From the A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man thread on Swerve of Shore, by Brandon Nicklaus.
One quiet evening, sunk into the corner of a soft couch with the fire throwing little gold flickers across the room, I was doing the usual—aimlessly scrolling through social media—when a small announcement stopped me in my tracks: The James Joyce Centre was offering a course on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Intriguing. Impulsive click. It felt like an invitation. I clicked. I signed up. And just like that, six weeks of Joyce, Dublin, and Dedalus awaited me.
What follows on this blog is a record of that journey—notes from class, thoughts sparked along the way, small discoveries, big questions, and all the unexpected places a modern reader finds himself wandering when he follows Stephen Dedalus through his becoming. Enjoy the ramble.
The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a coming-of-age-tale. This style of work is commonly referred to by the German term, Bildrundsroman. The reason that Germany is credited with originating this form of writing. A novel of formation. A Bildungsroman is a “novel of formation,” a narrative that explains how a young person develops into who they become.
Read the full piece at Swerve of Shore
Opening paragraphs quoted from swerveofshore.com and reproduced with the author's permission. This site is a layout rebuild on the zer0-mistakes theme — the full essay lives on the original.