Oi, the modernism wars again.

Ulysses is a funny, poignant and very readable book. It evokes a lot about early twentieth century Dublin, which is one of the functions of novels, which is why they’re called novels (new things–new to us, the readers). The “hard” writing is easily figured out. As with most “hard” modernist works, the best thing is not to sweat the details, as if you were in freshman English, but just sit down and read rapidly through (just like all the swarming Italians in Dante). Kingsley Amis’s reaction is a favorite English stunt, pretending to be dumb John Bull. Ulysses is not the best novel of its century, but it is better than Lucky Jim (which is good).

Moby Dick–now there is a masterpiece, but Meghan Cox Gordon has already defended it.