Sounding Smart (without being smart)
No one has read this book. Joyce himself took seventeen years to “write” it, by some accounts simply taking the sounds made by his housecat and transcribing them to the page. (e.g. “prankquean,” which sounds, to my ear, very similar to the feline verbalization of “clean my litterbox.”)
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I was once in a pub in Dublin. A man next to me claimed to have a pair of James Joyce’s eyeglasses, and asked me if I’d like to try them on. I accepted, of course. They were large, round, with very thick lenses. I put them on and croaked “three quarks for Muster Mark.” Turns out the guy’s name was Mark and I had to buy him three more drinks. Plus I looked like an idiot.