What is so great about it? Why should I read it?
Love Joyce, but haven’t made it throught Ulysses yet. Stick with his earlier works. Especially his short story The Dead.
Think of it as a rite of passage. Afterwards you can look down your nose at the non-intellectual philistines who haven’t read it.
Dr. Fidelius, still reading Ulysses after twenty-seven years (on page 315 now).
Because by the end of it, you’ll think you’ve served a life sentence.
I decided to read Ulysses a few years ago. My attitude was ‘this is a bunch of hooey and baloney.’
Then, as I was reading the passage where Lionel is singing in the bar - around page 275 - something happened. Joyce is describing how Bloom responds to voice of a man singing in a bar. I was flooded with a sense that what I was reading was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever read. Just like that.
From then on, I loved it. If you read it, get yourself a guide, plot summary, Cliff Notes, something like that. It can be difficult to tell what the heck is going on.
You got me.
It might make you eligible for a scholarship. You could apply for a Ulysses Grant.
haha MSU! Too funny!
I still have yet to read any Joyce at all.
I have been tackling Ulysses for about two years now, and I have Finnegan’s Wake waiting for me, ready to be opened, but I think it will have to wait a while there… 
As for the OP, who can tell you why you should read anything? I don’t think anyone can answer that question.
Oh, I got one:
“It will be in Oprah’s book club!”
I hope that didn’t come accross too bitter.
I’ve been reading Finnegans Wake for over two years now. Lengthy breaks in the process, you understand.
I figure I’ll reread Ulysses once I get through that.
The key, usually overlooked , aspect is that, a few chapters aside, the novel is pretty damn readable. And aside from all that, it’s brilliant.
I read Ulysses because I kept coming across other references to it, and I thought I should read just to figure out what people were talking about.
Ugh. The prose itself is beautiful, but beyond that I just didn’t care for it. I understand Joyce was trying to make some sort of point with the novel, but it was lost on me.
Books written in that style are just pretty to look at, I think. A lot of Thomas Pynchon’s work seems the same to me. But then, I don’t know anything about comparative literature or criticism. I’ve read other books in the stream-of-consciousness style, and sometimes I think it’s just verbal sleight-of-hand to cover up the fact that there’s not actually much substance to the book itself.
Because it’s lyrical.
And funny as all Hell.
I think part of the problem is trying to “get” it.
While I’ve spent an awful lot of time doing Joyce (even travelling to get in the classes I couldn’t get near my home base) I refuse to try to get everything.
Do you really need to know who Robert Emmet is and who Leopold Bloom is based on? It makes things nice and neat.
But understanding that our Mr. Bloom is trying very hard (by reading a speech made at a trial for treason by Emmet in a shop window) not to fart as a lady goes by and waits to do so until a streetcar will cover the noise- that’s priceless.
Sirens is one of my favourites- the “orchestra” tuning up at the beginning to “play the piece.”
Never take it too seriously. Joyce laughed himself silly writing it. Same with Finnegans Wake.
I agree with Ms. Plurabelle.
You can match it chapter by chapter with Homer’s Odyssey (Joyce himself reccomended this) and that pretty much clears up any confusion as to what the book is “about”, but, by putting it into a nice tidy box like that you might miss out on the amazing humor and prose. It isn’t mentioned much in discussions of Ulysses but beyond all the formalist pyrotechnics, there’s actually two very affecting stories at its heart: Bloom’s awareness of Molly’s adultery and his father/son relationship with Stephen.
To any first time reader: forget trying to read the book cold. It’s essential to have a copy of “Ulysses Annotated” or a similar book to understand it.