James Joyce, Edna OBrien
James Joyce, Edna OBrien
1 Rating(s)
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James Joyce

Author: Edna O'Brien

Narrator: Donada Peters

Unabridged: 5 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/21/1999


Synopsis

One of Ireland's best current novelists provides a thumbnail sketch of Ireland's greatest writer. A passionate and sensuous portrait, James Joyce is a return to the land of politics, history, saints, and scholars that shaped the creator of the twentieth century's groundbreaking novel Ulysses. O'Brien traces Joyce's early days as a rambunctious young Jesuit student; his falling in love with a tall, red-haired Galway girl named Nora Barnacle on Bloomsday; and his exile to Trieste where he found success, love, and ultimately, despair. Joyce's raucous life as well as his thoughtful commentary on his major writings are presented succinctly and masterfully for any Joyce lover to enjoy. O'Brien captures with simplicity the brilliance and complexity of this great master.

"It is swift, moving and brimming with the author's enthusiasms and her well-earned affection for a difficult colleague." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

About The Author

Edna O'Brien is the internationally acclaimed author of more than 20 books including Down by the River, The Country Girls, and A Fanatic Heart. She is the recipient of many awards, including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Arts Gold Medal, and the Frank O’Connor Prize. Born and raised in Ireland, O’Brien lives in London.Donada Peters, an award-winning actress, has narrated more than 500 titles since the 1980s, and is an acclaimed “Golden Voice” of audiobook recording. A transplanted Brit, she lives in California and, when not behind the microphone, works on stage, film, and TV. She has an unerring ear for various British and European accents and is often called upon to perform specific types of accents.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Justin

An odd experience this: in college, I apparently loved Joyce. I read his works, I read Ellmann's biography, I thought Joyce was right about more or less everything. Here I am, less than 15 years later, reading O'Brien's short life in anticipation of re-reading Joyce's work (other than the Wake), and......more

Goodreads review by George

An evocative, lyrical, biography of James Joyce written by a novelist. Candid and complicated, this book is both a biography and something else—a work of creative non-fiction in the shape of a biography, incorporating words and opinions of others as well as revelatory fragments from Joyce himself. (......more

Goodreads review by Jason

I listened to the audiobook of this short biography of James Joyce. I did not know much about Joyce's life before but this presented a relatively comprehensive portrait from birth to death, with a lot of detail about both the writing and publication of Ulysses and a summary/literary criticism of it......more

Goodreads review by Frank

Hardly a standard biography and not quite literary criticism either, though there are elements of both here certainly: it would perhaps be too glib to call this a portrait of the artist. O’Brien assumes her readers have a familiarity with both the outline of Joyce’s life and his major works, she div......more

O'brien writes like an angel ( okay an angel who swallowed a big plate of oirish blarney) And this is truly brilliant. Lyrical, informative and rich prose that makes you smile as you read- fab.......more