The Books: “Dubliners” – ‘A Little Cloud’ (James Joyce)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Dubliners – by James Joyce – excerpt from the eighth story in the collection: “A Little Cloud”.

One of the most suffocating and overtly miserable stories in the collection. Even I, the reader, feels suffocated – because Little Chandler, the “hero” of this story is kind of a pathetic chap, you can immediately see he’s full of illusions (delusions) that have no basis in reality – and it’s hard to get behind him, and root for him. Because you know it’s hopeless. Not just because Dublin offers nothing to its people – and Chandler can’t have the life he wants THERE, he would have to leave. But because Little Chandler himself is a timid unimaginative kind of silly man … and having a life of greatness and interest and romance is not in the cards for him. Even if he lived in Paris and went to the Moulin Rouge every night. His constitution, his emotional makeup – is that of a deeply conventional fearful cautious person. That’s the deal, Chandler. You are never going to frolic with dancers in Berlin, you are never going to publish a book of poetry that will get mild critical acclaim. Nope. Not because you are not worthy … but because you don’t have it in you. You just don’t.

So reading the story is kind of unpleasant. It has some of my favorite writing in it, in the collection.

Little Chandler is 32. He lives in Dublin with his wife and baby. He is an uptight rigid conservative guy – who also has a dreamy streak, or maybe it would be best to call it a rebellious streak. He bucks against the limitations of his life and wonders if there is anything more. Who is he? Does he have anything to offer the world? He loves poetry. His wife doesn’t like it. So he reads poetry by himself. He wonders if he could ever write a poem? But he’s so bound by convention he can’t see himself out of the dead end.

An old friend, Gallaher, had gone to London 8 years before – had fled Ireland under shady monetary circumstances. But now he has returned for a visit, all flushed with success. He’s a journalist, and comes back – all BMOC. Little Chandler meets up with him at a bar – the kind of bar frequented by the elite of Dublin, a place Little Chandler feels intimidated. Chandler is a bit of a priss, much is made (by Joyce) about his neatness, his little teeth, his neat fingernails, his combed mustache … He doesn’t drink all that much. He is easily shocked by things. He meets up with Gallaher – who is doing a big show of how great it is to be back, but also bragging about the fleshpots of Europe, and bragging about Paris, etc. He seems to echo Little Chandler’s nagging suspicion that in order to do anything with your life you must leave Ireland.

However – in this story – unlike the stories preceding it, where leaving Ireland is seen in a purely romantic (and also necessary) way – ‘A Little Cloud’, for the first time in the collection, raises the possibility that maybe leaving Ireland is NOT the only answer. Or – maybe when you leave Ireland, life is NOT automatically better and happier and more successful. Because Gallaher does seem happier and freer – but he’s also rude, and braggadocious, and … completely unlikable. So … leaving Ireland did not transform him into some elegant gentleman – the way Chandler would imagine … The bad qualities of Gallaher which were already apparent 8 years before have just intensified in his exile. Joyce is starting to move away from the earlier stories of the collection – where the outlook is mainly from a child/adolescent narrator – who looks at the ships in the quays and automatically assumes that everyone on them is happier than those in Ireland – because they don’t live there, they get to leave. Places like America and Norway are suffused with romance and glow in the earlier stories … but now, here, in ‘A Little Cloud’ – we are in adulthood, we are now faced with the fact that having such illusions (delusions) about leaving Ireland is babyish. What seems to matter, in the end, for all of us – is character. Do you have it, or do you not? What do you want? How do you make something of your life, regardless of where you live?

Chandler leaves his encounter with Gallaher, all worked up and nervous. He feels trapped. He goes home, and takes care of his crying baby while his wife steps out – and he’s all twisted up in his head. He tries to recite some Byron, but the wailing baby interrupts his mood. Then, for the first time, we feel rage coming up in Chandler. He wonders why he married his wife – a prim little prissy woman (very much like himself). He thinks about the slutty women Gallaher bragged about – the German women, Jewish women – and wonders why he chose such a rigid little lady. (Dude, you couldn’t handle a free-spirited woman if you tried!) His wife comes home, and sees the crying baby – and immediately blames her husband for it. “What did you do?” She scoops up the baby – completely cutting him out of the picture … and Chandler is perceptive enough to have seen the hatred in her eyes, in that small moment. He is ashamed, remorseful, full of longing, sadness … and that is how the story ends.

Good times, good times.

There’s an echo here of what happened in ‘After the Race’ (excerpt here – where Jimmy gets swindled at a card game by a bunch of sophisticated Europeans. Jimmy is out of his league. He wants to be sophisticated, he feels better about himself because he is hanging out with Europeans as opposed to Irishmen – he thinks that makes him better than others. But we can see, as readers, that just because these folks are European – they aren’t necessarily “better”. They’re more jaded, perhaps more carefree … but not being from Ireland is not necessarily the be-all end-all of existence. Joyce begins to hint in that story that the problem might NOT be Ireland itself, but something else – something more individual, personal.

He brings that to fruition in ‘A Little Cloud’. Gallaher is an asshole. It doesn’t matter that he’s lived abroad. And Little Chandler is a prude who has to walk the straight and narrow, and sadly – dreams of being a poetic romantic soul. Never gonna happen, Chandler. Doesn’t matter if you change your geographical setting. You’re still gonna be a little bore. It ain’t IRELAND holding you down, bub.

Oh, and naturally: Joyce writes about Chandler with insight and compassion. He doesn’t have contempt for him. He SEES him.

Here’s an excerpt. Chandler is walking thru Dublin to meet Gallaher. Thoughts begin to emerge … things bubbling up.

EXCERPT FROM Dubliners – by James Joyce – “A Little Cloud”.

Little Chandler quickened his pace. For the first time in his life he felt himself superior to the people he passed. For the first time his soul revolted against the dull inelegance of Capel Street. There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin. As he crossed Grattan Bridge he looked down the river towards the lower quays and pitied the poor stunted houses. They seemed to him a band of tramps, huddled together along the river-banks, their old coats covered with dust and soot, stupefied by the panorama of sunset and waiting for the first chill of night to bid them arise, shake themselves and begone. He wondered whether he could write a poem to express his idea. Perhaps Gallaher might be able to get it into some London paper for him. Could he write something original? He was not sure what idea he wished to express but the thought that a poetic moment had touched him took life within him like an infant hope. He stepped onward bravely.

Every step brought him nearer to London, farther from his own sober inartistic life. A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind. He was not so old – thirty-two. His temperament might be said to be just at the point of maturity. There were so many different moods and impressions that he wished to express in verse. He felt them within him. He tried to weigh his soul to see if it was a poet’s soul. Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament, he thought, but it was a melancholy tempered by recurrences of faith and resignation and simple joy. If he could give expression to it in a book of poems perhaps men would listen. He would never be popular: he saw that. He could not sway the crowd but he might appeal to a little circle of kindred minds. The English critics, perhaps, would recognise him as one of the Celtic school by reason of the melancholy tone of his poems; besides that, he would put in allusions. He began to invent sentences and phrases from the notices which his book would get. Mr Chandler has the gift of easy and graceful verse … A wistful sadness pervades these poems … The Celtic note. It was a pity his name was not more Irish-looking. Perhaps it would be better to insert his mother’s name before the surname: Thomas Malone Chandler, or better still. T. Malone Chandler. He would speak to Gallaher about it.

He pursued his revery so ardently that he passed his street and had to turn back. As he came near Corless’s his former agitation began to overmaster him and he halted before the door in indecision. Finally he opened the door and entered.