Ulysses

Now I wouldn\'t say that I am a genus but I believe that I am pretty smart. This book made almost no since to me whatsoever.

Though called the best work in literary modernism, i barely had the ability to get my head round of it. You better first get your PhD in literature before going through this one. so obscure and so unreadabl.
it took him seven years to write and it probably takes me 14 years to read!

This is a transformative book. There was the me before I read it and a new me once I finished it. It took me four tries, and I had to wait until I was 40 before I knew I was really ready, but it was worth it. I think the key to success is not to take it too seriously and don't dwell on the bits you don't understand.

I can't believe how angry some get if they don't find a book "easy". If you don't understand Ulysses, you should listen to it on tape; there is an excellent professional version I have heard, but you'd have to listen around for a voice (or voices; the one I heard has a reader, a character voice and also a woman who does Molly in the last chapter). You really are doing yourself a dis-service if you do not dedicate the time to really digesting this book. Granted, a lot of it is a humor that modern Americans who haven't read widely wouldn't find funny, but the wit of the characters (Joyce, in other words) and the incredible, complex, true-to-life depth of the inner workings of thought, of conversation and personalities is so unique. The allusions and the references are not necessary to understand entirely if it's too much for you, but there is no other book like this, no richer, more up-lifting or understanding book than this is literature, period. If you believe a person has to have a PhD to understand or enjoy this, as one worthy gentleman so eloquently put it, I think on the contrary you'd have to be a TV sitcom addict not to see the beauty in this book, let alone to be angry that you couldn't "get it".

Oh goodness, folks! I enjoyed Ulysses and Harry Potter equally. Harry Potter was a success because he helped to introduce many children (my generation especially) to the world of reading. One is no better than the other. You are not superior because you understand Ulysses!

Well, Carl Heerwagen, I am a simple German woman without a PhD in English and I did understand Ulysses very well?! Start off easy with Jane Austen, helps you to get used to elaborate Victorian English. After that, anyone should manage (if I could, so could you?). Maybe you are too used to todays' Written Fast Food, like mentioned somewhere down here, as Twilight and Harry Potter.

Jeff is right: Ulysses is one of the greatest comic novels in any language. It's never left print, and there's a reason; NO writer has ever caught the actions, motivations, and inner thoughts of ordinary people this well.

Yes, for sure, a very difficult book to read,indeed. However, I think Ulysses is a major litrary achievement. YOU guys will be surprised to know that it took seven years of its author's lifetime to write. I DARE anyone to give me a match that belongs to the contemporary period. I feel sorry for ourselves that we are calling Twilight and Harry Potter masterpieces, today. Where are you, JOYCE???

This book can only be read by an english major in Itish literature. I found it totally unreadable to me. I read books for plot, not for fancy literature tricks. I only recommend this if you are doing a term paper for your masters or Phd.

The single most important book ever published in the English language. Every reading reveals the beauty, the skill and the ear of a writer who is without peer.