I’m trying to read James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, again, fast becoming an annual tradition in humiliation and failure. I’ve tackled my fair share of literature – Dostoevsky, Dickens, Kafka, Vonnegut, Hemingway – and for my money, Joyce and Ulysses are on a level of their own, with allusions, puns, and classical references so rich they’ll leave you reeling, and wordplay so clever that it’s a wonder a human could write it.

But I’ve never in my life come across a book that’s so thoroughly and so totally unreadable. The prose is heavier than a pallet of bricks. A few years ago I tried to cheat my way to success by getting it in audiobook form, only to be foiled by the narrator’s dramatic Dubliner accent, which while appropriate, made things even worse. I gave up after less than an hour.

Back to written form, and 10% through. I’ll make it, some day.