Ulysses

A reader writes:

My first attempt to read Ulysses,, some 47 years ago, failed miserably.  I then read Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man and Richard Ellmann's excellent biography of Joyce, and my second attempt -- which yielded a great deal of pleasure and laughter -- came much closer to success. Ulysses remains my favorite novel.

Well, I made it through Portrait as a horny and repressed Catholic teenager (such, such were the joys) but haven't read Ellmann. Loved his Wilde biography though. But how does one blog 250 posts a week and read Ulysses? If you can answer that, drop me a line.