John Banville on James Joyce's Dubliners
"If you can put your sins into a good, entertaining and halfway plausible story, you'll get away with it."
19 episodes with John Banville, 16 films and 10 essays.
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Free film
An Introduction to Dubliners
Walking Blind Streets with John Banville
Kaag walks North Richmond Street to ask John Banville about 'Araby' — first love as a private sacrament, and the paralysis it cracks.
Read the introduction →- 2 Three Words on the First Page Episode 2 · 10 min
- 3 Look What He's Doing Episode 3 · 13 min
- 4 The East and the Circles Episode 4 · 13 min
- 5 All the Seas of the World Episode 5 · 9 min
- 6 Young Men on the Make Episode 6 · 13 min
- 7 The Perverse Madonna Episode 7 · 9 min
- 8 The Confession Box Episode 8 · 9 min
- 9 Poor Little Chandler Episode 9 · 11 min
- 10 The Copied Day Episode 10 · 12 min
- 11 The Clay Game Episode 11 · 11 min
- 12 No Blame Attached to Anyone Episode 12 · 12 min
- 13 Hyenas at the Lion's Print Episode 13 · 11 min
- 14 I'm Asking for My Rights Episode 14 · 13 min
- 15 The Lie They Survive By Episode 15 · 12 min
- 16 The Terror of Freedom Episode 16 · 13 min
- 17 The Ribs Beneath the Skin Episode 17 · 12 min
- 18 The Journey Westward Episode 18 · 14 min
- 19 The Standing Stones Episode 19 · 13 min
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In Conversation With – Where this book meets another
Dublin as a City of the Mind
Kitcher and Banville converge on Joyce's Dublin as a city of the mind: Banville's paralyzed Dubliners, and Kitcher's Bloom, the man who chose freedom.
Go deeper →The Dead and the Yes: Joyce's Two Endings in Mercy
For Banville and Kitcher, 'The Dead' and Molly's 'yes' are the same turn: Joyce ending both Dublin books in mercy, holding the living and the dead together.
Go deeper →The Art of Not Saying It: Joyce and James on the Work of Not Knowing
Joyce's economy and James's late fog reach the same place: characters who work daily at not knowing. Banville and Greenwell map what that refusal costs.
Go deeper →Become What You Are: Joyce, Nietzsche, and the Terror of Self-Creation
Nietzsche demands you become what you are; Joyce shows why most people won't. Banville and Martin read Zarathustra's challenge against Dublin's paralysis.
Go deeper →
The Questions these books keep starting →
John Banville on "The Dead": Gabriel's Anti-Epiphany in the Snow
In 'The Dead,' Greta's memory of Michael Furey breaks Gabriel's self-image; Banville reads the final snow not as elegy but as Gabriel's poem of selfhood.
Go deeper →Eveline at the Gangplank: Why She Doesn't Board the Ship
Banville reads Eveline's refusal at the gangplank not as failed nerve but as a decision: the escape Frank offers is a Dublin transplanted to Buenos Aires.
Go deeper →Should I Read Dubliners Before Ulysses?
Read Dubliners first: it teaches Joyce's Dublin, his method of the unsaid, and his diagnosis of paralysis — the groundwork Ulysses assumes.
Go deeper →- Was Charlotte Lucas Right to Marry Mr. Collins? Sadie Stein on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
- What Does the A on Hester's Chest Actually Mean? Megan Marshall on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
- Was Thoreau Selfish? The Question of Self-Reliance John Kaag on Henry David Thoreau's Walden
- What Is Kant's Categorical Imperative? Paul Guyer on Immanuel Kant