Ulysses

Nobody who has finished it says it was easy, but nobody says it was not worth it either. Joyce completely dismantled the novel and built something we still do not fully understand. One day in Dublin, eighteen chapters in radically different styles, and an interior monologue that redefines what prose can do. Reading it well requires a guide or rereading; enjoying it halfway just requires willingness. What is clear is that without it, twentieth-century literature would have been something else entirely.