[Xenalyte]

I stand corrected. James Joyce is the supreme literary navel-gazer of all time. UGH.

Re lacking Dreiser: you ain't missing much. Life is too short to read sucky books someone used to think were good.

[Argh]

I read recently that Joyce's Ulysses is so abstruse because Joyce got the preliminary print back from the publisher and scribbled a bunch of notes to himself all through it: these were later incorporated into the first printing as well as the editor could guess because for some reason, Joyce never got another crack at re-editing. I dunno, I wasn't there. I had to read Portrait in college and the only thing I remember now is that the protagonist refused to scratch himself when he got itchy...