Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories about life in Dublin in the early years of the twentieth century. The stories move from childhood through adolescence and adult life to public life, and they show clerks, teachers, musicians, drinkers, children and families in a city that often seems to hold people back.
Joyce writes in a clear, restrained style, paying close attention to small details and moments of sudden understanding. Many of the characters feel trapped by habit, duty or fear. The book is a quiet masterpiece of the short story and a good first step into Joyce's world.
Quotes
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.
Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.
side. Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door.
One by one they were all becoming shades.