It is true that if the name ‘Joyce’ sends shivers of literary inferiority down your spine, you could be in for a pleasant surprise with Dubliners. But try not to mistake its continuous touting as the ‘most accessible’ of Joyce’s works for ‘least stimulating’. As well as providing one of the most uncannily vivid snapshots of any one time and place ever written, the psychological penetration and exploration of character in the short story collection transcends limitations of temporality and geography enough to move the stoniest of hearts. It is, then, a highly appropriate choice for One City, One Book – the festival that aims to bind together the people of Dublin through a communal pledge to course through the pages of a single text during the month of April each year.
If we’re not already preaching to the converted, copies of Dubliners can be snapped up for super-cheap in pretty much any Dublin bookstore – though it might be worth browsing some independent spaces like The Loft or the Gutter Bookshop for some particularly lust-worthy editions. If you’d like to explore the book’s pages communally, this month, Sweny’s Pharmacy are holding a drop-in Dubliners reading group at 1pm, Tuesdays to Fridays, and an overwhelming array of readings, lectures, walking tours and exhibitions across the city will be casting new lights on the enduringly celebrated text throughout One City, One Book month.
Readings
If you’d like to delve a little deeper into Dubliners, or have yet to pick it up and fancy getting up to speed with it pronto, now is a good time to watch it come to life: just about every short story from the collection will be performed over the course of the month, often with musical accompaniment. ‘The Dead’ will be running at Bewley’s Café Theatre on the 10th, 11th and 12th April at 8pm (€10/€8 concession), however there are plenty more tales to be told than this. Check out ‘A Little Cloud’ in the Jameson Distillery on April 14th, ‘Two Gallants’ at the United Arts Club on the 20th, ‘Eveline’ at Raheny Library on the 26th, or, for a taste of everything, Rathfarnham Theatre Group will be performing a variety of Dubliners extracts in the Pearse Museum at 3pm on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th April.
Talks
Talks and lectures on Dubliners are also aplenty. Their interest tends to fall into one of two areas: lectures about Dublin – in the context of Joyce, his era, and geographical connections – and lectures with a more literary slant. For the historical perspective, try ‘The Heart of Joyce’s Dublin’ at the James Joyce Centre (April 16th, 6:30pm), ‘Dublin, Distilleries and The Dead’ (April 28th, 3pm, Farmleigh) or ‘Joyce and Chapelizod’ (April 29th, 3pm, Farmleigh). Literary explorations of the text are more readily found in the National Gallery of Ireland’s lecture series, most of which are by professors at Trinity, UCD and NUI. Following an introductory lecture on the 15th, the series goes on to discuss Joyce’s place in the Modernist Movement (April 22nd, 3pm), and the early 20th Century Dublin literary scene (April 29th, 3pm).
Walks
One of the best ways to get to grips with Joycean Dublin is by walking. Though walking tours are more strongly associated with the great meandering Ulysses, there are still plenty of footsteps to follow in relation to the stories of Dubliners. One of the best guides comes with headphones: Wonderland Production’s audio-walk allows you to stroll at your own leisurely pace to the voices of acclaimed Joycean actors. Available from the Dublin Writers Museum, the walk focuses specifically on the short story collection. The James Joyce Centre also give walking tours on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (€10/€8 concession), whilst Dublin City Bike Tours offer a more generalised literary zip around Dublin on two wheels, from €20.
Exhibitions
Finally, for Dubliners-inspired visual art, visit the National Gallery of Ireland. Sixteen watercolours and paintings by the likes of Jack Yeats, William Orpen, Walter Osbourne and Rose Barton have been cherry-picked from the gallery’s collection, and will be on show until July 15th. If you’d like to put the text and works on display into some context, the gallery are also holding a study morning by leading Joycean scholars on April 21st, titled ‘Dublin in James Joyce’s Time’ (€25/€15 students). Other exhibitions running throughout the festival include a small showcase in Trinity’s Long Room (home of the Books of Kells), a Visual Response and Contemporary Contexualisation over at the Dublin Writers Museum, and Joyscapes, a collection of paintings of Joyce-era Dublin at the James Joyce Centre.
http://www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/
And the PDF.
Words: Rosa Abbott
