Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This was my second attempt at reading (and liking) Joyce. I tried first with "Dubliners" and got myself into a terrible tangle, owing to Joyce's habit of numbering his short stories and my (unfortunate) lack of knowledge about the work in which I was attempting to immerse myself. My misapprehension led, as you have no doubt already figured out (you really are terribly clever, did you know that?), to a belief that the different stories were, in fact, chapters of a novel. This belief lasted through at least three stories, at which point my confusion over why none of the characters from the first chapter had yet reappeared was suddenly resolved in a moment's revelation.

The muddle I felt over that has put me off ever trying "Dubliners" again, so I have no real impression of that piece of his work. I moved on to "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (henceforth PAYM, to save my sanity), because I had been told that it was a good preliminary to "Ulysses" and that one should read "Ulysses" before moving on to "Finnegans Wake" (I should come clean - if I persist with Joyce, it won't be for any appreciation of his talents as writer. I just want to be able to tell people that I've read "Finnegans Wake").

Anyway, I struggled through PAYM for the first time a few years ago. I was underwhelmed, to say the least. I then re-read it, thinking that maybe I was too hasty in condemning it the first time. Sadly, this did not turn out to be the case, and I've resisted all urges to try a third time, as I know I won't enjoy it.

That is not to say that Joyce is a bad writer. There are bits of PAYM which are fantastic, and his command of language is wonderful. He's fabulously descriptive and has an uncanny ability to choose exactly the right word for any given situation. I still didn't like it.

It wasn't difficult to read, or at least, not in the way people usually mean when referring to Joyce. The plot is easy to follow - we basically just watch a young man growing up. No, the problem I had with it was the hero. Stephen is incredibly obnoxious, and irritatingly self-satisfied. If, as is suggested by their matching biographical details, Stephen is modelled on Joyce himself, I'm not in the least surprised that no-one liked him.

This, then is where my problem with the novel lies. Stephen as a child is engaging, and I cared about what happened to him. As an adolescent and young adult, he is impossible. I wouldn't have cared what happened to him, had he not been very slightly less insufferable happy than sad.

I do intend to attempt "Ulysses" at some point (when I have gathered enough courage), and I hope I'll find it more palatable that PAYM. Unfortunately, I am beginning to think that it's not the novels I dislike, but Joyce himself, in which case, I don't see myself warming to "Ulysses" or "Finnegans Wake" any more than I did to PAYM.