James Joyce’s ‘A Painful Case’

James Joyce (1882-1941) was one of the great figures of literary modernism with works such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1839). In his early career he wrote short stories which, after some difficulty, he eventually saw published as Dubliners (1914). The stories are in a more naturalistic mode, were written between 1904 and 1907 and focus on life in the city of Dublin, which is characterized by a collective and individual spiritual paralysis. At this meeting we will read one of the stories, “A Painful Case” about a lonely man who becomes afraid when at last a relationship with a woman becomes a possibility.
The text can be found here: https://www.owleyes.org/text/dubliners/read/a-painful-case#root-74346-35
All are welcome. Feel free to take part by joining in discussion or simply by listening to the proceedings.