Take a photo of a barcode or cover
I found about 15% of it to be 5* - really good, funny, deep, poetic, conceptually stimulating etc, but it’s difficult to pluck the story out from whatever the majority of the book is. He apparently wasn’t elitist but even in the introduction it quoted Joyce saying ‘I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.’ Probably tongue in cheek but acknowledging a genuine aim it seems. The style of expression is purposefully chaotic, the links abstract and obscure. It does work well, for the first hundred pages or two, it’s fascinating and interesting, I mean wow! Everything thrown at you. I don’t doubt the ‘genius’. But there are lists and paragraphs of nonsense, made up words, for effect. I totally lost the plot and needed to read the introduction half way through. Clearly there are lots of allusions, references, metaphors that went right over my head. At the beginning all the sentences were short, full stops in weird places and. They got longer. at the end it was a ‘chapter’ that didn’t even have commas let alone full stops. It was bonkers, here and there bits come at you that make sense but what an effort. I had to lie down after I finished it. Worth reading for the literary experience and to know what is possible, to throw out the boundaries as it were, and it definitely has something magical that will stay with me, although perhaps that is just saucy Molly! Shockingly ‘modern,’ and must have been much more so in its time. Part of me wants to try again (but I won’t there are too many good and accessible books!), it would be fun perhaps in a book club, to have someone who understood it explain would be interesting, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. It was like a crime story where there is no way you are going to solve it because it has been written in a way such that it is impossible, unless you’re a ‘genius’ yourself.