This is kind of eerie, since I have also read IJ 2.5 times, and am reading "ulysses" for this first time this summer. I don't know who you've been talking to, but I have never heard "ulysses" described as"easy," but rather as almost impossibly difficult. I would say IJ is much, much easier to read than U. With the exception of this first passage the first time I read it, there have been few moments in reading IJ that I didn't have a decent idea of what was being discussed. "ulysses"? Not so much.
I am, as another poster suggested, "powering through" and enjoying the gorgeous, brilliant prose, even if I have no bloody clue what they're talking about. Thus far, though (I'm only on page 142, but I have a new baby, so the going is slow), it feels more like a book I would admire, rather than love. And I love IJ, way deep down in the creaky crevices of my soul.
I've also read "V." and "The Crying of Lot 49" (and really liked them both), but have given up on "Gravity's Rainbow" three times, and recently said to hell with "Against the Day" after hundreds of pages of waiting for anything like a plot to surface. Pynchon seems to lack the sweet, humane and insightful spirit that makes IJ such a moving, sorrowful but beautiful and funny book.
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