Looking Through the Glass: A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
Through Joyce's clear glass, we see a great deal. We see the terror of a family argument to a child; we see the red mists of fever in our eyes prior to a first sexual encounter; we see the morbid pride of religious stoicism; we even see the subdued energy of true beauty in the bird-like girl by the seashore.
These are not grand moments, but they are moments that many of us have experienced, and few of us have completely forgotten. More than that, they're moments that allow us a glimpse of the great themes passing, like the omnipresent birds at the periphery of Stephen Dedalus's world, just overhead: the subject matter in one school of classic literature, mere decoration in Joyce, side dishes to the main course of Stephen's life.
Through Joyce's clear glass, we see a great deal. We see the terror of a family argument to a child; we see the red mists of fever in our eyes prior to a first sexual encounter; we see the morbid pride of religious stoicism; we even see the subdued energy of true beauty in the bird-like girl by the seashore.
These are not grand moments, but they are moments that many of us have experienced, and few of us have completely forgotten. More than that, they're moments that allow us a glimpse of the great themes passing, like the omnipresent birds at the periphery of Stephen Dedalus's world, just overhead: the subject matter in one school of classic literature, mere decoration in Joyce, side dishes to the main course of Stephen's life.
Joyce's language, by adopting--to a less extreme degree than in the later Ulysses--some of the rhythms and private allusions of thought, manages to bring out in the moments of the text some of the contradictory, simultaneous feelings we have about all those moments of epiphany and transformation. The language brings out some of the shades of consciousness prior to integration and evaluation.
The effect is a literary version of visual impressionism (distinct from the actual Impressionistic school of literature). Joyce's oblique language presents us with the brush strokes of the moment, and it's our job to connect them into the picture. It's what we're forced to do with life; and so, miraculously, the text becomes not only about life; it becomes life.
The effect is a literary version of visual impressionism (distinct from the actual Impressionistic school of literature). Joyce's oblique language presents us with the brush strokes of the moment, and it's our job to connect them into the picture. It's what we're forced to do with life; and so, miraculously, the text becomes not only about life; it becomes life.
It's Alive--A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
With many of the English greats, the text feels alive while remaining written words. Dickens's caricatures are vibrant, yes, but are so due to their bizarre consistency, to Dickens's reduction of humanity to hilarious systems of dialect and inhuman behavior. And so, ultimately, they remain only robots, statues that bear a troubling --yet aesthetically powerful--resemblance to life and truth.
With Joyce, there is no reduction, there is no barrier between us and the aesthetic truth behind the glass of the text. Instead of a mirror of style, there's a window into life. Instead of a glaring neon sign decorating the golden tower of speculation that is, at times, the can't-fail school of literature, Joyce offers us the unappealing vacant lot of youth and adolescence--a vacant lot lined with real and bursting autumn trees, filled at night with the slow dance of fireflies.
With many of the English greats, the text feels alive while remaining written words. Dickens's caricatures are vibrant, yes, but are so due to their bizarre consistency, to Dickens's reduction of humanity to hilarious systems of dialect and inhuman behavior. And so, ultimately, they remain only robots, statues that bear a troubling --yet aesthetically powerful--resemblance to life and truth.
With Joyce, there is no reduction, there is no barrier between us and the aesthetic truth behind the glass of the text. Instead of a mirror of style, there's a window into life. Instead of a glaring neon sign decorating the golden tower of speculation that is, at times, the can't-fail school of literature, Joyce offers us the unappealing vacant lot of youth and adolescence--a vacant lot lined with real and bursting autumn trees, filled at night with the slow dance of fireflies.
