Book # 4 - Ulysses by James Joyce

Well it was bound to happen... I finally got to a book that is highly acclaimed (# 4 on the list!) and did absolutely NOTHING for me. That book being Ulysses by James Joyce. Now I can see why people admire the technique and varying styles within the book... but to me that's all it is. This was a huge chore to get through. The only upside is that it put me soundly to sleep every night for a month and a half. I could probably go on and on about how much I didn't enjoy it. Sure there isn't really a "story", and I'm fine with that but neither did it capture any type of emotion for me. It is just chapter after long chapter in varying experimental styles. To me it is just style over substance. Sure maybe I just don't "get it" but the book seems to try and alienate the common reader at every turn. I'm not sure what kind of person would even enjoy this book. It seems like a book written purely to be studied and not enjoyed. Supposedly it is funny... but I just didn't get the jokes. Maybe Joyce is laughing at me from the afterlife because I actually sat and read the whole darn thing. Maybe for me one of the problems is the length of some of the chapters that are totally experimental. Like there's one chapter that is a nonsensical hallucination that takes a couple of hours to get through. Another chapter is written as someone's thoughts. Now that chapter is unique in the way it captures the fragmented way people think... but 1. I don't care about this character , 2. this character doesn't have novel or interesting thoughts, and 3. it takes at least two hours to read. So I don't think I can really even give it a grade. It gets a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  but is placed only above Atlas Shrugged in my rankings. Also it mentions Don Quixote.