Reading the Classics discussion

Discuss "A Little Cloud" here.

Basically a man with an average life: a job, a wife and a child, runs into an old friend who left Dublin and found success and a colorful life; and he mourns the life he could have had if he'd had the nerve to chase his dreams. (I'm sure that is a run on sentence and poor punctuation usage.) :^)

These stories all seem very sad in their own ways. Disappointment, disillusion, grief and sadness.

Is there any happiness to be found in Ireland?

I'm sure there is happiness to be found in ireland, I just don't think Joyce found it. He left & lived in Britain & the continent for the rest of his life. Maybe to escape this?

I'm not sure I agree with the average vs. colorful life interpretation. I kinda relate to the guy in the feeling of wanting what the other has for a minute. But then he does speak very well of having wife to his cool friend tho, and he bought her a very expensive present, and feels guilty about making the baby cry. He also thinks his friend is not as classy as he remembered.

What I'm trying to say here is that to me this is a story about a common contradiction: on one hand, the guy built the life he wanted, maybe he could have been less shy about writing poetry, but all in all he chose what he has and likes it. He longs for something different when he sees it, but I'm not sure he would trade one thing for the other.

Maybe he doesn't want his friends life per se, but it seems to me he wonders what would have happened if he'd followed his heart and written poetry. Kinda the path not taken feeling.

I definitely think he wishes he had done something more at least with his career. "Gallaher was his inferior in birth and education. He was sure he could do something better than his friend had ever done, or could ever do, something higher than mere tawdry journalism if he only got the chance." He feels that he should have made more of himself than he did, that he should have tried harder to pursue his dreams. I don't think that he doesn't love having his little family, I think he just wishes he could have had both.

For the most part I agree with much that is said here. I think LIttle Chandler was working out his ambivalent feelings about his life until the baby cries and his wife returns, with the accusation born of frustration with the child's cry and perhaps guilt for leaving the child alone ("What have you done to him?"), but the shock is for the father. He catches the look in his wife's eyes, "sustained for one moment the gaze of her eyes and his heart closed together as he met the hatred in them." At the very end, the child cries less but for Chandler "tears of remorse started to his eyes." All the effort he made to reconcile himself to his life, to love and appreciate his wife and get past the envy for his friend's life, is torn to shreds in that moment. The moment of reconciliation with himself and his life was too fragile to survive his wife's animosity.

His friend left Dublin and became successful. On his way to meet him, 8 years after he last saw him, Little Chandler takes in the Dublin scenery and comes to the conclusion, if one wants to be successful, one must leave Dublin.

On the way, he also ponders what a great job Gallaher has at the London Press. In turn, he wonders if he could write poetry. Could he come off as melancholy enough?

When meeting his friend, he hears of Gallaher's wild life abroad in immoral places, and of his friend's resolution not to marry. Even though Little Chandler had previously spoken very highly of his marriage, all of a sudden, his views on his own wedded bliss take a turn for the worse. Now, he, by all accounts, feels like a prisoner too.

Alas! the power of suggestion! The influences we place ourselves under, and the shaping control they hold over our minds! This, by far, is the best story of the lot so far. It hits so close to home, to those of us approaching middle age. It begs the question: are you happy with your life? Do you have a friend who has outperformed you in life? Has he or she experienced things you wished to do yourself? Do you regret this because you are just as, if not more, capable of making those things happen for yourself? Do you look up to that person so much that his or her opinions expressed change the way you feel about your own life?

We cannot base our opinion on our own lives on what other people think. I daresay that if Gallaher had said, "Oh, you a married? What a blessing, you lucky dog you! I wish I could find someone to settle down with;" - that Little Chandler would have stopped and bought the coffee, went home and kissed his wife and baby and gone to bed thanking God for such a wonderful, moral life!