Dubliners by James Joyce

Joyce published this book of 15 stories in 1914 after a tortuous publication history. Three stories: “The Sisters”, “Eveline” and “After the Race” came first, published in 1904 in The Irish Homestead. Joyce wrote nine more stories the next year planning to publish the complete set in book form. In 1906 the collection of 12 stories was accepted for publication by a London publisher named Grant Richards. Before publication, Joyce added a 13th story (“Two Gallants”) and the publisher sent the book to be printed. The printer, though, refused to print the material, concerned that it would be found obscene. Although Joyce agreed to make revisions, and added a fourteenth story at this time (“A Little Cloud”) the publication was dropped.

In 1907, Joyce wrote the fifteenth and final story in the collection, “The Dead” and started searching for a new publisher. In 1908, Joyce signed a contract with the Dublin-based publisher, Maunsel & Co., but faced renewed problems about the content. After three years, that publication effort also came to nothing. Finally, in 1914, the original publisher, Grant Richards, re-considered the project and contacted Joyce, leading to the book appearing later that year.

The fifteen stories are little gems. Some are quite short, only six or seven pages in my paperback edition. The longest, “The Dead” is included in the book I’ve spent so much time with over the last year, Short Novels of the Masters. “The Dead” might be considered a novella, but a short one (38 pages in Short Novels and 48 pages in the Dubliners paperback) and in any case “The Dead” reads like a short story, very tight, very focused, leading to a single experience of epiphany.

Joyce’s plan for the book, he announced to his publisher, “was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life.” (The Editor of Short Novels includes this quote in his introduction to “The Dead” but substitutes “maternity” for “maturity”, clearly an error). The first three stories concern gradually older child protagonists (“Two Sisters,” “An Encounter,” “Araby”); the next four young people, (“Eveline,” “After the Race,” “Two Gallants,” “The Boarding House”); after that the stories feature mature adults. In the first stories the focus is the family, in later stories the scope opens to the town and the larger world. Although not mentioned in Joyce’s note to his publisher, the stories also follow a season from summer to winter (though not necessarily all the same year), from the date “July 1, 1895” included in the first story, to “the summer holidays were near at hand” in the second, and then a series of stories taking place in Autumn, late Autumn and early winter, with the last story, “The Dead” set on the evening of a Christmastime party, perhaps between Christmas and New Years.

As to Joyce’s remark about Dublin being, “the centre of paralysis” what he shows is how his characters dwell on their problems, discuss them, drink over them, but how little action they take to solve them. He means this both in their personal lives, when his characters lack the courage to choose their happiness, turning down offers of love, failing to advance professionally, and, in the public sphere, where Ireland as a whole seems forever stuck in talk of an independence movement that they are incapable of achieving. The book’s second prospective publisher ultimately declined to publish because he found the book, “anti-Irish”. I wouldn’t say that, I don’t think Joyce meant it that way, but it is true that his characters are mostly pathetic and the stories mostly sad. The characters are stuck, resigned to their fate. Although some stories are quite humorous to read, one wouldn’t wish to change fortunes with any of the characters.

Joyce’s stories, too, are paralyzed. We are given scenes, not action. The characters are introduced, the setting is described, often there is dialogue, but the action is scant, most often confined to a single moment that changes a life or breaks open a realization for the main character just as the story ends. The stories have their power because during the stage-setting we keep wondering when the significant moment will occur and what will it be. The dialogue comes in fragments, the way people who know each other well talk to each other, and full of references to Irish places, culture and politics. I often wished I had an annotated edition and found myself regularly turning to the internet to look up references I didn’t have knowledge of. The stories are mysterious and when the ephinay moment finally occurs it often comes with its own mystery, which then led me back to the story to hunt for clues.

Joyce’s style is spare. There’s none of the experimental techniques in these stories that Joyce will use in his later writing. He almost never enters into a character’s unconscious. We see only what they do, and overhear what they say, without access to what they think or feel. This forces the reader, or allows the reader, depending on your point of view, to apply our own thoughts and feelings to the story. I like that. This, plus Joyce’s attention to the lyrical and rhythmic character of language, became hallmarks of the modernist style.

Here are the fifteen stories:

The Sisters. A boy observes the way older people respond to the death of a Priest who had been a friend to him.

An Encounter. Two boys, inspired by the tales of adventure they’ve been reading, ditch school and explore the city. While resting in a park they are approached by a perverse old man who disturbs them with his strange talk.

Araby. A boy is attracted to the older sister of his friend who lives across the street. He follows her. When they finally speak, her casual mention of not being able to attend a special holiday bazaar inspires him to go and buy her something there. But he arrives late and can’t find a suitable present and then realizes how humiliating it is to be lead by passions this way.

Eveline. Eveline, a young woman, has become the center of her household after her mother and a brother have died and her other brother moved away. Her father drinks but doesn’t beat her, yet, she says. She has met a man named Frank, a commercial sailor, who has a home in Buenos Ayres and who now offers to take her away with him. He makes the arrangements to meet at the dock. There’s a crowd and much confusion. Frank and Eveline get separated. At the last moment, Eveline decides to stay and watches him leave without her.

After the Race. Doyle, a young man, the son of an Irishman who has done well for himself, has met up with a group of rich and worldly friends from France and elsewhere who are a car-racing team. Doyle is proud to be included in their set. Through the course of an evening and night he parties with them, they meet a fifth, an Englishman, and a sixth, an American who owns a yacht. On the American’s boat, Doyle drinks, and gambles foolishly, losing, but more importantly realizes he cannot be what they are.

Two Gallants. Two young men walk the streets of Dublin and talk about girls, in particular one girl who may be a servant or possibly a prostitute. One of them has hatched a scheme to take advantage of the girl and get something from her. He meets the girl and goes off. The text stays with the other fellow as he wanders and has a simple meal, waiting. The other man and the girl return and we discover that he has been successful although it isn’t exactly clear what has happened. (My belief is that he prostituted her and received a payment from her as her pimp – though other readers might have other ideas).

The Boarding House. Mrs. Mooney owns a boarding house. She has a daughter. Her husband is drunk and violent so she forces him to live away from the house. The boarders often flirt with the daughter who entertains them with singing. The mother sets her mark on one of the men, Mr. Doran, letting the flirtation go on until people begin to talk and then forcing the man by his own guilt to marry her daughter.

A Little Cloud. Little Chandler (that’s his name) lives a small life. He reads poetry and dreams of being a poet though he doesn’t write anything. He has a friend from many years ago, now living in London and working as a journalist, who is back in Dublin for a visit and they’re planning to meet for drinks. The friend’s life seems large and exciting to Little Chandler (though it isn’t that much, truly). That evening Chandler sits alone with his baby boy. His wife has gone out to get the provisions Little Chandler forgot to bring home. The baby begins to cry. The wife comes home and berates him, her affection now turned to the child instead of her husband.

Counterparts. A man works as a copyist in a legal office (one meaning of “counterpart”). But he slips out several times a day for a drink. The boss yells at him and threatens him. At the end of the day he sells his watch chain for more money to spend on drink and spends the evening drinking with friends. At home he treats his child as his boss treats him (the other meaning of “counterpart”), yelling at the boy and beating him as the child begs him to stop.

Clay. A woman named Maria works as a laundress. It’s All Souls Day (Halloween but celebrated as a Christian holiday). She’s excited that she will have the evening off to visit friends: a man who she nursed as a child, and his family. First she and the other women at the laundry play a fortune-telling game where one of them will find a ring hidden in a cake revealing who will get married that year. They tease Maria that she will get the ring, but she doesn’t. Maria travels through the city buying treats for her friends. She meets a man on the bus. At her friend’s home she realizes she left some of the treats on the bus, distracted by the man. Everyone loves Maria. She seems guileless. The children play their own fortune-telling game where they lead a blind-folded player to a table where saucers are laid out with different symbolic objects. Again there’s a ring. Maria doesn’t get it. Instead she touches the clay, which symbolizes death, but she doesn’t understand. The family is embarrassed and has her play again. Now she gets the prayer-book, prophesying that she’ll enter the convent.

A Painful Case. Mr. James Duffy lives alone outside of town. He contents himself with his reading and a little bit of writing. He goes into town for his job at a bank, has a meal in town and comes home again. His one special pleasure is music so he attends concerts when he can. At a concert he meets a woman his own age with a young daughter and starts a friendship. The woman’s husband doesn’t mind because he’s often away on business and assumes Mr. Duffy is courting the daughter. One day the woman makes a suggestive gesture to Mr. Duffy (she presses his hand to her cheek). He’s offended and they stop seeing each other. Four years later he reads in the newspaper that she has died after being struck by a train. The article says that two years earlier she had started to drink and her behavior had become erratic. Mr. Duffy realizes that his spurning of her has denied love to them both.

Ivy Day in the Committee Room. A group of men meet in a private room at a club. The men are paid canvassers working up votes for local candidates. They talk politics. They drink. The story ends with one of the men reciting a poem he wrote to the memory of the great Irish nationalist politician, Parnell, and it’s clear the men are stuck in the past and they (meaning Ireland) will never accomplish what even the great Parnell could not.

A Mother. A man from a cultural club asks a mother if he can hire her daughter to play accompaniment for a series of concerts. The mother agrees. They sign a contract for four evening concerts, Wednesday through Friday. The first night is poorly attended and the singers (the “artistes”) aren’t good. The next night has a bigger audience but it’s clear the audience has been hired (“papered”) and don’t behave well. The third night is canceled so they can move all the best singers to the Saturday concert and build a good audience. On the final evening the mother insists her daughter be paid before she plays and paid for all four concerts, not three, because one was canceled. The mother and the concert promoters argue. Finally they pay her half with the rest to come at the end of the evening. The daughter plays the first half of the concert. At the intermission the mother and the concert promoters argue about money again. Now they won’t pay until maybe Tuesday. The mother takes her daughter away. Another girl accompanies the second half of the concert. The talk from the others at the concert is that the mother behaved badly.

Grace. The story begins in a bar with a man injured at the bottom of a set of stairs. The man is brought up to the bar and we find out his name is Tom Kernan. Strangers, friends, and a policeman, get him sorted out and sent home. His wife is worried about his drinking. One of the friends comes up with a plan to set him on the right path. The next night the friend and a few others sit with the man in his bedroom as he’s laid up from his injuries. They tell him they’re all going to attend a special service at the church to renew their baptismal vows and they invite Kernan to come, too. Kernan was raised Protestant and nominally converted to Catholicism when he married his wife. The men talk religion but get much of it laughably wrong. The story ends with the group at church. The priest gives a sermon based on a passage from Luke (Luke 16:8-9) where Jesus advises his followers to rely on worldly people even while keeping their sights on Heaven because worldly people have the skill to survive in the fallen world.

The Dead. A beautiful, remarkable, story. It’s been called the best short story in English. This is the most hopeful and happy story of the book, although it, too, has a strain of melancholy. The setting is a Christmas-time party hosted by two old, unmarried sisters, Kate and Julia Morkan, and their niece, Mary Jane. A nephew arrives to the party with his wife: Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. Gabriel is a successful teacher and a writer. The first three quarters of the story describes the party. There are twenty or so guests in the small house. There’s dancing. Mary Jane plays the piano. Miss Julia sings. One of the guests is in danger of drinking too much. Gabriel gets in a little argument with one of the ladies about Irish nationalism. There’s a great meal. Gabriel carves the goose, they all eat, and then Gabriel gives a speech praising the hosts and the Irish tradition of hospitality. Everything goes well. The party is a success. As the party breaks up, Gabriel hears for a moment a guest at the party, Bartell D’Arcy, a tenor, sing a song about a man bemoaning the death of his girl, a song called, “The Lass of Aughrim”. Gabriel sees that his wife, too, is listening intently and he sees she is strongly moved. They leave the party but can’t find a cab right away so they walk for awhile: Gabriel, Gretta, D’Arcy, and a Miss O’Callaghan. Gabriel walks behind his wife and is so taken with her he is moved to come up and embrace her. He contents himself with his happiness and with thinking of fond moments they’ve spent together. The four find a cab and Gabriel’s memories continue. Stopping at their hotel his passion for his wife increases – he calls it lust. Alone in their hotel room he loves her and wants her badly, but he doesn’t want to force himself on her. He sees her mood is different from his. Finally he asks her what’s on her mind and she explains that the song, “The Lass of Aughrim” has reminded her of a boy she used to know when she was a girl in Galway, Michael Furey. He used to sing that song. He had loved her. Before she left, to the city where she would meet Gabriel, the boy had fallen ill. Because of his illness Gretta wasn’t allowed to visit him to say goodbye so she sent him a letter. Then he appeared, in the rain, in the cold, in her garden to see her and profess his love. She sent him home. And then a week later, having gone, she heard he had died. She sobs, telling the story, then goes to sleep. Gabriel stays up, looking out the hotel window, realizing that his wife has a life he cannot ever know completely, which makes him love her all the more, that everyone has these stories, that the entire country, and every graveyard is filled with these heartbreaking stories.