A few nights ago, I was describing to my girlfriend how boring it was to slog through Ulysses. “Why are you reading it then?” I said “well it’s not all bad…you know there’s this good passage..” and I read it to her, and then “and here’s another… and another…” And so I bored her with my recollections and recitations.

And in spite of that, I wish I had the two years of my life back! In the time it took me to read Ulysses, who knows what avenues of education I could have traveled.

I’m reminded of my feelings of finishing War and Peace, a similarly great book with vast tracts of boredom. I remembered thinking how nice it would have been if someone told me to skim the “war” and concentrate on “peace”. Sadly, such a simple recipe for abridging Ulysses is impossible. Each paragraph needs to be deciphered, considered, and judged. I think the book needs, more than anything, a surgeon to separate the necrotic tendons binding the pink pulsing organs. If someday someone makes a useful abridgment, I’ll be first in line to reread the book.