I know you weren't the mangy dog, dear. But who was? That's the worst of writing without thinking: you write more than you think. I must have been the mangy dog, but I don't feel at all self-pitiful today. Damn the nonsense. Forget it. Let him remember too, cried Mr Casey to her from across the table, the language with which the priests and the priests' pawns broke Parnell's heart and hounded him into his grave. Let him remember that too when he grows up. The cold sunlight was weaker and Brother Michael was standing at his bedside with a bowl of beef-tea . He was glad for his mouth was hot and dry. He could hear them playing in the playgrounds. And the day was going on in the college just as if he were there. Yes, do. Yes, go up and tell the rector on him, Dedalus, said Nasty Roche, because he said that he'd come in tomorrow again and pandy you.

Bobby sees Prof. Twilley to ask why he's not connecting with the class material after all his years of being otherwise funny. Twilley refers him to the "flow chart of funny" and assures Bobby that he hasn't been "properly trained." He assigns Bobby supplemental reading with some books. He came out on the landing above the entrance hall and looked about him. That was where Hamilton Rowan had passed and the marks of the soldiers' slugs were there. And it was there that the old servants had seen the ghost in the white cloak of a marshal. His face was glowing with anger and Stephen felt the glow rise to his own cheek as the spoken words thrilled him. Mr Dedalus uttered a guffaw of coarse scorn. It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak. When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was! It was better to go to bed to sleep. Only prayers in the chapel and then bed. He shivered and yawned. It would be lovely in bed after the sheets got a bit hot. First they were so cold to get into. He shivered to think how cold they were first. But then they got hot and then he could sleep. It was lovely to be tired. He yawned again. Night prayers and then bed: he shivered and wanted to yawn. It would be lovely in a few minutes. He felt a warm glow creeping up from the cold shivering sheets, warmer and warmer till he felt warm all over, ever so warm and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.And he saw Dante in a maroon velvet dress and with a green velvet mantle hanging from her shoulders walking proudly and silently past the people who knelt by the water's edge. He saw him lift his hand towards the people and heard him say in a loud voice of sorrow over the waters: Il poeta gallese Dylan Thomas racconta la sua gioventù rendendola mitica e magica, senza perdere la tenerezza. Di questi dieci racconti, almeno cinque sono bellissimi. In “Chi vorresti che fosse qui con noi?” Thomas e il suo amico Raymond, di dieci anni più vecchio di lui, partono per una lunga camminata. Raymond, nel giro di poco tempo, ha perso il padre, il fratello e la sorella; sua madre è immobilizzata su una carrozzella. Then the higher line fellows began to come down along the matting in the middle of the refectory, Paddy Rath and Jimmy Magee and the Spaniard who was allowed to smoke cigars and the little Portuguese who wore the woolly cap. And then the lower line tables and the tables of the third line. And every single fellow had a different way of walking. He heard the voice of the prefect of the chapel saying the last prayers. He prayed it too against the dark outside under the trees.

Dylan Thomas (identificabil pentru cine ştie cît timp cu inubliabilul do not go gentle into that good night) a construit Portretul artistului ca tînăr cîine din zece povestiri care-şi adună conţinutul din experineţele directe ale lui Thomas, toate legate de vîrstele primelor descoperiri revelatorii: copilăria şi adolescenţa. Desigur, ele pot fi citite în orice ordine preferaţi, fără teamă că pierdeţi vreun fir care le ordonează (asta deşi există cîteva personaje şi peisaje recurente, dar fără ca ele să condiţioneze cursul lecturii). Citite în ordine cronologică, ele lasă să se vadă o gradaţie a vîrstelor şi a transformărilor care îmbogăţeşte foarte mult experienţa de lectură. Out here, Dedalus. Lazy little schemer. I see schemer in your face. Where did you break your glasses? Come now, come now, come now! Can we not have our opinions whatever they are without this bad temper and this bad language? It is too bad surely. George Hooping or Little Cough in ‘Extraordinary Little Cough’ gets taken in by two bullies and runs miles all night on the Rhossili sands. I wouldn't like to be Simon Moonan and Tusker Cecil Thunder said. But I don't believe they will be flogged. Perhaps they will be sent up for twice nine .That skeleton is generally a private vice that is not too vicious and may be both comic and pathetic. From the first three stories, “The Peaches,” “A Visit to Grandpa’s,” and “Patricia, Edith, and Arnold,” readers learn that Dylan’s Uncle Jim is drinking his pigs away; Cousin Gwilym has his own makeshift chapel and rehearses his coming ministry there; Grandfather Dan dreams he is driving a team of demon horses and has delusions about being buried; the Thomas family’s maid, Patricia, is involved with the sweetheart of the maid next door. In the next pair of stories, “The Fight” and “Extraordinary Little Cough,” the pains and pleasures of boyhood begin to affect the hero, chiefly in finding a soul mate, a fellow artist. He also encounters the horror of viciousness in his companions. The remainder of the stories deal with young adulthood and are varied in subject and treatment—from the recital of a tale told to the narrator to the final story in which the narrator for the first time becomes the protagonist, although an ineffectual one. Most of the stories include an episode set at night, and it seems a pity that the best of Thomas’s night stories, the ghostly “The Followers,” could not have been included in the collection. All blessed themselves and Mr Dedalus with a sigh of pleasure lifted from the dish the heavy cover pearled around the edge with glistening drops. Published when Thomas was in his mid-twenties, this is a series of 10 sketches, some of which are more explicitly autobiographical (as in first person, with a narrator named Dylan Thomas) than others. There is a rough chronological trajectory to the stories, with the main character a mischievous boy, then a grandstanding teenager, then a young journalist in his first job. The countryside and seaside towns of South Wales recur as settings, and – as will be no surprise to readers of Under Milk Wood – banter-filled dialogue is the priority. I most enjoyed the childhood japes in the first two pieces, “The Peaches” and “A Visit to Grandpa’s.” The rest failed to hold my attention, but I marked out two long passages that to me represent the voice and scene-setting that the Dylan Thomas Prize is looking for. The latter is the ending of the book and reminds me of the close of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” Fleming moved heavily out of his place and knelt between the two last benches. The other boys bent over their theme-books and began to write. A silence filled the classroom and Stephen, glancing timidly at Father Arnall's dark face, saw that it was a little red from the wax he was in.

If we are a priest-ridden race we ought to be proud of it! They are the apple of God's eye. Touch them not, says Christ, for they are the apple of My eye. Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from the door. Father Dolan will be in every day to see if any boy, any lazy idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day. The bell rang for night prayers and he filed out of the study hall after the others and down the staircase and along the corridors to the chapel. The corridors were darkly lit and the chapel was darkly lit. Soon all would be dark and sleeping. There was cold night air in the chapel and the marbles were the colour the sea was at night. The sea was cold day and night: but it was colder at night. It was cold and dark under the seawall beside his father's house. But the kettle would be on the hob to make punch. Then Brother Michael went away and after a while the fellow out of third of grammar turned in towards the wall and fell asleep.On the day of the Talent Show, Prof. Twilley takes it upon himself to call Hank at work to get him to attend and show support for Bobby's clowning. Hank is horrified when he hears the Professor tell Bobby to practice a freaky bit and leaves the office after realizing his mistake. He crouched down between the sheets, glad of their tepid glow. He heard the fellows talk among themselves about him as they dressed for mass. It was a mean thing to do, to shoulder him into the square ditch, they were saying.

You have a queer name, Dedalus, and I have a queer name too, Athy. My name is the name of a town . Your name is like Latin.He was very decent to say that. That was all to make him laugh. But he could not laugh because his cheeks and lips were all shivery: and then the prefect had to laugh by himself. Stephen looked at the faces of the fellows but they were all looking across the playground. He wanted to ask somebody about it. What did that mean about the smugging in the square? Why did the five fellows out of the higher line run away for that? It was a joke, he thought. Simon Moonan had nice clothes and one night he had shown him a ball of creamy sweets that the fellows of the football fifteen had rolled down to him along the carpet in the middle of the refectory when he was at the door. It was the night of the match against the Bective Rangers; and the ball was made just like a red and green apple only it opened and it was full of the creamy sweets. And one day Boyle had said that an elephant had two tuskers instead of two tusks and that was why he was called Tusker Boyle but some fellows called him Lady Boyle because he was always at his nails, paring them. Mr Casey was still struggling through his fit of coughing and laughter. Stephen, seeing and hearing the hotel keeper through his father's face and voice, laughed. foarte multe dintre povestiri, personajul central, care e, cum spuneam, o ipostază a autorului, e mai mult martor la scene care se deschid în faţa lui şi care îl implică, vrînd, nevrînd. În prima, „Piersicile“, asistă la reprezentaţiile în forţă date de unchiul său, un personaj macho, dintr-un colţ al Ţării Galilor, un teritoriu care plezneşte, ca şi unchiul Jim, de vitalitate, în ciuda aerului mai degrabă precar al vieţilor din partea locului. Într-o criză de beţie, unchiul Jim îi alungă prietenul, mai gingaş şi mai sclifosit, venit să petreacă vacanţa împreună cu Dylan, iar nepotului nu-i rămîne decît să fluture, nedumerit, din batistă, în urma maşinii care ridică praful şi împrăştie orătăniile. Tot martor tăcut e şi în scenele din care se construieşte „Patricia, Edith şi Arnold“, o povestire despre două prietene, ambele angajate pentru munci de menaj, eventual cu servicii de bonă incluse, care descoperă că au fost duse de nas de aceaşi Arnold, aparent îndrăgostit de amîndouă. Copilul asistă la preparativele confruntării dintre cei trei şi la scena propriu zisă, trădînd, în acest timp, prin gesturi sau reacţii „de contrast“ o gamă vastă de senzaţii în raport cu încurcăturile adulţilor. Tot martor, dar ceva mai implicat, va fi şi într-o povestire care deja e plasată în adolescenţă, un text-cheie pentru întreg volumul şi preferatul meu: „Întocmai ca nişte căţelandri“. Aici e vorba despre Dylan puştiul fascinat de periferii şi de locuri de trecere, indecise, provizorii. De data asta, un pod de cale ferată e locul unei întîlniri (cu alţi doi adolescenţi forţaţi să-şi asume o maturizare forţată, după nişte escapade amoroase încărcate de consecinţe), dar şi locul prielnic unei stări de fond, esenţiale pentru identitatea celui care povesteşte.