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why does the question of whether one is or is not "stupid" come into play?
it's just a different way of reading. you can work your way into it. once you figure it out for yourself, it offers alot of possibilities for doing other kinds of work. it can open your head.
there are crib sheets you can get ahold of for ulysses that help with seeing the structure and with some of the allusions. i read it with a set of them. i think most people do. they're a way of getting let in. there's nothing wrong with using them: you aren't less a skilled reader for it.
finnegans wake is more a challenge: all surfaces and dreamings. it's not clear there's a thing to get. but there are many fantastically lovely bits.
but i'm not a particular fan of straight narrative fiction. i think it presents a flat world full of flat characters in the main. maybe this is the sort of situation working with joyce gets you into. it's how i landed there i think. but i spent quite a long time working on joyce's work.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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