Before Daybreak

Joyces After the Race is a seemingly simple tale, historically unloved by critics. Yet when magnified and dismantled, the story yields astounding political, philosophic, and moral intricacy. In Before Daybreak, Ciln Owens shows that After the Race is much more than a story about Dublin at the time of the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup Race: in reality, it is a microcosm of some of the issues most central to Joycean scholarship. These issues include large-scale historical concernsin this case, radical nationalism and the centennial of Robert Emmets rebellion. Owens also explains the temporary and local issues reflected in Joyces language, organisation, and silences. He traces Joyces narrative technique to classical, French, and Irish traditions. Additionally, After the Race reflects Joyces internal conflict between emotional allegiance to Christian orthodoxy and contemporary intellectual scepticism. If the dawning of Joyces singular power, range, subtlety, and learning can be identified in a seemingly elementary text like After the Race, this study implicitly contends that any Dubliners story can be mined to reveal the intertextual richness, linguistic subtlety, parodic brilliance, and cultural poignancy of Joyces art. Owenss meticulous work will stimulate readers to explore Joyces stories with the same scrutiny in order to comprehend and relish how Joyce writes.