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Gravity’s Rainbow,
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Eric McElyea
Ulysses is probably easier if you are Irish and live in the 1920s. Both books are really difficult though, Gravity's Rainbow has a ridiculous number of characters, some characters have multiple names, some characters disappear and reappear much later with no reintroduction.
Zina
For me - definitely much, much easier. Maybe it helped that I understood many of the references here but not in the older Ulysses? Or that I am quite familiar with those Central Asian, statistical, etc topics? Or know a couple German words and can easily see where the name Tchitcherine come from? anyhow, I had no problem at all understanding anything in Gravity's Rainbow but I did have a hard time with some chapters in Ulysses.
Kevin Stanhope
Such a great question. I'm only half through Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm finding it even harder than Ulysses. Maybe I will turn a corner, I'm not sure. Definitely harder than Infinite Jest, which isn't to demean the significance of that work.
Miroslaw Aleksander
I believe its easier. I gave up on Ulysses after 600 pages (my copy has c. 900), because I didn't notice if I skipped a page by mistake, which basically means that I was not capable of following the book. I read Gravity's Rainbow in the same year IIRC, and I loved it. And I immediately noticed when I skipped a page ;P
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