Young Men on the Make

A borrowed racing car flies into Joyce's Dublin with a rich butcher's son aboard, and the whole city turns out to cheer. That is one evening. On another, two men with empty pockets circle the same streets, timing their walk to a girl's evening off. John Banville reads After the Race and Two Gallants as a single study of the young men of James Joyce's Dubliners: what they chase, who indulges them, and who quietly covers the cost. There is also a reading of Lenehan here that Banville offers nervously, and stands by. And he keeps returning to one question: how do men like these get by at all?