-
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.93
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
This fictionalized portrait of Joyce's youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
Critic reviews
"Naxos has cast a single voice, Jim Norton, who delivers the entire narrative in a single tone of gentle, god-like detachment. In dialogue passages, the characters roar to life in all their stormy Celtic vigor. Thus, Norton takes us inside the soul of the sensitive protagonist while amplifying the color and beauty of Joyce’s writing." (AudioFile)
Related to this topic
-
Demian
- The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the dramatic story of young, docile Emil Sinclair's descent - led by precocious schoolmate Max Demian - into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention and eventual awakening to selfhood.
-
-
Demian
- By Debra on 12-08-08
By: Hermann Hesse
-
Demian
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Jason McCoy
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a Bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. Demian was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, but Hesse was later revealed to be the author.
-
-
A pre-Great War, gnostic, Jungian bildungsroman.
- By Darwin8u on 07-13-12
By: Hermann Hesse
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
- By: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This dark psychological fantasy is more than a moral tale. It is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution and criminality, and the secret lives behind Victorian propriety, to create a unique form of urban Gothic.
-
-
The Dark Human Heart
- By Jefferson on 01-30-11
-
Letter from an Unknown Woman
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Heather Wood, K. Anderson Yancy
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immediately following the death of her young son, distraught and heartbroken, a woman sends a heart-wrenching letter to the only man she has ever loved, chronicling their love affair, opening with, "To you, who have never known me."
-
-
Tough 2 Hear With Background Music & Sound Effects
- By DK on 09-19-15
By: Stefan Zweig
-
Lord of the World
- By: Robert Hugh Benson
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.
-
-
Supringly prophetic ,
- By Mary Clare Murphy on 10-17-17
-
Demian
- The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the dramatic story of young, docile Emil Sinclair's descent - led by precocious schoolmate Max Demian - into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention and eventual awakening to selfhood.
-
-
Demian
- By Debra on 12-08-08
By: Hermann Hesse
-
Demian
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Jason McCoy
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a Bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. Demian was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, but Hesse was later revealed to be the author.
-
-
A pre-Great War, gnostic, Jungian bildungsroman.
- By Darwin8u on 07-13-12
By: Hermann Hesse
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
- By: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Narrated by: Michael Kitchen
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This dark psychological fantasy is more than a moral tale. It is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution and criminality, and the secret lives behind Victorian propriety, to create a unique form of urban Gothic.
-
-
The Dark Human Heart
- By Jefferson on 01-30-11
-
Letter from an Unknown Woman
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Heather Wood, K. Anderson Yancy
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immediately following the death of her young son, distraught and heartbroken, a woman sends a heart-wrenching letter to the only man she has ever loved, chronicling their love affair, opening with, "To you, who have never known me."
-
-
Tough 2 Hear With Background Music & Sound Effects
- By DK on 09-19-15
By: Stefan Zweig
-
Lord of the World
- By: Robert Hugh Benson
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.
-
-
Supringly prophetic ,
- By Mary Clare Murphy on 10-17-17
-
The Picture of Dorian Gray
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: Russell Tovey
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A disturbing tale of a young man's uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery, The Picture of Dorian Gray was considered proof of both Wilde's genius and his perversion. Oscar Wilde's scandalous best seller of 1891 was one of the most damning pieces of evidence used against him in the trial that brought about his downfall.
-
-
A twisted tale of vanity and poisonous people
- By Shantastic on 10-02-19
By: Oscar Wilde
-
The Gift
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.
One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.
-
-
A complex and rich Künstlerroman
- By Darwin8u on 11-30-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860-1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a "mood", a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal, and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
-
-
A Box of Chocolates
- By Darlene on 02-08-05
By: Anton Chekhov
-
Les Misérables
- Penguin Classics
- By: Christine Donougher, Victor Hugo, Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: Adeel Akhtar, Natalie Simpson, Adrian Scarborough, and others
- Length: 65 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
-
-
Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
-
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
- By: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
- Narrated by: Edoardo Camponeschi
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.
-
-
A hidden masterpiece
- By C. Park on 08-09-18
-
The Scarlet Letter
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Kate Petrie
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.
-
-
missing the introductory???
- By Savannah on 05-20-20
-
Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
-
-
Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Les Miserables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 57 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.
-
-
one happy insomniac
- By Kathryn on 01-27-05
By: Victor Hugo
-
Ruth
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Eve Matheson
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The orphaned heroine Ruth, apprenticed to a dressmaker, is seduced by wealthy Henry Bellingham who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. Their affair causes her to lose her home and job to which he offers her shelter, only to cruelly abandon her soon after. She is offered a chance of a new life though shamed in the eyes of society by her illegitimate son. When Henry reappears offering marriage she must choose between social acceptance and her own pride.
-
-
Fallen Woman Finds Redemption
- By Susan on 12-06-12
-
Sophie's Choice
- By: William Styron
- Narrated by: Norman Snow
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant, multi-layered novel, a young Southerner, Stingo, wants to become a writer. In Brooklyn, he meets Nathan, a brilliant Jewish intellectual involved in a turbulent love-hate affair with Sophie, a beautiful Polish woman. She has a terrible wound in her past, one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.
-
-
THIS IS ABRIDGED
- By J. Flynn on 07-25-16
By: William Styron
-
Against Nature (Against the Grain)
- By: Joris-Karl Huysmans
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against Nature was one of the most shocking French novels of the 19th century. When it was published in 1884, it thrilled the aesthetes, the poets, and the intellectuals of Europe on both sides of the Channel (notably Oscar Wilde) because for all its lofty tone, it had, as its core, an unbridled decadence, and it was this same character that challenged, even horrified, established bourgeois society.
-
-
An excellent reading of the Decadent classic
- By Mark Hedden on 06-13-17
-
Spring Snow
- By: Yukio Mishima
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power. Among this rising new elite are the ambitious Matsugae, whose son has been raised in a family of the waning aristocracy, the elegant and attenuated Ayakura.
-
-
An extraordinary work.......
- By Raj Saberwal on 05-29-14
By: Yukio Mishima
What listeners say about A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John E Douglas
- 08-13-22
Phenomenal audiobook!
One of the greatest novels of all time, read expertly by Jim Norton. Norton appropriately and seemingly effortlessly changes tone between quoted passages and narrative. He has an experienced command of Irish accents.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- J.
- 04-10-06
Excellent audio book
Not only is this a great and intensly memorable book, it is also wonderfully narrated with strong and distinct characterization. The narrator really brings the characters alive in this movingly personal portrait of the artist as a young man. Absorbing and strongly recommended!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- B. Leddy
- 10-26-11
Jim Norton is the best for Joyce
Don't bother with the John Lee version - Joyce is best handled by Jim Norton. Excellent and accessible. In terms of the book itself - I view it as a prerequisite to Ulysses, so a must if you want to get into understanding Joyce and his perspective on Ireland, etc.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- NYC Amazon buyer
- 01-08-19
Superlative performance of a mixed text
Performance unequivocally superb, as Norton’s invariably are. The book, however, for all that it is of the canon, and I realize it is a sin against received opinion to question Joyce’s brilliance, it’s not his brilliance per se I’m questioning. When he’s good, he’s astonishing. But the book as a whole has extraordinary writing, with a pacing that is uneven - forgiven by the orthodoxy, but not sure the Emperor is wearing a full suit of clothes, for all that parts are dazzling.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jefferson
- 08-29-11
The Soul Struggling to Fly Free
I'd only ever read Joyce's short story "Araby," having been intimidated by the difficult reputation of his work (especially Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake), so I was unprepared for how wonderful A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is--and how accessible.
It must partly be due to Jim Norton's marvelous reading, so sensitive to and enhancing of the novel's poetic rhythms and sounds, beautiful images, savory characters, and mix of comedy and tragedy. Norton, reading the base narration in an appealing and neutral English accent (to my American ear) and the dialogue in an impressively and appropriately varied range of Irish accents and personalities, helps to bring alive the cultural, personal, dramatic, and thematic meanings of every word in the novel. Many scenes have been imprinted on my mind: Stephen unfairly having his hands flogged in class and then screwing up his courage to visit the Rector about it; Stephen listening to a priest giving intense sermons on the physical and mental horrors of hell (Norton-priest had atheist me shaking my head and chuckling at the sadistic-masochistic Catholic imagination one moment and tremblingly thinking that I'd better go to confession the next); Stephen raptly watching a girl wading with her dress hiked up; Stephen talking with his friend Cranly about mothers and Catholicism. . . And many more.
After finishing the audiobook, I didn't want it to end, so started listening to it again' I also visited a website with the text of the novel and read parts of that, realizing that Jim Norton had me understanding it just as well if not better than I would have had I read it myself.
This audiobook version of Joyce's novel is filled with beauty, humor, sadness, love, lust, guilt, transcendence, and life. Next up: Dubliners and Ulysses read by Jim Norton!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bob
- 10-29-15
Much more approachable than Ulysses
A Portrait is a great start for anyone who wants to begin to wade into the ocean of meaning that emerged from the mind and pen of James Joyce. The story is approachable barring a few Celticisms and the performance is spectacular. Jim Norton is one of the best narrators of any audiobook you can find and this work, and the Naxos edition of Ulysses after it, are a sublime pairing of artistry and performance. Begin your journey here with Stephen. After you finish, check out a Teaching Company lecture series on Ulysses, then go with Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan through the streets of Dublin with a grown Stephen and Leopold & Molly Bloom. The works can be as transformative for the soul as scripture.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Marianne
- 04-28-11
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
I am reading this novel for a fourth year literature course, and the narrator brings it to life completely. He inhabits the various characters in a way that animates a very dense novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- L
- 03-30-08
Excellent Narration
Not only is this book one of the greatest in the English language, or at least of the 20th Century, it's worth listening to for the narration alone. Fantastic storytelling.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Patrick McCarthy
- 08-31-19
Nobody reads Joyce like Jim Norton
As I've said before, the narrator makes or breaks an audible experience and Jim Norton is always the best, The vast array of voices he is able to convey brings the book alive and at times makes it more comprehensible, (in the case of Ulysses) than it may otherwise have been. I purchased portrait with a different narrator first, and teh inflection rove me away after the first five minutes. So I had to find the one read by this fellow alone. As always, fantastic. As for the the book itself, I am Joyce's biggest fan so what can I say? Loved it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kazuhiko
- 06-17-12
Good story and narration
This one was my first Joyce book. I must say it was not easy reading (listening, rather) probably because of the subject matter that I cannot personally relate to. The book spends a lot of time on the main character's struggle with faith/religion. I was not raised with any specific religion (this does not mean we had no moral standard), and my parents were open about what ideas and career I would chose. So, I had difficulty appreciating this aspect of the story. Nevertheless, the style of Joyce's writing was interesting, and the narrator was great.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful