Jonty Claypole

speaker

9,840 appearances 30 recordings 3 series first heard Dec 2025 last heard 8 Sep

Jonty Claypole’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 30 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 6.

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Secret Life of Books · James Joyce 1: Dubliners · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

He's a pretentious drunkard and misogynist who put himself and his writing ahead of his wife, children and all other relationships in his life. matched

He was an Irish patriot and torchbearer for Irish cultural revival. matched

He was a Francophile expat who gave Ireland to slip early on and never looked back. matched

And for most of us, he's a guy in little glasses and a hat who wrote a very long book that is almost impossible to read. matched

For those who aren't sure what to make of James Joyce, this is your perfect starter pack. matched

Hang on, hang on, hang on. matched

You don't just pass over a pun as good as that. matched

The long and winding and often whining road to Dublin is very good. matched

Go on. matched

Oh, thank you, Sophie. matched

And thanks for preparing this one. matched

Before we even start it, we do have to say that for all the times we've said in this podcast that an inanimate object is a character, the Yorkshire Moors and... matched

The Brontes, London and Dickens, all of those pale in comparison to the extent to which Dublin is the central character of Dubliners. matched

Dublin is Odysseus in Dubliners. matched

And all the stories, all the characters we encounter are just aspects of the primo character Dublin. matched

So Dubliners is a group of 15 short stories all set in, yep, you guessed it, Dublin towards the end of the 19th century when Joyce himself was a child and young man. matched

They're mostly about people from Dublin struggling middle and lower middle classes with a few cameos from the poshos and the working classes who hover around the edges. matched

The opening story is from the point of view of a young boy whose local priest and mentor has just died. matched

Then we move into a sequence around other young people and their small scale struggles. matched

Two boys playing truant from school and getting into a mildly worrying situation, a very worrying situation. matched

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