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Title: Readers Are Idiots
Review: I didn't think I'd be writing books reviews 30 years after leaving school. But... There is a certain class of author -- George Meredith was one of the first to express this viewpoint -- who has the opinion "if you can't figure out what this is all about in the first chapter, you are intellectually unworthy to read my book." That is arrogance of the first order. Joyce, Faulkner (in some cases), and others of the "I'm too deep for you, dummy" school have massive good press from academics. Books like this keep them in tenure, one can devote a whole semester to explaining what is happening on Bloomsday. If you don't have to read this book, you shouldn't bother. Good books don't have to be 'literary', just have to be readable and make sense. There are of course good moments in Ulysses, especially if you have ever been to an Irish pub, but you really have to dig for them.
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