San Jose Public Library's Online Book Club is a monthly feature that encourages readers to share and discuss a given book each month.  Selections are made based on  local interest and relevance.  

Our selection for this month, Dubliners by James Joyce was chosen to coincide with with a similar program in one of San Jose's sister cities.  During the month of April, residents of Dublin, Ireland are participating in the One City, One Book program sponsored by Dublin City Public Libraries.  We invite you to share your thoughts on Dubliners not only here, but also with fellow readers across the sea.

Question for Week 4: Is Dubliners a modern, international piece of fiction - or is it dated by geographical and historical context?

I believe that Dubliners is an example of modern fiction, both in style and theme.  Undoubtedly the stories do have aspects that may cause them to initially appear somewhat dated.  I struggled myself to understand some of the language and references when I first picked it up.  Yet, many of the themes I most related to, unfulfilled dreams, love and loss, are timeless.  I also think that Joyce's decision to use a single setting to tie together a set of stories involving unrelated characters is a very modern, more forward looking convention.  What do you think?

See more information about this book and previous week's questions

San Jose Public Library's Online Book Club is a monthly feature that encourages readers to share and discuss a given book each month.  Selections are made based on  local interest and relevance.  

Our selection for this month, Dubliners by James Joyce was chosen to coincide with with a similar program in one of San Jose's sister cities.  During the month of April, residents of Dublin, Ireland are participating in the One City, One Book program sponsored by Dublin City Public Libraries.  We invite you to share your thoughts on Dubliners not only here, but also with fellow readers across the sea.

Question for Week 3: To what extent does one's birthplace determine one's identity or destiny? Is it less of a factor with today's global economy and communications than it was when Dubliners was published nearly a century ago?

Before reading the book, I thought my answer would be that of course birthplace had a greater impact on one's life and life choices when Dubliners was written than it does today.  Now I am not so sure.  Even though transportation and technology have vastly improved,  I think other factors sometimes have a greater impact on the choices we make.  Joyce's character Eveline had the opportunity to leave Dublin and choose a very different life in another country and yet she chose to stay even though her life there held little promise of happiness.  Perhaps it is not the opportunity to move, but the courage or determination to risk the unknown that is the bigger factor in how one's life plays out.  My father was born in a small Midwestern farming community.  He was valedictorian of a graduating class of 13.  Determined to get an education, he went to college on a scholarship and later finished on the GI Bill.  After graduation and marriage he accepted a teaching job in California and began a career in education far different from the lives of the friends and cousins with whom he'd grown up.  I, on the other hand, had many more options open to me and yet I still live in the same city in which I was born.  Is it because I had choices that I didn't need to move, or is it that, like Eveline, I was not willing to give up the familiar for unknown possibilities?  What do you think?  Is birthplace still as much a determining factor in one's destiny as it was when Dubliners was first published or are there other more critical factors one needs to take into account? 

See more information about this book and preview the next week's question

The Online Book Club is a monthly feature for San Jose Public Library readers who want to share their thoughts on a chosen book. The books are picked for their local interest and parallels to life in San Jose today. Questions about the book are asked on a weekly basis and we encourage you to post your responses.

For April 2012, Dubliners by James Joyce was decided upon because one of San Jose's sister cities, Dublin, Ireland, presented the book through their library's online book club. Dublin is a large city like San Jose that has undergone constant change, leaving some of the residents bewildered with the choices of life foisted upon them.

Question for Week 2: Joyce described Dublin as a 'city in paralysis'. From your reading of these stories, do you agree?

Another phrase that Joyce used to describe Dublin was "hemoplegia", a body paralyzed on one side. The characters tend to be working class, and their options are limited. In the early stories, some are children, and one dreams of the American west, An Encounter. Eveline had a chance to escape with her fiance, but at the last moment, chose to stay. Farrington, in Counterparts, works for a reputable company that would be a notary nowadays, but he craves strong drink.

In my copy of Dubliners, the book has many photographs of Dublin from the early twentieth century. The buildings are made of brick and the streets are paved with stone. The city is an ancient seaport and, even then, was served by trains. There are ways to get out of Dublin. Joyce spent most of his time in Europe after Dubliners was published. Maybe the cost, and the fear, was beyond most of the characters. He himself was trying to uplift the people by "converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own".  His book has the modern sensiblility of revealing the down side of Dublin, in hopes of awakening the citizens.

See our Online Book Club page for more information about this book and to preview upcoming questions

The Online Book Club is a monthly feature for San Jose Public Library readers who want to share their thoughts on a chosen book. The books are picked for their local interest and parallels to life in San Jose today. Questions about the book are asked on a weekly basis and we encourage you to post your responses.

For April 2012, Dubliners by James Joyce was decided upon because one of San Jose's sister cities, Dublin, Ireland, presented the book through their library's online book club. Dublin is a large city like San Jose that has undergone constant change, leaving some of the residents bewildered with the choices of life foisted upon them.

Question for Week 1: Who is the most sympathetic and least sympathetic character in Dubliners?

In reading Dubliners, I found no characters without faults, and none that were totally evil. Eveline is very sympathetic, with her trapped life and father taking her hard earned money and spending it in the pubs. Then she meets a man, Frank, who treats her well, but can she break the promise to her deceased mother, to keep the house together? On the dock, preparing to board the boat to Buenos Ayres, (Joyce's spelling), she reaches a painful decision.

There are a number of nominations for the least sympathetic character in Dubliners. In The Two Gallants, Lenehan watches Corley plot to manipulate a young woman into 'borrowing' money, probably from an older relative. Jimmy, in an early auto race story, After the Race, blows some of his parents money showing off to the car owners, but hopefully is wiser after his losing card game. A Painful Case features a rigid Mr. Duffy denying the company of widowed Mrs. Sinico, but then feeling the loneliness of his decision. All of the characters are swept along by their choices; hoping they will change is part of the beauty of Dubliners.

See our Online Book Club page for more information about this book and to preview upcoming questions