Portrait of the Artist Post 1

My first post about this book has nothing to do with the content, but everything to do with the structure. I am about 50 pages into the book and I am just now getting used to the dialogue format. At first it was very difficult for me because I am used to a double quotation mark to begin and end each spoken sentence with a second set for subsequent quotes. For example:

"I dropped my glasses" Stephen said. "On the footpath."

I am also used to the single quotation marks used frequently in English literature. Joyce doesn't use either of these. He opts for the dash marks to denote dialogue, but doesn't signal the end of the quote. He will start a sentence with the dash, indicating something spoken, but when he goes into the "Stephen said" he doesn't employ a second dash, nor does he use another dash when the dialogue continues. It takes a while to get used to, and often time I will think that a character is continuing to talk when the narrative has taken over. So it has taken me quite a while to get to where I am, but I am able to recognize it much better now.

Joyce is difficult to pick up at first because the text seems scattered. But I have a weapon in my corner that most people don't: I have an Irishman who studied Joyce while he was a young Dubliner. His insights are deep. I may steal some of his thoughts and post them here.

A Farewell to the Knight

It took me more than two months to finish Don Quixote. By the end I was spent and ready to be finished. But in the end the effort was well worth the reward. I see now why the work is so revered.

Warning: plot spoiler! I knew that at the end of the book the knight dies. Yet when it really came I was still saddened. I was interested to see the reactions of his family and friends. Throughout the book while Quixote battles his mental illness they all play along, even encouraging him at points. Yet when he lies on his deathbed of a physical ailment, they all try to cure him, telling him that he really isn’t dying and that he’ll be fine.

The niece, housekeeper, Sancho and Sanson Carrasco all curse his mental illness and rue the day that he set out on his adventures. Yet when they know he is to die they try to tell him to hang on so that he can recover and go back out on his next sally. And it got me to thinking: why? Why would they use his crazy exploits to cheer him up and help him recover? One explanation could be that they know in their hearts of hearts that nothing they can say or do will save him, and they want him to die happy reflecting on his exploits.

But I think the real reason is that they know his pending death has less to do with his physical body giving in than his will to live. They talk of his future endeavors to revive the vitality he showed while seeking adventures. In the end they fail and lose the most loveable madman in history. Throughout the book they try to cure him of his ailment, yet it is the cure of the ailment that kills him.

Quixote’s death is not the greatest tragedy in the book. The great tragedy is the fact that he dies sane. Before dying he makes out his will, confesses his sins and denounces all the books of chivalry that made him mad in the first place. He even forbids his niece to marry a man who has love for the exploits of chivalry. His sanity is ultimately the most painful truth of the whole book.

Next I will be shifting gears and reading A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners by James Joyce. Feel free to pick it up and make some comments on it.

Quixote on his deathbed, attended by Sancho

Quixote, after being defeated by the Knight of the Moons