Dylan Thomas as a Young Dog

 Dylan Thomas. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940) Thomas was two years old when Joyce published his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I’m pretty sure Thomas’s title is an allusion to Joyce’s novel (which to me feels more like a group of linked short stories). Thomas doesn’t attempt a coherent time-line, though some of his characters appear in two or more of the stories.

The stories themselves, like Joyce’s novel, don’t have much of a plot. Both writers tell us about epiphanies, some large, some small, which trace the development of the artist’s awareness of self and place in the world. The difference, I think, is that Thomas takes religion, respectability, and customary morality less seriously than Joyce, who tends to pomposity. For Joyce, the artist must resist and rebel. For Thomas, the artist should observe and enjoy whatever presents itself to them. Joyce resists moral judgements of the artist's life and work, Thomas ignores them. I think I prefer Thomas. ***