James Joyce is one of the best authors 5o ever live! First of all kudos to the Easton Press for a beautiful, high quality leather bound book. Lovely raised spines, paper that makes me want to touch it again and again, gorgeous real moiré cloth end covers, and sumptuous gilded page edges on all 3 sides, plus a generously sized ribbon marker. This book is a biography of the forming years of James Joyce. Place and time period must be taken into account, as always what is happening in our world and in our space is definitive in forming our beliefs, ideas, morals, judgments, our immediate and future decisions. Definitely one of the most difficult literary reads I have encountered to date. It took me over a week to read this book, and it wants reading again in order for me to gain more understanding. It was like walking at a quick pace through the grocery store and knowing I was missing part of what was on the shelves. Joyce seems to ponder things continually, it seems his mind is never at rest, even when he is observing something his mind is thinking, wondering, defining, a multitude of ideas and thoughts about that thing he is observing. James attends a catholic school from his first school years all the way through college, the reader lives within the canyons of Stephen Dedalus' (ie - James Joyce) mind, indeed Stephen keeps us so close to his impressions, beliefs, emotions, and insights that the reader can catch a glimpse of the top of the canyon walls only intermittently. But this allows the reader to be lead right where the author wants us, we are given such an intimate portrait of the most formative years of Joyce through Stephen. It is impossible to miss understanding how Stephen came to his conclusions and it is impossible to miss the deep intellectual intelligence that James Joyce possessed. This work is also a walk through history of Ireland from about 1895-1910/1912. A time of the beginning of a huge upheaval in Ireland and movements put in motion that changed the face of the Irish people forever. One wonders if Stephen/Joyce would have taken the same direction in his adult life if he had not been subjected to a far less intensive time during his most formative years. Much to ponder here, and a wonderful study into cause and effect.