Pcpartpicker does literally all that <| sep |> Second that . I started with Ulysses , really struggled , did a bunch of research and read eassays about it . And then I got into A portrait of the artist as a Young Man , it ' s delightful to read after failing Ulysses . More importantly , the book started with the limitation of the artist in his childhood , the book is a story of transformation and maturation , it ' s got a little bit of stream of consciousness type writing , but not fully SoC , incomprehensible monologue just yet . You can see how and why JJ developed , transformed his writing style , his language , as the story progress . Going back to Ulysses with the understanding that this is essentially JJ i . e . SD ' s flight , makes reading Ulysses worth the effort to me . I feel like I ' m sharing in his development , his triumph , his success in struggling against forces that were threatening to dominate him .