Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
I was about halfway through this book when I met Rob Lawless (@robs10kfriends) on a street corner in Center City, Philadelphia. As we walked over to a table and chairs in JFK Plaza right off from where the iconic Love Park statue sits, he thanked me for being flexible and taking the train into the city. I told him that I really didn’t mind as I had a good book to read, and he asked me what book it was. When I told him it was Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, I added that I had sort of randomly picked it up in a secondhand book shop (Book Corner – not far away from JFK Plaza actually) and had never really read James Joyce before. Rob replied, “yeah, I haven’t read James Joyce either, but it seems like he’s one of those authors you should read.” I thought that was a pretty good way of putting it.
Initially, when I found it at Book Corner in Philadelphia, I was attracted to the title right off the bat. There is something intriguing in it. Also, I had never seen this book before even though I had recognized the author, James Joyce. Typically, when people think of James Joyce, Ulysses or Dubliners come to mind, but I am not ready to tackle those titles just yet. I had no idea what was in store until a month or so later when I opened the book and dove headfirst into the introduction. I am not one to skip introductions and I highly recommend you go through it if your edition has one. It gave me important context which helped me frame the events in the text as I read. It also primed me to parts of the text that had some significance when I came across them which I may not have understood otherwise. Furthermore, the introduction prepared me for how much the environment of Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries impacted Joyce’s writing from firsthand experience. It’s a good idea to brush up on your Irish history before tackling this book. It is not necessary but may enable you to have a better read.
My edition also has a total of 599 endnotes which help to clarify certain language, give historical context, add useful information or provide a translation of the Latin which is sprinkled throughout the book. That averages out to just over two endnotes for each page of the book. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but the constant flipping can be quite tedious, especially when there are a few loaded in close quarters to each other. It wasn’t necessary to check every single one but I found them quite useful when something needed to be clarified.
One figure who was mentioned throughout the text was: Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell was born in 1846, died in 1891 and was a remarkable Irish political figure during his lifetime. He was a voice of Irish nationalism in Parliament and was an exceptionally deft politician. He rose to a degree of power as the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party until it began to divide which lead to him being forced to step down and make his return to Dublin. These events were brought up and debated on numerous occasions in the text.
We see moments like these spread throughout the text as Joyce writes in a stream of thought style while recounting particular events from the view of Stephen Dedalus. Dedalus is an interesting name as it refers to the Greek mythological craftsman who constructed a pair of wings to escape the island of Crete with his son Icarus, whom I am sure we can recall his fate.
This stream of thought style of writing is very interesting because it gives the author a lot of freedom to manifest different settings, events and thoughts. I found many pages to be pleasurable to read but it still took me some time to work through as they could be quite dense. However, there was a turning point late in the book where I couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it all in one sitting. It occurred when Stephen was debating with Cranly and begins to explain his idea of “the rhythm of beauty”. This is where he elaborates on some intricate ideas and describes art as “the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end” which ultimately leads to a saying from Thomas Aquinas, “ad pulcritudinem tria requiruntur, integritas, consonantia, claritas.” This means that three things are needed for beauty, wholeness, harmony and radiance. I found the explanation of those three terms even more interesting.
He explains integritas as a wholeness which you apprehend. This wholeness which you perceive is clearly made visible by its separation from the visible world around it and this wholeness which it cuts out is thought of as being the most “itself” that it could be.
Consonantia means you perceive it as a “balanced part against part within its limits” as a thing in all its complexity. A thing comprised of its “complex, multiple, divisible, separable” parts which are together in a sum which is harmonious.
The final part, claritas, can be tricky to comprehend but it has to do with a sort of radiance from the thing which leads it to impress the “knowledge of itself” on the mind of the perceiver. Joyce relates it as “the instant wherein that supreme quality of beauty, the clear radiance of esthetic image, is apprehended luminously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous state of silent stasis of esthetic pleasure.” He mentions that the state is similar to what Luigi Galvani called “enchantment of the heart.”
These three principles of beauty were proposed by Thomas Aquinas who was an Italian priest and philosopher in the 13th century. His writings and philosophies were so influential that these three principles of beauty are said to have been a guiding frame of reference for the construction of cathedrals as builders believed the structures should adhere to them in order to be worthy of God.
Another part of the text which I found interesting was that of the “Vilanelle” which is a form of poetry consisting of nineteen lines arranged in five tercets and a quatrain. That was something new in and of itself, but I found Joyce’s incorporation of the Vilanelle into the story quite impressive. He uses the stream of thought manner of writing to introduce the tercets and then blend a few of the other lines into the pages while Stephen mentions the Villanelle in dialogue. Then, a few pages later the Vilanelle is displayed in full for the reader. I probably wouldn’t have gotten the full scope of the writing had it not been for some notes left by a rather vigilant prior owner. A tip of my hat to them! This occurs in the story when Stephen is discussing beauty and artistry, so it is all too fitting to fit it in an elaborate way of writing.
Joyce closes out Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in journal entries as he leaves behind Ireland for Trieste. Here, the mask is lifted as the writing changes from the third person to first person. Joyce creates a short bridge between the two as the stream of thought, third person narrative ends with a conversation between Stephen and Cranly but when the journal entries begin on the 20th of March he writes: “Long talk with Cranly on the subject of my revolt. He had his grand manner on. I supple and suave.” And thus, he makes his change, ending the book in the first person.
This will be a book I believe I will read again in the future as it is one I feel might be enjoyed in a whole new light once read for a second time. I hope you will enjoy it too!