A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, providing an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive, this coming-of-age story is a tour de force of style and technique.
An excellent orientation to Joyce's growth as an artist as seen through the eyes of the protagonist, Stephen Daedelus. If you want to tackel Joyce, doing it by reading this book is much easier than trying to do so with 'Ulysses'.