A boy, in absolute love with a girl he has hardly exchanged a few words with, leaves his childlike ways and tries to visit a bazaar to buy her a present. His uncle, having forgotten his wish to go, comes back home late and when the boy finally arrives, only a few stalls are still open. He does not dare to buy anything, and “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” [the end]
From a storytelling point of view, I love the descriptions that Joyce gives us. The houses gazing at each other. “where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothes and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.” These are amazing, gripping descriptions of a boy’s world.
Even the romantic descriptions, which can be very cliche written from a young boy’s perspective, are good.
I am not sure though that I ‘get’ the story. It is a coming of age event, he is finally acknowledged by “his” girl and can’t wait to fulfill her request. He fails… and then considers himself the fool of vanity. Wasn’t it his uncle’s fault? Is it an event that describes both the coming of age and the realization that we’re all love’s fools?
I cannot seem to care much for the boy’s anguish, and the revelation after the conflict does not truly seem to resolve for me.
