n'est pas

"Ulysses" by James Joyce is generally considered to be the greatest book of the 20th century.
"The Bible" by God and whoever else happened to be in the room at the time is generally
considered the greatest book ever (overlooking religious technicalities, etc.)
If James Joyce had written the Bible, we would still be waiting for God to create light as he struggled to tie his shoes for 500 pages.

"Ulysses" taunts me mercilessly with its sheer length. I have a theory that no one has actually finished the book, and that those last 4000 pages could contain any of the following:
-Hundreds of tiny classified ads.
-Your missing DVD player manual.
-1000 pages of Joyce muttering about a hand cramp.
-The script of the final episode of "Friends."
-How many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop, with an in-depth description of each lick.
-A complete biology textbook.
-2000 final pages of complete jibberish, seeing as Joyce had finally run out of words and was forced to make up new ones.
-Atkins recipies.

I really need to read this book. Hey, there's my New Year's Resolution! I found it.

Then I can pretend to understand it the same way I pretend to understand Pavement lyrics and "Last Year at Marienbad."