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Portrait of the Artist, James Joyce 33%

Childhood:  the Christmas dinner argument over Parnell, with Stephen listening, has to be the greatest dinner argument passage in all of literature.  Breathtaking.

Then the book goes to his adolescence . . .  The writing remains just exquisite, but the topic . . . As a fallen-away Irish Catholic I can follow the adolescent angst just fine, but do I care about?  Not really.  The "child" Stephen is an observer, an innocent, the underdog.   Adolescent Stephen is the smart kid with the over-developed conscience.  At times the book feels like an archaeological artifact. "Believe it or not, there was a a time when . . ."

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