I can't see why everyone loves this, am I missing something?

>>8939470
Yes

>>8939478
What am I missing?

>>8939533
a brain

>>8939470
>le poignant cucked from beyond the grave story
you're missing that it's not as good as an encounter.

>>8939470

Intense visceral sensation of all the atmosphere of the party. Can really get a feel for the smells, sounds, and look of the entire scene without Joyce ever stopping hard to explain everything. As if the narrator is a spirit who can't figure out who to attach his attention to. As the engine of the party cools down and we are left in the stark aftermath of the warm hearted christmas gathering, the transitioned mood coming off the high of the party is so well done and relatable, and things only start going down further and further until the ruminations about death and his future of his relationship.

One of the best pieces of melancholic literature of the modern times. It's really all about the vibes I guess, Joyce was so good with the collective vibes and the individual vibes.

It's a brilliant story but I thought the epiphany was overrated, possibly because I've never been in a relationship so couldn't relate to the end. The rest of the story was absolutely fantastic though.

Anon should love The Dead because it's basically about an awkward spergbag disappointed with everything.

Joyce is a snooze

Probably. Somewhat subtle symbolism. That is very heavy hitting in regards to Irish identity and Irish nayinialism

>>8939533

You are missing the essence of Joyce if you look too hard for a solid written in the sand message in his works. He does have some messages but they are irrelevant if you cannot focus on the whole of his aesthetic structure. Just read with an open mind next time and let it flow through you like life.

File: 1483150665707.png (796KB, 1023x765px) Image search: [Google]

796KB, 1023x765px

>>8940056
I take it you're not Irish
>>8940063
Really?

>>8939533
a soul

>>8939470
This book is good...isn't it?

You're missing a lot of things anon

>>8939542
kek

>>8939470
You're not missing anything. Joyce is overrated. Not a terrible writer, mind you. Just overrated. /lit/ won't ever tell you this because he's a meme.

>>8941825
Is Joyce overrated? Of course. So is Shakespeare. Both are still masters of their respective crafts and very much worth reading.

The bit with the snow at the end is one of my favorite bits of prose ever. That alone justifies the rest (which is also great).

>>8939470
The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.

Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

>>8939533
being cuckolded by a dead man

>>8941903
This. It gave me chills the first time I read it.

>>8939570
Or Evelyn for that matter.