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Published: July 16, 2019, 5 a.m.

This week on The Literary Life, Cindy Rollins and Angelina Stanford open our Summer of the Short Story series with a discussion of \u201cAraby\u201d by James Joyce. Cindy and Angelina also announce an encouraging Back to School online conference coming up on August 26-29, 2019.

In delving into \u201cAraby,\u201d Angelina talks about the history and development of the short story form. Cindy gives a little of her own background with reading James Joyce and why she loves his short stories. Angelina and Cindy also discuss the essential \u201cIrishness\u201d of this story and all the tales in The Dubliners. Angelina walks us through the story, highlighting the kinds of questions and things we should look for when reading closely. Themes discussed in this story include: blindness and sight, light and darkness, romanticism, religious devotion, the search for truth, money, courtly love, and the knight\u2019s quest.

Summer of the Short Story:

Ep 12: \u201cA Defence of Penny Dreadfuls\u201d by G. K. Chesterton

Ep 13: \u201cThe Garden Party\u201d by Katherine Mansfield

Ep 14: \u201cAdventures of a Shilling\u201d by Joseph Addison

Ep 15: \u201cThe Necklace\u201d by Guy de Maupassant

Ep 16: \u201cWhy I Write\u201d by George Orwell

Ep 17: \u201cThe Celestial Omnibus\u201d by E. M. Forster

Ep 18: \u201cVulture on War\u201d by Samuel Johnson

Huxley Hall

by John Betjemen

In the Garden City Cafe\u201a with its murals on the wall
Before a talk on \u201cSex and Civics\u201d I meditated on the Fall.

Deep depression settled on me under that electric glare
While outside the lightsome poplars flanked the rose-beds in the square.

While outside the carefree children sported in the summer haze
And released their inhibitions in a hundred different ways.

She who eats her greasy crumpets snugly in the inglenook
Of some birch-enshrouded homestead, dropping butter on her book

Can she know the deep depression of this bright, hygienic hell?
And her husband, stout free-thinker, can he share in it as well?

Not the folk-museum\u2019s charting of man\u2019s Progress out of slime
Can release me from the painful seeming accident of Time.

Barry smashes Shirley\u2019s dolly, Shirley\u2019s eyes are crossed with hate,
Comrades plot a Comrade\u2019s downfall \u201cin the interests of the State\u201d.

Not my vegetarian dinner, not my lime-juice minus gin,
Quite can drown a faint conviction that we may be born in Sin

Book List:

(Affiliate Links)

To Pause on the Threshold by Esther de Waal

The Dubliners by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

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