In Dubliners, James Joyce draws a full spectre of his Irish roots and by giving a special attention to the details he creates an intimaly well-observed portrait of a city, his native city, and its people in an era of great political and social transformations. Dublin, at that time, was a city of three hundred thousand persons. Its architecture and grandeur allowed its citizens to appreciate its magnificient setting. The city chosen by Joyce for all its graciousness and joyfulness has seen its decline for almost a century. Maybe this is the reason for so many enigmas throught the entire book.
Beyond its brilliant and almost brutal realism, it is also a book full of enigmas, ambiguities and symbolic resonances. This book is a work representative of Irish experience conducted with an extreme moral rigour.
This is a great master-piece and extremely necessary for those who want to understand not only how the life in this Irish Capital was but also a little bit of the author himself and his work.