Look at it like this: pretty much everything put out by Pink Floyd was nonsense, drug-induced stupid childish nonsense aimed at alienated teenagers. But musically excellent, produced to a very high technical standard. The individuals who made the music were excellent musicians.
But the words and what they expressed went nowhere, contained nothing of value, are almost completely forgettable. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I'll grant that the Joyce passage you quoted is musically interesting, in a way, if you enjoy the sound of words without thinking of what they mean, in the same way that one listens to Pink Floyd as music without thinking about what the words mean.
Perhaps there are people for whom the sound of words is enjoyable as music, without regard to meaning. I like music a lot, and have made money playing music when I was younger, but I know there are people who experience music on a much different level than I do. I'll concede that people of this sort may find Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake enjoyable, and are sincere in doing so.
But to me it seems like drivel, and having read several things about Joyce's life, I don't think he meant them as serious. I think he was laughing at his readers, and saw their pretentious efforts to read meaning into his output as part of his own accomplishment, a demonstration of his view that life and society and reality is a sick joke.
I agree with you about Pink Floyd.
I think Joyce is in his own category, apart from almost everything.
The passage I pasted in I thought was culturally interesting. It’s a lot longer and the sailor is quite a character and probably realistic in large part.
It obviously wasn’t drivel.
I think one reason Joyce is igood is he was anti-establishment but not political at all.
Joyce is the real deal. Pynchon, Wallace, others are like you describe Pink Floyd, but not even that good.
Ulysses is a comic novel - an epic on the head of a pin. It’s meant to be funny.
Your disparaging and unkind remarks regarding Pink Floyd shall not go unnoticed. One of the great, nay greatest, questions of immortal life raised throughout the ages is and shall forevermore be:
“How can you have any pudding if you dun’t eat your meat?”