In fact, if Joyce had written nothing at all, that might not have been a bad thing.

I was afflicted with having to read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in high school. In it, Joyce puts forth his theory of art - that to be pure art, it should cause no response whatsoever in the viewer. Joyce is a great writer, and was able to achieve the effect he wanted - to write a book that produces no response whatsoever in the reader (other than the feeling of revulsion at being forced to waste my time reading it). But because his theory of art is rubbish, he wastes his talent producing "art" that is a complete waste, both of his talent and of the reader's time.

Stephen's theories aren't Joyce's theories, and the style in which Joyce writes is never Joyce's voice, in the sense that writers today are always prattling on about 'finding their voice' (the styles of Dubliners, Portrait, Ulysses, and the Wake accomplish very different things).

The tragedy of Portrait is that so many people read it as if it were simple autobiography. It isn't. Stephen is based on the young Joyce, yes, and in the original draft and notes (mostly destroyed, published as Stephen Hero) there's a saccharine sincerity that fits your sense of the book a little better.

But that's not the finished Portrait. In Portrait Joyce makes fun of himself. He's critical of his youthful exuberance. It's a hilarious book for anyone who's ever taken themselves too seriously, which, I think, is all of us.

Would you be able to quote a passage from the book where Joyce claims that that's his view? It's been a long time since I read Portrait of the Artist, but I don't recall that being in the book, nor does it sound like something Joyce would say.

At any rate, even if that really was the goal he set for himself, he failed. Ulysses elicited a wide range of responses from me.

Would I be able to quote it? No. It's in a conversation between Stephen and his friend as they walk around Dublin, and the book describes exactly which streets they walk down and where they turn and whose yard they pass while they're having the conversation. I remember one specific snippet: Stephen asks if lightning strikes a block of wood (stump, maybe?) and blasts it into a specific shape (a cow, maybe?), is that art?

I mean, there was a scene or two in Portrait that I responded to, too. But mainly, it was a protagonist I didn't care about, doing things I didn't care about, with other people I didn't care about, in places I didn't care about. So "no response whatsoever" is a pretty fair summary of my reaction.