Dubliners

I've been a bit sick with a cold the last few weeks, and one of the consequences is that I've stopped riding my bike to work, in favour of taking the bus. One of the benefits of, and perhaps even reasons for, taking the bus is that it affords me 2x20 minutes a day to read, which offers a great boost to the momentum I have getting through something.

So, having finished Possession and Cat's Cradle, I picked up a copy of Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of character-piece short stories which I figured would be , and which turned out to be, a convenient format for reading on a bus.

Unlike my memory of Ulysses, the Dubliners stories are told in a very even and objective style, which makes the stories more readable and forces the reader to assess the characters, rather than having them come pre-assessed by the author. The stories varied to the extent that they struck a chord with me - some, like Eveline, Counterparts, and A Mother, rang true, others less so. On the whole, though, I enjoyed the stories, and liked that they made me think about the characters.

Joyce confuses me. Two of his books that I've now read have been quite accessible, but Ulysses not at all (and from what I've heard, I can expect difficulty should I attempt Finnegan's Wake).