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For the majority of the last hundred decades, in case you wanted an interactive geographical adventure of Dublin--the sights, the sounds, and particularly the folks--you could not do much better than read the fifteen connected short stories of James Joyce collection. Most editions of the collection contain two or three city maps from the landing pages, but it becomes fairly clear early on that the stories themselves produce a much better map of the Irish capital because they dig deep into the heads of its citizens to be able to draw a mental map of a location and a time.

Not even Google Maps can do this, though we are pretty sure they're working on it as we talk.

Odds are good that one of the reasons you're reading Dubliners is because the most well-known Irish author of the 20th-century, '' one of the most significant authors associated with the motion of Modernism, James Aloysius Joyce, composed it. Odds are also good that you're reading Dubliners because everything else which Joyce composed after these stories tops out at over 800 pages of absolute brilliance. You're going to need to read his two significant novels, Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, however you'd be in college through July if you read them in class.

So you've chosen for Dubliners instead, as an easily digestible option. When Joyce composed it, publishers almost fled his existence, they were so fearful. They believed the book was a little too edgy and that the rigorous British authorities would sue them for printing disgusting material.

Then, once Dubliners eventually did appear in stores, it was not any Twilight. No long lines of yelling children in outfits waiting to read the movie or see the film. No major cash payouts to its recently famous writer. Joyce did not make a good deal of money from the ten-year saga, and higher school students certainly were not reading the material for at least another sixty decades. Bottom line? This was way ahead of its time, far too realistic, and method to problematic for readers that desired a really clear plot with a twist ending.

Joyce had something different in your mind. Dubliners' portrait of the city as an ancient 20th-century metropolis is not rather the advertisement you'll discover in these horrible travel publications which consistently seem to be in doctor's offices. The personalities of these stories are not the grinning redheads with adorable squares you may expect when you think about the fortune of the Irish.

In this Dublin, nearly everyone's unfortunate: they are beaten, berated, betrayed, and abandoned with their loved ones; they wash away their wages and their great sense; in some cases, they just die; and as if this were not enough, they even lose vast sums in poker.

If this is starting to sound bleak, we are not going to lie: there's not just one happy end to be discovered among the fifteen stories. But that is exactly why these stories are really excellent. They depict moments of intense personal crisis and extreme personal reflection with this kind of realistic power that we can not help but see ourselves at these Dubliners, as frightening as that sounds. We have all been frustrated, hurt, cheated, startled, rejected, and scorned, meaning that it is difficult not to think Joyce's writing is timeless, that it says something to us about the areas of our thoughts and hearts which are as moist and cold and uninviting as his Dublin.

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