[asofel]

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I haven't read Ulysses, but this type of attitude always strikes me as more elitist than those who claim to understand Ulysses. It's basically saying, "If I don't understand it, no one else possibly can!"

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Not so - I'm not saying it's too dense to understand because I don't understand it, it's because when I've had a "learned" person try to explain it to me they basically just give a list of references to other sources that list sources of people who list sources regarding the content of the book. No one I have ever talked to has had an independent thought about Ulysses including my English professors. They all know whatever they know from having "learned" it from somewhere else.

I'm sure there's a small number of Irish literature experts out there that can critically evaluate Ulysses independently, but that's about it.

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This is exactly what you're saying.

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Did you even read what I wrote. My experience with lots of people including English professors is that they don't really understand it - they can only point to references of other people that say something about it that they take to be true. I've never met anyone who can actually explain it without having had it explained to them first. This is not the same as me picking it up, not understanding it, putting it down and saying "no one understands it".

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I I took Ulysses as a junior in high school. I certainly didn't follow most of it, even with reading it with the annotations. Thankfully my professor was actually a Joycean scholar, and I'm told among the top 25 or so in the world who actually knew wtf was going on...he was pretty trippy, almost like he did a fair amount of drugs when he was younger...because of him I have to say my experience in the class was amazing and I ended up writing my term paper on time travel in Ulysses. I can't even begin to remember wtf i based that on now......I guess my point is that some people do understand it, but its so dense, complex, and just full of references and such that its no shame to have tried reading it and not really grasp whats going on.

What would frustrate me is taking it with a professor who pretends to know whats up but really just quotes others...as it seems others have experienced here.

To me Ulysses was a great but frustrating experience, one I will probably revisit some day, along with other literature, when I have more time to just sit and think and wonder.