Book Review: The art in James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner, consists of lovely "ink-wash" drawings that both tenderly evoke landscapes and lightly capture the characters involved in Joyce's tumultuous life. It's a quick and informative read with the art well documenting the story line. One bit of new information for me was that, ironically, when no printer in England would accept Joyce's play Exiles, it was published in New York; later the States, however, would be the site of the notorious Ulysses obscenity trial (for more see The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham). The narration in James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner is well written, though it occasionally goes off on a puzzling tangent, and could have used some editing, e.g., H.G. Wells is not an "American author." Although the translation by David Prendergast is transparent and well done, there were a few bumps (e.g., "took a decision" instead of "made a decision"?). My only real quibble with the book is that I'm not sure of the target audience. The narrative seems aimed at students of high school age or younger, but the art is a touch more adult. James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner is fine as a quick intro to Joyce in an easy to digest format, and should be good tool for English language learners. Enjoyable and fun to read. [3★]
No comments:
Post a Comment