{"id":7427,"date":"2007-12-30T10:38:51","date_gmt":"2007-12-30T15:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7427"},"modified":"2015-05-11T10:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:58:05","slug":"the-books-a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man-james-joyce-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7427","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man\u201d (James Joyce)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:<\/p>\n

\"PortraitArtist.jpg\" A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by James Joyce. Now I’ll excerpt from Chapter 3.<\/p>\n

Chapter 3 was tough to get through my first time reading it. It felt endless. But in my re-readings, it was not so tough – and it’s actually one of my favorite chapters. The linchpin of the novel. It’s also the mid-point. We have two chapters to go after this – so Stephen Dedalus (and his soul and his conscience – which is the main focus of this chapter) hangs in the balance. Chapter 2 ends with the kiss from the prostitute. We can only assume (and we learn later) that the kiss leads to other things eventually. Joyce frequented prostitutes in Dublin as a young man, before he met Nora. And he was wracked with guilt about it, and also furious that he should feel any guilt at all. Was not lust a bodily function? Why should shame be attached to it? But there was shame, and so he led that dual life for a while – forced upon many young men of that time, who had no possibility for any other outlets. Stephen Dedalus, in Chapter 3, is in high school. Chapter 2 was the development of the body, the “lower” self – and in Chapter 3, he deals with the repercussions. A weekend retreat is announced at the school. The majority of the chapter is the priest’s sermon at the retreat. That’s what feels endless. You get none of what Stephen is thinking, sitting in the pew – at least not at first – you just get the sermon. It is a frightful sermon, eloquent and terrifying. It is about hell. And the mortal sins we must be aware of. The priest knows he is talking to a bunch of teenage boys, so his focus is on lust. How there is nothing worse than a lost soul. How far away from God, from redemption. The sermon goes on for 20 pages at least. Once I got into the rhythm of the thing, and stopped looking for narration or plot (that’s one of the main struggles with reading Joyce … you just have to keep giving UP … surrender, surrender … stop waiting for him to go where YOU want him to go … go where HE wants you to go …) the whole thing becomes hypnotic. I’ve been on weekend retreats. Post-Vatican II weekend retreats, it is true … but there are similarities between my experience and Stephen’s. It is a time when all you are required to do is pay attention to your soul. And to the afterlife, and to what God has in store for you. It’s not a particularly angry fiery sermon – he’s not an evangelistic Bible-thumper – it has a definite Catholic vibe to it, intellectual, and rigorous. Jesuit in nature. He pleads with the boys to think about what they are doing. To resist temptation, etc. etc. Stephen is finally allowed to go home, and the horror awakens in him. It is the birth of his conscience – one of the most essential parts of being a human being, not to mention an artist. Conscience equals consciousness in this case. Once you become conscious of what you are doing, conscience is not long to follow. Stephen is, of course, afraid of hell. The Church still holds great sway over him. It is not until a later chapter – when Stephen gives his own sermon, of a sorts, about “beauty” – that he really escapes the ties that bind. “Beauty” is his religion. Beauty. Art. Aesthetics. It is a great shift in thinking, and to Joyce – getting out from under the shadow of the Church was as important a step as being born. It is hard to understand how oppressive religion can be here in this country, which is (thankfully) secular. There is no state religion. In Ireland that was not the case. I can’t remember who used the term “priest-ridden” in regards to Ireland – it might have been Joyce himself – but it’s definitely true. It was one of the reasons Joyce felt like he could not breathe in Ireland. His relationship to Catholicism was always a complex one – I suppose that’s true of most thinking Catholics – and while there was great rage, there was also great love and respect. Both things going on at the same time. He writes about being a Catholic in a way that I completely understand. He was a true believer. Only a former true believer, who has since strayed from the faith, can write the way he does. True believers are usually terrible advocates for their own faith. They’re dogmatic, certain, completely unquestioning, close-minded, unambiguous, and in general – if you DON’T believe what they believe – they come off looking like lunatics who have checked their brain at the door. But those who have questioned, grappled, wrestled, left the faith – for good reasons … often are the best expressers of what the faith is really all about. Nobody writes about a Catholic mass like Joyce. That’s what the excerpt below is about. After the retreat, Stephen comes home, in what can be only described as a state of hysteria. He has sinned. He has slept with prostitutes. He masturbates. He cannot live with himself. His soul is on the rack. And that’s what confession is for, mate.<\/p>\n

Stephen is developing. The fluidity of the earlier chapters does not exist here. The main thrust of the entire chapter is somebody else’s words – the priest. The body, slowly, is being left behind. At one point, he loses awareness of where he even is – in space and place. He is going into the realms of the mind. Not an altogether pleasant sensation, especially when one is convinced one is in a state of mortal sin.<\/p>\n


\nEXCERPT FROM A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – by James Joyce – Chapter 3.<\/b><\/p>\n

When evening had fallen he left the house and the first touch of the damp dark air and the noise of the door as it closed behind him made ache again his conscience, lulled by prayer and tears. Confess! Confess! It was not enough to lull the conscience with a tear and a prayer. He had to kneel before the minister of the Holy Ghost and tell over his hidden sins truly and repentantly. Before he heard again the footboard of the housedoor trail over the threshold as it opened to let him in, before he saw again the table in the kitchen set for supper he would have knelt and confessed. It was quite simple.<\/p>\n

The ache of conscience ceased and he walked onward swiftly through the dark streets. There were so many flagstones on the footpath of that street and so many streets in that city and so many cities in the world. Yet eternity had no end. He was in mortal sin. Even once was a mortal sin. It could happen in an instant. But how so quickly? By seeing or by thinking of seeing. The eyes see the thing, without having wished first to see. Then in an instant it happens. But does that part of the body understand or what? The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field. It must understand when it desires in one instant and then prolongs its own desire instant after instant, sinfully. It feels and understands and desires. What a horrible thing! Who made it to be like that, a bestial part of the body able to understand bestially and desire bestially? Was that then he or an inhuman thing moved by a lower soul than his soul? His soul sickened at the thought of a torpid snaky life feeding itself out of the tender marrow of his life and fattening upon the slime of lust. O why was that so? O why?<\/p>\n

He cowered in the shadow of the thought, abashing himself in the awe of God Who had made all things and all men. Madness. Who could think such a thought? And, cowering in darkness and abject, he prayed mutely to his angel guardian to drive away with his sword the demon that was whispering to his brain.<\/p>\n

The whisper ceased and he knew then clearly that his own soul had sinned in thought and word and deed wilfully through his own body. Confess! He had to confess every sin. How could he utter in words to the priest what he had done? Must, must. Or how could he explain without dying of shame? Or how could he have done such things without shame? A madman, a loathsome madman! Confess! O he would indeed to be free and sinless again! Perhaps the priest would know. O dear God!<\/p>\n

He walked on and on through illlit streets, fearing to stand still for a moment lest it might seem that he held back from what awaited him, fearing to arrive at that towards which he still turned with longing. How beautiful must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon it with love!<\/p>\n

Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets. Their dark hair hung trailed over their brows. They were not beautiful to see as they crouched in the mire. But their souls were seen by God; and if their souls were in a state of grace they were radiant to see: and God loved them, seeing them.<\/p>\n

A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul to think of how he had fallen, to feel that those souls were dearer to God than his. The wind blew over him and passed on to the myriads and myriads of other souls on whom God’s favour shone now more and now less, stars now brighter and now dimmer, sustained and failing. And the glimmering souls passed away, sustained and failing, merged in a moving breath. One soul was lost; a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost. The end: black cold void waste.<\/p>\n

Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract of time unlit, unfelt, unlived. The squalid scene composed itself around him; the common accents, the burning gasjets in the shops, odours of fish and spirits and wet sawdust, moving men and women. An old woman was about to cross the street, an oilcan in her hand. He bent down and asked her was there a chapel near.<\/p>\n

— A chapel, sir? Yes, sir. Church Street chapel.<\/p>\n

— Church?<\/p>\n

She shifted the can to her other hand and directed him: and, as she held out her reeking withered right hand under its fringe of shawl, he bent lower towards her, saddened and soothed by her voice.<\/p>\n

— Thank you.<\/p>\n

— You are quite welcome, sir.<\/p>\n

The candles on the high altar had been extinguished but the fragrance of incense still floated down the dim nave. Bearded workmen with pious faces were guiding a canopy out through a sidedoor, the sacristan aiding them with quiet gestures and words. A few of the faithful still lingered, praying before one of the sidealtars or kneeling in the benches near the confessionals. He approached timidly and knelt at the last bench in the body, thankful for the peace and silence and fragrant shadow of the church. The board on which he knelt was narrow and worn and those who knelt near him were humble followers of Jesus. Jesus too had been born in poverty and had worked in the shop of a carpenter, cutting boards and planing them, and had first spoken of the kingdom of God to poor fishermen, teaching all men to be meek and humble of heart.<\/p>\n

He bowed his head upon his hands, bidding his heart to be meek and humble that he might be like those who knelt beside him and his prayer as acceptable as theirs. He prayed beside them but it was hard. His soul was foul with sin and he dared not ask forgiveness with the simple trust of those whom Jesus, in the mysterious ways of God, had called first to His side, the carpenters, the fishermen, poor and simple people following a lowly trade, handling and shaping the wood of trees, mending their nets with patience.<\/p>\n

A tall figure came down the aisle and the penitents stirred: and at the last moment, glancing up swiftly, he saw a long grey beard and the brown habit of a capuchin. The priest entered the box and was hidden. Two penitents rose and entered the confessional at either side. The wooden slide was drawn back and the faint murmur of a voice troubled the silence.<\/p>\n

His blood began to murmur in his veins, murmuring like a sinful city summoned from its sleep to hear its doom. Little flakes of fire fell and powdery ashes fell softly, alighting on the houses of men. They stirred, waking from sleep, troubled by the heated air.<\/p>\n

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