A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Norton Critical Edition)
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Norton Critical Edition)
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the twentieth century’s great coming-of-age novels.
This Norton Critical Edition is based on Hans Gabler’s acclaimed text and is accompanied by his introduction and textual notes. John Paul Riquelme provides detailed explanatory annotations. “Backgrounds and Contexts” is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear picture of the novel’s historical, cultural, and literary inspirations. Topics include “Political Nationalism: Irish History, 1798-1916,” “The Irish Literary and Cultural Revival,” “Religion,” and “Aesthetic Backgrounds.” “Criticism” begins with John Paul Riquelme’s helpful essay on the novel’s structural form and follows with twelve diverse interpretations by, among others, Kenneth Burke, Umberto Eco, Hugh Kenner, Maud Ellmann, Joseph Valente, and Marian Eide. A Selected Bibliography is also included.Details
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the twentieth century’s great coming-of-age novels.
This Norton Critical Edition is based on Hans Gabler’s acclaimed text and is accompanied by his introduction and textual notes. John Paul Riquelme provides detailed explanatory annotations. “Backgrounds and Contexts” is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear picture of the novel’s historical, cultural, and literary inspirations. Topics include “Political Nationalism: Irish History, 1798-1916,” “The Irish Literary and Cultural Revival,” “Religion,” and “Aesthetic Backgrounds.” “Criticism” begins with John Paul Riquelme’s helpful essay on the novel’s structural form and follows with twelve diverse interpretations by, among others, Kenneth Burke, Umberto Eco, Hugh Kenner, Maud Ellmann, Joseph Valente, and Marian Eide. A Selected Bibliography is also included. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516b61XOHmL._SL160_.jpg
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A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (Norton Critical Edition)
This edition includes poignant commentary, essays, and contextualization. Great for anyone who is reading the book for the first time (like I was).
Rating
I read somewhere that readers should start with a book like this as opposed to simply jumping right in to Ulysses. Well, that may be true. This book was not difficult to read. But, it really wasn’t that interesting. I found myself less willing to put forth the energy to get through Ulysses after reading this.
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If you’re going to buy ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ as a paperback, I strongly advise you to buy this–the Norton Critical Edition. It’s depressing to see that the Penguin Classics edition is the number one selling version of this wonderful book.
This book is TWO DOLLARS more than the Penguin version. For that $2 you get better quality paper, ink, and binding. More importantly you get Editorial notes that explain Joyce’s obscure terms, ultimately making the book more readable. You also get over a dozen other writings dealing with Joyces text. These extras (200 pages worth) provide background information on Joyce’s three major themes–Irish politics, Roman Catholicism, and “Aesthetic”. Also, there are critical essays which range from general interpretations of the book to specified studies (ie feminist perspective). Being a difficult book, the supplemental material greatly enhanced my appreciation for ‘Portrait’.
For ONE DOLLAR -LESS, you could go with this: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners (Barnes & Noble Classics). Here, not only do you get Portrait of the Artist_, but also you get the collection of short stories, Dubliners. Not to mention better editing. You still get footnotes. And there’s some (not a lot) of suplimental material.
For FIVE DOLLARS more than you would spend on the Penguin book, you could get A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Everyman’s Library (Cloth)). If you’re going to buy a book, why not get one that will last the rest of your life? Well then, that would be the Everyman’s Clothbound you seek.
Rating
My second Joyce, after Ulyssess some six months prior. This novel is a vastly more direct and comprehensible text, benefiting from a clarity of presentation that allows intense absorption in psychology. It’s a highly effective novel on multiple levels, excelling at showing an unconventional proccess of transition into adulthood and through it a biting analysis of society, modernity, religion and art. It works to the way it shows the protagonist with deep intimacy and emotional acuteness, but yet refuses to grant him any easy outs or transcendence. His status as a future artist doesn’t bring him enlightenment or greater intrinsic natural worth, and it doesn’t free him from the nusances and challenges of the society he inhabits. It’s a very intense account, never more so than when it engages with the protagonist’s struggle with his religion, his sexuality and their intersection. There’s an intricate and gorgeously vivid presentation of what the tenets of traditional Catholicism feel like to someone who believes in them yet doesn’t live up to their moral code. His absorption with intellect as well as sex, and the tortured guilt he derives from the later, make for a perspective that is so convincing it’s hard not to assume strong autobiographical motifs. It’s a level of intimacy combined with quality of writing that often feel more real than reality, and that turn a very sophisticated eye on questions of faith, politics and the modern world. The debates on Irish nationalism are particularly intense, and are of a specific content that I feel the need for more historical conext before I can really situate the literary incorporation here. The novel gives a strong sense of the basic appeal and tensions inherent in the desire for an autonomous society, in that respect functioning very similarly to the whole spirituality/sensuality axis, generalized to a more collective level. It’s indisputably potent stuff.
And yet the book in the end suffers by comparison with Ulysses, not having anywhere near that volume’s power or raw, disorienting literary expertise. It’s still a wonderful novel however, and points up the great things that can be done with well crafted writing.
Worse than: Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Better than: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy