The Coming-of-Age-Novel After Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916–2016: Readings and Talks by Belinda McKeon, Paul Murray and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

UCD James Joyce Research Centre in association with the James Joyce Centre

Physics Theatre, Newman House, 2 February 2016

James Joyce was delighted with the coincidence that the first instalment A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man had first appeared in The Egoist on his birthday, 2 February 1914. He was later doggedly determined to have Ulysses published on his fortieth birthday, 2 February 1922. The plethora of twos was no doubt pleasing to the mind that chose the nature of twoness as a key motif in Finnegans Wake. The feast of Candlemas, at the start of the Celtic Spring, 2 February is also Groundhog Day which has a comical modern-day association for anyone who has felt stuck in the same repeating day when studying Ulysses.

This year the UCD James Joyce Research Centre in partnership with the James Joyce Centre hosted a rich literary evening to celebrate both Joyce's birthday and the centenary of the publication of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Physics theatre in Newman house provided the ideal venue. The setting of Stephen's altercation with the Dean of Studies in the final chapter of A Portrait is resonant with meaning and association. As the acclaimed actor Barry McGovern delivered a mesmerizing performance of this encounter from A Portrait, members of the audience turned their heads towards the fireplace clearly enjoying the increased effect of hearing the scene read in situ. In the conversation with the Dean of Studies Stephen uses the word 'tundish' to refer to a funnel, thus confusing the English priest who assumes that it is a local Irish term. The misunderstanding rankles with Stephen who at the end of the novel records his sense of annoyance: 'Damn the dean of studies and his funnel!' Seamus Heaney later uses the word 'tundish' in Station Island to reflect further on Irish writers' frustration with inhabiting the language of English.

In a suitable celebration of the tradition of Irish writers, Professor Anne Fogarty asked three of Ireland's most notable contemporary writers to read from their work. The theme of the evening was the coming-of-age novel after Joyce. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, the celebrated author of The Dancers Dancing and Hurlamaboc, and an accomplished exponent of fiction in both Irish and English, was the first to present. She approached the subject by noting that all writing, where it concerned a growth or change in the subject, depicted a coming-of-age event. Ní Dhuibhne is a trained folklorist and holds a doctorate in this field. Drawing on these interests, she pointed out that all fairy tales centre on the theme of change: starting with the break-up of one family and concluding with the creation of a new family. Ní Dhuibhne chose to read three vivid passages from her 'secret' novel, Singles, which she had published in 1994 but had since not acknowledged as her own. In her reflections, she touched on the importance of novels as anthropological guides, noting that the fictional details of a person's daily encounters can be far richer than any contemporary historical document. With this in mind, her readings, set in 1970s Dublin, evoked an almost photographic image of Ireland over forty years ago, 'a country for old men' as she described it.

Paul Murray read next from his novel, Skippy Dies. His quick-fire delivery of his fantastically comical portrait of a Dublin boarding school accentuated the unique enjoyment of hearing an author read their own work. He reflected affectionately on his enjoyment in creating the schoolboy characters who had originally been intended to illustrate a short story but who instead usurped his imagination and soon, on their own merits, warranted a whole book. To illustrate what it is that an author is trying to portray, Paul quoted Donald Rumsfeld's comment 'there are known knowns' whilst noting wryly the incongruity of citing this...