But those aren't reasons. The first is a non sequitur on top of an appeal to authority: Shakespeare did X, Joyce does X, Shakespeare is good so Joyce must be good. The second is beside the point; a book that isn't worth reading isn't more worth reading on an iPad! (Reminds me of Chesterton's quip: if a job is worth doing it's worth doing badly.)
The closest he comes to saying why Ulysses is worth reading is that it is a "great psychological novel" and that just begs the question.
By the way, I recognize the phenomenon as a former grad student in (Russian) literature: when you're immersed in something, it can be hard to articulate its value to outsiders. You keep pointing to things that you take for granted, but others don't.
Well I think it's implicit that one of the things he thinks makes Shakespeare great is this engagement of 'poetry and patter' and he thinks Joyce also does this. It's not really an appeal to authority to say 'if you like Shakespeare, you'll this...'; and also implicit that the book is widely understood to be good, just difficult/inaccessible (but the digital age can solve that problem. Like, if ever there was a good time to read Ulysses, it's now).
The closest he comes to saying why Ulysses is worth reading is that it is a "great psychological novel" and that just begs the question.
By the way, I recognize the phenomenon as a former grad student in (Russian) literature: when you're immersed in something, it can be hard to articulate its value to outsiders. You keep pointing to things that you take for granted, but others don't.