Classics you should read, classics you shouldn't

[DRSB]

Joyce is brilliant.

Did you know his first language was Italian, not English?! And he spent a great chunk of his formative years in Triest where he picked up all sorts of Slavic languages and German and probably Hungarian too. How can somebody like that not be brilliant!

[Svartalf]

When his "greatest works" vary between the utterly illegible and the perfectly soporific.

[FBM]

Joyce is brilliant.

It's probably easier to read if you're from Dublin, though.

My first brush with him was forced reading in undergrad.

I avoided him until earlier this year, when I had to read Portrait of the Artist...and write a paper on it. In the course of reading, researching and analyzing, I actually grew some respect for the pretentious fart.

[Shaker]

Classic you shouldn't read:

Ulysses, James Joyce.

I made it through the reading, albeit with guidance. At James Joyce's house in Zurich, (he wrote the thing in Zurich), there are readings with a Joyce-expert who explains the references, like, "the protagonist is standing beside a statue in front of a public pissoir in Dublin", you know, without such pertinent information the reader is lost, but I made it, two chapters a week, over a winter term, well worth it, I'd say, it is a classic one definitely should read!

Yes, I agree, actually. To my mind Ulysses is still the single greatest work of fiction ever written. Anybody thinking of trying it, read it. Anybody who has tried it and given up, read it. To both groups, please, please, please persevere - by the time you get to that big black full stop right at the end you'll thank me for it. I promise