It was John Huston’s last movie and stars his daughter Angelica as Gabriel’s wife, Gretta. Arroyo did such a fine job of it, it IS worth noting that, if you can’t make it to or through the story of “The Dead” this Advent or Christmas season, the movie of the same name is absolutely flawless. While there is no need to review what the story looked like on stage, as Mr.

However, nothing in Ireland was ever that simple, so what begins as a pleasant evening out morphs into a broken “pledge” (not to drink) on the part of one struggling alcoholic, a civil war of words between a woman who believes in “Home Rule” (a Free Ireland) and her dancing partner professor Gabriel Conroy, Gabriel’s own prosaic and misguided attempt at a encomium on the evening, and finally, in the devastating conclusion, Gabriel’s wife’s remembrance-of-things-past about her own one true love who died so many, many years ago. The plot seems straightforward enough: an annual Christmas dinner held in Dublin by two “old maid” aunts, Kate and Julia, and their young niece, Mary Jane, attended by friends and relatives. Indeed, Raymond Arroyo, writing in these pages fifteen years ago, reviewed the theatrical production based on this story. It sure doesn’t sound like the title of a Christmas story, but “The Dead” (actually it sounds more like a Halloween tale) by James Joyce is either a long short-story or short novella that captures turn-of-the century Ireland still then under British rule.

The dead book joyce