I have a keen fascination with Irish lit and wanted to read this as a primer in some sense. It was. Chock-full with local, contemporary references to Dublin in the early parts of the twentieth century (and with that, outdated, harmful language and themes in some passages), many a consult to different online footnotes were made, but that served to satisfy my keen fascination with everything Irish, really. Obviously, there are threads of Irish nationalism woven throughout the stories, but not necessarily 'nationalist' in itself, not in the leagues with the rebels. I was actually much more interested in the influence of the Catholic church and that commentary.

Meandering, inconclusive plot might have made it difficult to decipher any sort of certain statement, per se, but I don't think this is required, and anyway, the idea of "movement" is there, a little seed planted. The ideas of moving forward (epiphany, with some new information, maybe) and moving backward, or not moving at all (paralysis, not coming to any real decision). I love short stories because they generally only serve as a few pixels in a bigger, unseen picture, a snapshot in a life, time, place. This is the case here, a little window into a few little lives in Dublin in 1914. And yet the book tells a life-long story -- youth to death -- and all that comes with the ages. I liked this structure.

My favourites:
-The Dead
-Clay
-A Mother
-Araby
-Eveline
-The Sisters
-Counterparts

I think these stories are deserving of another read at some point, and learning what I know about Joyce now, I definitely want to learn more.