Joyce is a favourite writer who reconciled me, as a troubled teenager, to being Irish. The early 20th-century Irish-Catholic soul is here revealed as perhaps in no other work, as the path of Joyce's alter-ego, Stephen Dedelus, is traced from childhood to maturity.One marvellous set-piece after another is presented, the family home, the fierce Christmas argument over Parnell, the playing fields of Clongowes, the Hellfire sermon, the epiphany of the transcendent girl on the strand, the creation of a poem, the worshipful encounter with the nighttown prostitute... Until finally Stephen is ready to flee the nets that trammel the Soul, and forge the "uncreated conscience of his Race"...It is of course beautifully written as only Joyce can with the total beauty of language held in his mind and heart and hands. As his genius first shines then glows then bursts into flame... Here is his flight to the Sun.While not normally enamoured of the "Preface" I did find Seamus Deane's to be insightful and of interest...But read this for a vision of early 20th-century Catholic Ireland, the unique account of the growth of the artistic mind, and the beauty of Joyce's language shimmering across the veil of the world.