James Joyce and Mild Pretention

I've concluded that pretty much everyone in my British literature class is more than mildly pretentious. I don't know if its because we're reading some more-advanced stuff, or because their very natures as English majors cause them to put themselves above those who are less literary in lifestyle, but there are times when I feel like I'd be strung up for my ankles if I ever admitted that I have, indeed, read The Devil Wears Prada.

Other than dealing with that particular group of people, I will say that I am thoroughly enjoying James Joyce's Dubliners, which I'm reading for my term-paper. Although I'm not usually a fan of reading "day-in-the-life" kind of books (as a daily liver of life, I find it rather pointless to do such), this seems to be a different case. Perhaps its because it is a day in the life so different than mine. Perhaps it is because Joyce writes with such a vivid passion. Who knows. Here are some of my favorite passages:

"The journey laid a magical finger on the genuine pulse of life and gallantly the macheinery of human nerves strove to answer the bounding courses of the swift blue animal."

"He knew he would regret in the morning but at present he was glad of the rest, glad of the dar stupor that would cover up his folly."

"Experience has embittered his heart against the world. But all hope had not left him."

"He remembered the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them in his bachelor days and man and evening, as he sat in the little room off the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness had always held him back, and so the books had remained on their shelves. At times he repeated lines to himself and this consoled him."

Even in the mundane, there is a way that Joyce is able to craft and twist to create a story that I find myself falling more empassioned for with each turned page.