who loves writing, I found his ability to so vividly draw these scenes in your mind to be incredible, and it's for this reason that the book as a whole is so atmospheric. The passage of time and sensory itself press upon you, yet are as intangible as smoke, until you're carried away towards the next scene unmoored. This book is meant to explore what it means to find truth in art, how to detangle the essence of beauty from the bindings you are born into-religion, nation, self. I find this premise fascinating, and it's what propelled me to finish the story into completion. Stephen's coming into being as an artist happens slowly as you go through his own life’s journey, and I rather liked this concept.
However, what really missed the mark for me was the execution. Rather than having writing and art itself be something that continuously pervaded the narrative, it doesn't really come into play as often as I would have liked. The rest of the story is filled to the brim with references to contemporaneous writers, hundreds of footnotes about Catholicism, and allusions to Irish history that I could never keep track of. Perhaps knowing these facets isn't necessary to appreciate the work, but I found these details to truly hinder my understanding of the novel. It made the text unapproachable at times and more dense than I cared to explore, since I wanted insight into Joyce's take on the creative process more so than the external factors themselves. In that sense, I would say that this book just wasn't right for me in particular, since it wasn't what I was looking for when I read it. At the same time, I am awed at his way with words, and on multiple occasions, completely spellbound by the scenes he paints. This book is so rich because it's a mosaic of Joyce's appreciation for literature, for the works of others overlap onto his real life. I couldn't help but feel my own creativity and ideas blossom from such densely packed passages, and my creative well was filled by the scenes he painted.
At the same time, my appreciation was on a very aesthetic level. Joyce's prose is beautiful and lovely, but I didn't feel much as to what it meant for the human connection to art. Maybe that's because it's meant to be in line with his idea of beauty, of which his belief welds together the ideas of multiple ancient philosophers, but personally, I read books of this nature to glimpse into some truth within us all, for the stories to peel back a layer of our reality as rind to flesh. Instead, I found this book to only bury it under more musing than anything else, and though I love a good philosophical moment, there wasn't much insight that made me feel as though this book was attempting to create an understanding between author and audience. In fact, if I had to describe A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, it'd be as an island. A tangible manifestation of Joyce's solitary mind at work as he furiously penned his life, purging the story of his creative journey just to organize it for himself. It's interesting, to be sure, but so true to him that it leaves no room for anything or anyone else.
In all, I am astounded by this book. It's a feat of artistry and it lives up to its title. However, it exists on a plane that is rather unapproachable to me due to its numerous references. I can see why Joyce is so well acclaimed for his prose and insight, but I also would hesitate to call this a classic. It's not a timeless book, instead entrenched in its author's history and knowledge, to the point that there's almost a barrier to entry to completely understanding it (even flipping back and forth between every footnote is barely enough for comprehension if you’re not already familiar with the history of Ireland and Catholicism). I don't think this can just be attributed to the fact that its an autobiographical novel either; Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter was readable and wasn’t cobbled together by others’ quotes (and misquotes). And yet, perhaps that is what it means to be an artist, a patchwork of influences from the art you consume and the life you live. A quilt so varied and deep, that no one could hope to ever entirely understand it. Perhaps that's what it means to be human. I applaud Joyce's attempt to communicate this journey, one already difficult to navigate on one's own let alone explain, but the very nature of the book forces it to be entrenched in its time. Does that make it a bad book? No. Does that make it entirely irrelevant? No. But I would argue that its air of inaccessibility will only grow stronger as time passes.
Deeply intellectual though it may be, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man failed to make me feel anything besides impressed. Nonetheless, I found that its investigation into what binds artists to their craft to be valuable and interesting. I only wish a work of this nature were attempted more frequently so that its message may live on, as an influence to artists itself.
