"The Dead" by James Joyce

Dubliners by James Joyce is a book I've been meaning to reread for many years. Its final and longest story, "The Dead" was made into a film by John Houston in 1987 -- his last. This week I reread Dubliners and watched "The Dead." Both are quite wonderful, capturing Joyce's view (rather negative) of Ireland in the early years of the 20th century. One memory I had of my long-ago reading of "The Dead" was the description of the food served at the house party where most of the story's action takes place. Here it is, though quite long -- illustrated with scenes from the film:

"'Here I am, Aunt Kate!” cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, “ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary.'

"A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes. 

"Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table. ...  

"While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane’s idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. ...  

"Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel’s wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up by Mary Jane, who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding was of Aunt Julia’s making and she received praises for it from all quarters. She herself said that it was not quite brown enough." -- James Joyce, Dubliners (The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dubliners)

Food descriptions -- briefer than this -- appear throughout the book, along with many other wonderfully vivid details about music, a boy's life on the streets and in the countryside, the attitudes of people, and more. From Joyce's biography, one knows he couldn't leave Ireland too soon for his own feelings, and that he lived in exile all his adult life. These stories, besides being so vivid, illustrate for me just what it was that he was eager to escape, although Ireland was the subject of his famous and highly regarded life work.

Joyce and his books may be the subject of more criticism and discussion than almost any recent writer, so I'm not going to offer any more of my opinions or analysis: leave that to the professionals!