Book Club: Dubliners.

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FizzingWhizzbees

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Hi everyone,

In the other book club thread Dubliners seemed to be the most popular choice for the book club. This thread is for people to ask questions/make comments about the book while we're reading it. I think we should allow a month for people to finish reading the book so we'll start a real discussion of the book in four weeks time - that's Monday June 2nd.

Please let me know if you think the book club should be organised in a different way or you have any other suggestions. :)

Fizz.
 
:wave: Hey everyone!

I've just gotten done with my third semester of studying Dubliners. And Irish literature is my concentration within my major, so I have a few things to say! lol I have so many ideas about these things... just stop me if I get too verbose ;)

If you all don't mind... I'm just going to make some notes and suggestions for reading :)

btw, I've found that the best edition of this book is the Penguin Twentieth Century Classics edition with Intro and Notes by Terence Brown :up: I would definitely recommend a version with notes of some sort... Joyce put so much information in these stories that's hard to find on your own (no matter how smart you are! lol) Plus, sometimes understanding even the most obscure detail helps (me at least) in an understanding of the whole collection. I've actually written two papers now based on the notes and some obscure detail I wanted to explore!

*******
The stories are arranged in sets:

Stories of Childhood:
"The Sisters"
"An Encounter"
"Araby"

Stories of Adoloscence:
"Eveline"
"After the Race"
"Two Gallants"
"The Boarding House"

Stories of Maturity:
"A Little Cloud"
"Counterparts"
"Clay"
"A Painful Case"

Stories of Irish Public Life:
"Ivy Day..." - deals with politics
"A Mother" - deals with art
"Grace" - deals with religion
"The Dead" - deals with literature and the Irish revival (among so much else)

*********
General things to look for:

- Take note that all the stories are interwoven. The main theme of Dubliners is relatedness... everything is related! So the same themes, characters, and situations recur from story to story, but always with a slight twist.

- Dubliners is also full of epiphanies. Joyce kept a notebook of them which he used in all of his work. In each chapter the characters usually come to some sort of epiphany (revelation, enlightenment).

- Joyce's three main themes of the book are introduced within the first page:

Theme 1:
PARALYSIS - Dublin, the city, is a symbol of paralysis for Joyce and for his characters. It is a city from which they can never escape. Joyce represents this in the circularity of his stories and images. For example, both the first and last stories feature "sisters." Not only are these characters usually confined in the city, they are victims of their own weaknesses which paralyze them.

Theme 2:
GNOMON - This is perhaps the most important to understand. A gnomon is a parallelogram with a smaller parallelgram removed from it. Like this: (the white part has been completely removed)
gnomon.jpg

This is important because most of these characters are gnomon's themselves: people with parts missing. This contributes to their paralysis. Also, Joyce loves to use the ellpsis (this: "...") to cut out dialogue. If you notice, in Dubliners there is a lack of complete sentences. People will often trail off in the middle of sentences... leaving us to guess what they said. This is also a form of gnomon.

Theme 3:
SIMONY - selling salvation. I'm sure most of you know the history of this. It's importance for Dubliners is that it represents defective spirituality. This is another form of gnomon, essentially, and contributes to the paralysis of all Dubliners.

*********

There's so much more I could say in introduction to such a fantastic text... but I won't. lol Needless to say, I'm happy to help anyone with reading or explaining or just talking about this book. It's one of my all-time favorite books, and reveals something new to me everytime I read it.

I hope I didn't bore you with this... but I feel that I enjoyed Dubliners more when I had been given this information... so I hope it helps at least a little bit.

If you have anymore questions or just want to talk email or IM anytime! :)

hippy@u2email.com
AIM: PlaysTheTart

:wave: Enjoy!
 
:ohmy: thanks hippy!

and now i am extremely intimidated. this is going to be like when you read a book and have to write a paper for a class with a professor where the wrote a thesis on the book and you're deathly afraid of saying something wrong.

the part of me that likes to torment myself by reading difficult things and taking hard classes is extremely :hyper: at the moment. this is going to be fun. going to the library on thursday to get the book.
 
awww I didn't mean to be intimidating!!! lol

I've just found that Dubliners is one of those books that withstands SO MUCH study... it just gets better everytime I read it! So I was thinking of how to help people enjoy in more...

But disregard me... I'm a lit major... so it's my job to do this kind of thing ;)
 
Wow, thanks for posting all that info, hippy :) It definitely helps me to appreciate a book properly if I have some information about it like that.
 
hippy said:
awww I didn't mean to be intimidating!!! lol

I've just found that Dubliners is one of those books that withstands SO MUCH study... it just gets better everytime I read it! So I was thinking of how to help people enjoy in more...

But disregard me... I'm a lit major... so it's my job to do this kind of thing ;)


it's awesome. i'm sure it will be advantageous to everyone to have someone who's spent so much time studying it. and in true nerd fashion, i'm quite excited about this book group idea. i would be a lit major if i could convince the other half of my brain that it would be a good idea...
 
I'd like to join the book club if that's okay! I was just thinking of reading Dubliners, anyway!

Yertle don't feel bad, as I am a slow reader too. I even bought one of those speed-reading courses and it didn't work for me! lol. But I am going to try again sometime.
 
Weeelll...

I started the intro, but it was rather boring (and long lol) so I skipped to the first chapter/story/whatever, and...decided to try again later lol. It just...jumps into the story without any kind of introduction, and I have no idea what is going on. :shrug: :reject:

I am a few years out of high school so I haven't read anything this tough in a while, so forgive me but I am trying! I really want to understand this book and I know it will be worth it. :) So I will try again tonight! My version has some notes in it I think so that should help...
 
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I can't stop reading it! It feels so good to read really good fiction again! I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately, and this feels like getting back to my English major roots!


I sure won't have it done by the third of June though. This is the busy season for me. Grading, recording and all the things that go with closing school for the year. Proceed without me, and I'll catch up! :)
 
I got the version with the notes which really helps (even though it takes me longer to read the notes than the actual text).....I'm really enjoying it, but I don't think I'll be finished either.
 
Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna TRY and get it done before I go to Cleveland...but who knows, maybe it'll make good airport/airplane reading material. But yeah I'm all about extending it, as I got in here late anyway...
 
I think that's a good idea, hippy. :) How about we extend the time another week if not everyone has finished reading? Maybe two weeks if people are busy and don't have much reading time?
 
Actually do what is best for you guys, because I don't think I am gonna finish before Cleveland...I'll get back on the 17th so I'll participate in whatever conversation is going on then. BUt I'm a slow reader, plus I think I joined kinda late. So don't worry about me! Hopefully I'll get a lot read on the flights to/from Cleveland though...And in the GA line at the Coldplay gig, lol!

Anyway I think I'm something like, 5 chapters in...I'm on "After the Races." It's going a lot better now...but still a little slow-going.
 
Ohhhh-kay. We've had like two weeks longer than we were originally going to have to read the book, so how about we start a discussion now? I would attempt to start the discussion, by my analysis of literature is so bad that I think I'd spoil the rest of the discussion. :p

Anyway....Dubliners DISCUSS! :)
 
Okay... how about we start with overall impressions of the book? What you liked/ didn't like... that kind of stuff...

Martha's already commented on the melancholy she feels... I need to think about this some more and I'll come back with comments :)
 
I liked it in general, but the melancholy feeling is definitely present throughout, and seems to be one of the prominent themes of the book. (why?)

Personally, I liked the imagery and references to christianity. My favorite aspect, has got to be how the book comes together at the end and all the themes presented in "the sisters" resurfacing in "the Dead".


(ok, I'm starting to sound like a lousy movie critic....I'll give it another shot in the morning!:wink: )
 
Also, the lack of intimacy between the characters. The Dead is staying with me here. The way the husband had no idea about this incident that was so important in the life of his wife, and his reaction was one of jealousy, not sympathy. That indicates a lack of emotional intimacy between the two of them. She hadn't told him before, either, so she was feeling cut off from him as well.
 
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