James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) 218p.

Joyce’s portrait is one of the most inconclusive autobiographies ever written probably, intentionally so however. Having grown up in a Catholic environment myself and separated myself from its legacy, risen above the conflict with myself that Catholicism eagerly struggles to impose on modern man, it is pleasant to read A Portrait …. Although the theological debate and references are anachronistic to many ears, the themes and deliberations can easily be discovered in young men’s dialogues in our era again. This transferability of a boy’s path from servitude to his community onto the separate independence of the adult intellect makes this Coming of Age novel a classic of all times.