I used to think that I disliked Joyce because it's cheating to make up 90% of the words in your work. Then I got a hold of John Lennon's first two books, which are nothing but cheery nonsense, and I had to revise that: It's cheating when you make up 90% of the words in your work, and then get upset when people don't instantly know what the hell you were talking about. It's the author equivalent of when your SO stomps around the house all day, plainly angry, and when you ask what you did the answer comes back, "If you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you!"

I was not impressed when I had to read portions "Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man" in high school. My feeling is that no book that starts out with the author wetting himself is ever going to turn out well.

I had the misfortune to see all of the Eva movies before I finished the series. I remember perking up when Kaworu showed up in the series recap, because he had a personality and I didn't loathe it. Ahaha! That taught me a good lesson about getting attached to secondary characters in psychodramas.