Christmas Past 2009, 2

2. I've never read much Joyce. 'The Dead' is masterful and set on the last day of Christmas. But I've heard tell of a Christmas scene in A Portrait of Stephen's aunts arguing over Parnell and his legacy. Christmas memories for me recall sniping aunts (my grandmother and her sisters) around the dinner table, monopolising the conversation. And what was being disputed? Turning points in the nation's governance? No. Usually it was the routes taken by long-defunct Dublin buses that caused the most rigorous debate.

A resolution: read more Joyce.