Dubliners has consistently stood out to me as one of my favorite modernist works. And while I was excited that we were going on a Joyce-themed tour, I became even more excited when our guide let on that the tour would revolve around Dubliners. 

I couldn’t believe the knowledge she had about the stories–how she knew which protagonists walked where and what Joyce thought of particular locations. Even though she mocked the folks who installed a plaque for Leopold Bloom (the fictional character), her connectedness with the texts and her ability to convey such memorializes the fictional characters in an equally significant way–which I do not find silly in the least!

I found what she said about unreliable bystanders particularly interesting.  To me, it conveyed the desperate nature of the Irish people and their desire to be connected to success, even if that success portrayed them negatively.

My favorite part of the tour was the readings in front of the locations depicted in the stories. Specifically, standing in front of “The Dead”–a story that maintains its emotional appeals for me–helped me connect actual Dublin to the Dublin I imagined while reading the stories. I hadn’t realized that those connections weren’t made for me until I was on this tour; perhaps it is because I have not been inundated in Dublin history or exposed to images of Dublin, but I was able to depict my own understanding of the city from the literature sans outside influence. Being here, and being in the places Joyce was influenced by, though, allows my understanding of Dublin to develop.

(Also, the pregnant lady lingering in the background, beating her husband added a nice touch to the meanness of Dublin that Joyce was trying to portray. I image she would have had a story in Dubliners if Joyce had been on the tour with us today.)