If you think the book is in rough shape,
you should see what it did to my brain.

I finally finished James Joyce's "Ulysses." Aside from reading a short Jungian essay that made little sense to me about a year and a half ago, I didn't know much about the book or author. I made a point not to read the forward, or article on the decision made by John M. Woosley to lift the US ban on the book, until after I had read it in it's entirety. So, now that I have formed my own opinions about what the books means, how I felt about the book, et cetera, I feel myself free to enjoy and consult the millions of other theories and criticisms engendered in the past 75 years. Thus far, I am finding my reading experience was a bit par for the course: fantastically entertaining and fluid at times, while painful and impossible to get from word to word at others.