Dead (version 2)

James Joyce, who lived from 1882 to 1941, was an Irish writer whose later novels, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, changed the shape of modern fiction. Before those books, he wrote Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories about the lives of ordinary people in his native city. It was completed in 1907, but it had a difficult path to publication and finally appeared in 1914. “The Dead” is the last and longest story in the book, and it is often called a novella.

The story describes a Christmas party given by Kate and Julia Morkan, two elderly Dublin ladies, which is attended by their nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife. While the party is festive, full of dancing, drinking and eating, it is also pervaded by political, religious and personal tensions. Joyce lets the conversation drift from music to patriotism, and then to something more private, and the story’s ending, which should be left for the listener to discover, has been analysed by critics for more than a century.

The film director John Huston made a film of the story in 1987, which was his last. Many readers consider the story a perfect piece of writing, with every detail playing its part.

This is the second LibriVox version of the story, and it is divided into four parts, with a total length of about an hour and thirty-six minutes. It is read by a single volunteer. It is a fine entry into Joyce, and it is accessible even to those who find his later work forbidding. Joyce’s attention to detail, to music, food and conversation, gives the party its warmth, and makes the final pages all the more moving.