Reading Journal - The Sisters : James Joyce(1914)

 Rating : 7/10

The first story in James Joyce's illustrated work, <Dubliners>, is <The Sisters>. The content was not at all what the topic discloses about the book. Although the novel does contain two sisters, it's not at all focused on those characters. The main character is a boy whose name is never disclosed in the story. He has a priest who is very close to him, named Father James Flynn. In the story he is already a dead man, so his presence only exists in the mentions that other people make of him. However, I found that that presence was big enough to be a main character : the story itself revolves around Father Flynn's death. Another major theme is 'paralysis'. The story suggests that Father Flynn's mental unstableness was in part related to paralysis in Irish religion, and his sisters also contribute his death to stress due to clerical work. This may be a play on what Joyce thought about Irish religion back then. Lastly, Father Flynn's illness symptoms point to syphilis, which is a STD, suggesting that Father Flynn wasn't exactly celibate. To sum up the book, what I felt about the book was a story that was full of literary devices and interesting expressions that tried to relay a message about Irish religion in the late 1890s to early 1900s. However interesting the book was, it was certainly a hard book to interpret, and not a very enjoyable experience to read. The only reason I gave the book a 7 is because of its literary detail and expressiveness.