The Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce

ISBN: 9781334902116 出版年：2018 页码：119 Stanislaus Joyce Forgotten Books

This diary was recorded with great care by a sensitive and intelligent boy who felt that something was terribly wrong with his life, who reacted by lashing out savagely at almost everything around him, who was often injudicious and unjust, but who was trying to be reasonable and honest. He did not spare others, but neither did he spare himself. He was painfully self-conscious, about his clothes, his manners, his reputation, and even the shape of his head. He recognized his own intelligence but could find no thing to do with it. He abhorred the commonplace, but everything around him, except his brother and his little cousin, appeared to be drably and deadeningly commonplace. His awkward, adolescent tenderness for little Katsy Murray, like everything else, offered him neither comfort nor hope. He could not properly be in love with her now: she was too young. He could not properly be in love with her ever, really: she was his first cousin. His attitude towards his talented brother was already what it was to remain generally throughout their lives, an utterly unselfish concern for James's comfort, welfare, success, and reputation, sustained in the face of his own wistful longings and James's thoughtless ingratitude. Stanislaus, his brother's Whetstone and keeper, wanted to emulate James but was charged with imitating him. He wanted to share James's life but was repelled by its dissipations. He wanted a place in James's circle of friends but disliked and distrusted most of the persons he met there. James on the other hand found in his younger brother a loyal ally, sympathetic towards his notions and patient of his mockery. From Stanislaus James borrowed money, clothes, ideas, and traits for the characters in his writings. Maurice Daedalus and Mr. Duffy are obvious enough. But there is more than a little of Stanislaus's envy, pride and gloom in Stephen him self.