Is it worth the struggle?

Except for too badly written and too boring, I have yet to encounter a book that fits into any of those categories.

I originally wanted to read Ulysses just to say I read it, but I loved it so much that I'd read it again. Baudolino isn't that big a deal because it's in very simple language, really isn't all that long (since when does 500 pages constitute a long book?), and I find that it makes perfect sense after reading some Baudrillard, although it certainly isn't his best fiction.

The Lord of the Rings I read just to have done with people bugging me about it, and it bored me to tears. And that freaking Updike novel I kept reading because I came to the conclusion a long time ago that no bad book would ever beat me; if I pick it up on my terms, I'm putting it down on my terms, end of story. And my terms have, for a long time, been "I will finish every book I start".

There's also books that are terrible if you read them for long stretches, but are brilliant if you take them in short bursts. Tristram Shandy was like that for me.

This is a topic that always burns me up. I started rea. Ok, well, it actually makes sense. Somewhere theres a post about book people and movie people. But anwyway.

I started reading Ulysses four or five times between senior year in HS and my second year at college. I made it about half way (chapterwise, that fucking Circe chapter...) twice, my longest trek. It's DEFINITELY WORTH IT. It's a really good book. There's some overpriced companion called the New Bloom's Day Book or somesuch bullshit like that. It's helpful, more elucidation than interpretation.

Inifinte JEst was another one I started several times. But that one. I advice buying two copies or something. Danielewski was onto something when he put footnotes instead of endnotes. Fucking flipping back and forth made me loath it. But IJ isn't that challenging, it's just annoying and long.

It's really just mental discipline. Do you want to be someone who has the strength of self to read a fucking book, or are you too lazy. You could always read some fucking chicken soup book or something to give you inspiration..

Please, please be that person. You seem quick to dismiss my own tastes (of which, incidentally, you have no idea), but seem to struggle with articulating the reasons for your own biases. Biasi? It's a quandary! Does Joyce answer that question, too?

I don't find Baudolino directionless. Well, the plot is, but the constructs that hold it together I find quite well done, and I'm more interested in what Eco has to say (through the medium of fiction) about Baudrillard and performative aspects of truth and language than I am in finding out what happens to the characters. And I'm not saying that you aren't capable of enjoying those things too, but those might not be the things that you wanted to get out of the book, and I don't blame you for not liking it.

Ulysses is a whole other story. I find it to be downright funny in parts, wildly creative, rarely dull (the exception being the Nighttown sequence), and full of a lot of things that I really really like in literature (engagement with other traditions, intertextuality, old forms in new roles, pastiche and parody), and a few things that, as a writer, I want to try. I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like it, but I can also see how it managed to get its reputation for greatness.

I can't comment on the other books (except LOTR, which I've already mentioned, although I did think it had a few good points), because I haven't read them, but they are all on my list, actually.

Because something is worthless, on every single level, I'm lazy for not wanting to bother with it, regardless of what people say?

it's you that's being dismissive not me.

if you feel this way why should anyone bother to defend them against you?

I burnt my tongue on my lunch. Damn miso beef. Anyway, it's clear we all have vastly different tastes, and don't you think that's good?

That's funny. I'm kind of the reverse of that. When I was a snotty kid, I thought abstract art was like really deep, maaaan. Now I'm much more likely to find it a bit yawnsome.

As far as Ulysses is concerned, I have to say that I didn't like it. That isn't to say that I don't appreciate why others like it, but I am starting to tire of the superiority complex shown by some of its admirers on this board. The reason I don't like it is quit simply that I find the language affected. It might be a great work of art, but it comes over to me as written by a word nerd. Finnegans Wake I can't get through at all because that tendency, as far as I can see, goes out of control.

Yikes! I'm a word nerd and proud of it! You do know that the name of this board is I Love Books, right?

Logorrheic.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of
their brazen bells: ET UNAM SANCTAM CATHOLICAM ET APOSTOLICAM ECCLESIAM: the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with
their lances and their shields.

having said that i am one of those people who isn't the best at following complicated books,and this can piss me off at times,but there's no point worrying about whether that will happen...for the moment though,i do tend to read shorter books,just because i don't spend as much time as i would like to reading,so i prefer to get a good variety of reading...

ulysseys seems to make people particularly defensive,with other books people are quite content to say that they didn't like it,but people seem to think ulysses is some sort of intelectual conspiracy to
make people look stupid...
i havent read it yet,but i know that my dad,who would have no time for postmodern shenanigans or whatever people write it off as,considers it his favourite book...
anyone read finnegans wake?
now that sounds difficult to say the least...

Gravity's Rainbow -- I don't find the prose dense at all, but that's probably because the way I read focuses on the extreme immediate phrase and not the whole sentence. Great cornerbacks are supposed to have short memories -- I say reading GR could use a short memory too and simply enjoy the sex and the jokes.

Ulysses is a different can of worms. First time I read it I was dumbfounded. But like others, I assumed it was my fault for not getting it and read it again, and the familiarity with it cut through the opacity of text and led me to realize the immense beauty of a chapter like "Sirens." And reading it a third+ time, that's when I was able to hear the jokes and the accents (and also the sex). On a purely primary level, Ulysses is an utter joy. (I'm sure I could map this experience onto Finnegans Wake (of course, on a larger scale) if only I could commit myself to another 5 months to reread it.)

Underworld though I only read half.

The moral: enjoy a book for sex, humor and the sheer rhythm of its prose.

This is not a judgment on the character of anyone who disagrees with me, and I hope I won't be personally insulted (as "pretentious," "tasteless," "snobby," "a word-nerd," or any of the words that get flung around when people get into a fight about Ulysses and similarly long books) by anyone who happened not to like War and Peace.