Short Stories - Araby by James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet. Perhaps best known for his novel Ulysses, his other works remain must-reads, in particular the short-story collection Dubliners and Finnegans Wake.At the age of 9 Joyce wrote the poet “Et tu, Healy.” The poem related to the death of Charles Stewart Parnell and expressed a sense of betrayal by the Irish Catholic Church, the Irish Parliamentary Party and the British Liberal Party for the result of the failure of establishing Irish Home Rule. 9 years old…At university he discovered the scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas and was thereafter influenced by his thoughts. After university he went to live in Paris. In April 1903 he returned to Dublin to tend to his dying mother reading to her drafts of his work.In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and they remained together until the day he died. Joyce had considered becoming a doctor, and in 1904 explored becoming a musical performer.Joyce travelled to find work where he could, it was trying, often being told vacancies existed where they did not. Via Zürich, then Pola the Joyce family moved to Trieste, where he started teaching English. A noble undertaking. As much as Joyce travelled and wrote however, Dublin was forever in his heart and soul…and pen.There is so much to cover that I do not have the space to do so here. In 2019, when the proposal arose of repatriating Joyce’s remains, the Irish Times wrote this: " ... it is hard not to suspect that there is a calculating, even mercantile, aspect to contemporary Ireland's relationship to its great writers, whom we are often more keen to 'celebrate', and if possible monetise, than read."