Writing about James Joyce is a unique challenge, since he paid so little heed to the conventions of writing during his career. His works are famously difficult to read, marked by a stream of consciousness that attempts to capture in print the mind’s annoying habit of jumping between sensations, smells, colors, and intelligible thoughts without structure. (When he wrote “Ulysses,” it contained the longest “sentence” in written English…4,391 words of a character’s unbroken inner monologue.)

He also wrote frankly about sex and bodily functions, shocking the Victorian sensibilities of his audiences in the early 20th century, but reasoning that such things needed to be included if he was to accurately portray the inner lives of his characters, who after all thought about such things the same as everyone else. (“Ulysses” famously survived an obscenity challenge by the U.S. Attorney in 1933, with the judge and defending lawyer noting that as they discussed a serious legal case, their thoughts drifted onto neckties or chairs in the room...trivial distractions that illustrated Joyce perfectly.) His works have some autobiographical factors thrown in as well, but filtered through fictional lenses, making it hard to distinguish reality from fiction. Many of these factors were confusingly present in his first novel, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” published 98 years ago on December 29, 1916.

Like Joyce’s books, the story of how his first novel came into being is convoluted and not easy to follow. It began as a work heavy on philosophy called “A Portrait of the Artist” that was rejected by the editor of an Irish literary magazine on the grounds that “I can't print what I can't understand.” Joyce tried to salvage some of it by reworking it into a realistic biographical novel called “Stephen Hero.” About halfway through it, Joyce again abandoned this work and decided to repurpose the whole thing into the much more experimental final product, a sort-of biographical coming of age story which also included chapters on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas plucked from his own notebooks. (In recycling two failed projects and a set of theological notes, Joyce showed nothing if not efficiency.)

The final “Portrait” is, not surprisingly, difficult to explain. Its protagonist, in his wrestling with the social and religious conventions of his Irish Catholic upbringing, reflected Joyce’s own experiences. (Joyce was unable to overcome his own lack of faith to take part in confession or communion even as his mother begged him to from her deathbed.) “Portrait” has some mechanics of plot, but is largely notable as a glimpse into the developing mind and consciousness of its hero…or perhaps not. (Judgment of the protagonist is largely left to the reader.)

Joyce struggled to get the novel published in any of its forms, and threw the manuscript into the fire one day in frustration. (It was saved by his more level-headed sister.) It was finally serialized by Ezra Pound in his magazine “The Egoist” from 1914-1915 before being collected as a single work on this date. From there, Joyce was on his way, and would continue confounding readers until his death in 1941.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCU4zrSoSscW8vEYTPhZYTzCZbARl5VgOccsqXfEBzWZ0Kq7Zrcp0C82MrsfVn6goBoEo2wPCpZDmsgINeS9qloofTK4aHO-UExnRrthvCBzVPlVFCZ468WkZ4KVSW5DezRkNReClzEqQ/s1600/Portrait+Of+Artist.jpg