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Dubliners

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Dubliners

By: James Joyce
Narrated by: T. P. McKenna
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About this listen

Complex tales of the Irish city and its inhabitants from the author of Ulysses

First published in 1914, Dubliners is brought to life by acclaimed Irish actor, T. P. McKenna, Joyce portrays human relationships in Ireland at the turn of the century brilliantly. His characters are so vivacious and exciting and the stories so fresh, evocative and entertaining that they could well have been written today. A complete and unabridged collection of short stories about this Irish city and the inhabitants, Dubliners represents both an ideal introduction for newcomers and 'dip-in-and-out' listen, and a welcome for established Joyce fans.

Public Domain (P)2003 CSA Telltapes Ltd Classics

Critic reviews

If you're looking for the single short story collection that epitomises the skill, subtlety, diversity and sheer brilliance of the genre, this has to be it. Season the mix with the voice of one of the greatest Irish actors ever, and you're talking about a true classic. (Sue Arnold, The Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant
but why are the stories out of their correct sequence? Each story is a gem, but the collection does not work as a whole as presented here.

Beautifully written and beautifully read

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As they stand, each one alone, you could listen to these 15 stories of life, very truly lived in Dublin around the start of the last century, for a long time, and many times, and still hear something new, even though nothing very dramatic happens, because the writing is so precise and, through TP McKenna, the speaking is so right for what James Joyce himself described as a series of epiphanies.



McKenna acted for may years at Dublin's Abbey Theatre and appeared in film versions of Ulysses and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and his restrained tone lends itself gently to these glimpses of moments of subtle revelation.



Only one complaint, and the meticulous Joyce mght share it, because the author himself, and he should know, said this of Dubliners, "I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness and with the convition that he is a very bold man who dares to alter in the presentment, still more to deform, whatever he has seen and heard."



Unfortunately, some bold or, more likely, careless individual, has deformed this beautifully-spoken version of Dubliners, or at least has altered the presentment of what he has seen, so that we hear the stories in the wrong sequence. Because Joyce's scrupulousness extended to insisting that they appear in a certain order in the published version of the book.



He classed them into four aspects: Childhood (conisting of The Sisters, An Encounter and Araby); Adolescence (Eveline, After the Race, Two Gallants and The Boarding House); Maturity (A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay and A Painful Case): and Public Life (Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace and The Dead).



There is not too much lost by the apparently random order of this audio version, but it is simply right that any rendition of Dubliners should start with the news of a death in The Sisters and should end with the beautiful reflection on last things in the longest and richest of the stories, The Dead.

Life, Death and Dublin

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The stories were not in the order of the book. very odd. The performance was good, but sometimes you can hear him slapping his chops.

wrong order

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but the stories in this collection seem to be in the wrong order. Joyce was very particular about how he arranged his work and I am quite sure something of the Dubliners experience is lost when the stories aren’t in their original order.

Out of order

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Certainly this is no Ulysses, thankfully. I have perhaps avoided Joyce due to a failed attempt to come to term with his "masterpiece". So pleased that I gave this a chance and I will look, carefully, for more of his writings. This is a collection of well crafted tales of chapters in the lives of ordinary irish folk.

Masterful tales of Ireland

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