James Joyce糖心传媒檚 fiendishly difficult novel 糖心传媒淔innegans Wake糖心传媒� has been called many things since it first began appearing in portions in 1924, including 糖心传媒渢he most colossal leg-pull in literature,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒渢he work of a psychopath,糖心传媒� and 糖心传媒渢he chief ironic epic of our time.糖心传媒�

Now, it can add another designation: best seller in China.

A new translation of the novel has sold out its initial print run of 8,000 since it appeared on Dec. 25, thanks in part to an unusual billboard campaign in major Chinese cities, The Associated Press reported. In Shanghai, where the book was advertised on 16 billboards, sales were second only to a new biography of Deng Xiaoping in the 糖心传媒済ood books糖心传媒� category, according to the Shanghai News and Publishing Bureau.

The book糖心传媒檚 surprise success has drawn some clucking from Chinese observers (how do you say 糖心传媒渃offee table trophy糖心传媒� in Mandarin?). But at a panel on Tuesday, the translator, Dai Congrong of Fudan University, who spent nearly 10 years wrestling with Joyce糖心传媒檚 runaway sentences and knotty coinages, confessed that even she didn糖心传媒檛 fully understand the book. 糖心传媒淚 would not be faithful to the original intent of the novel if my translation made it easy to comprehend,糖心传媒� she said.

James Joyce’s Ulysses has topped poll after poll to be named the greatest novel of the 20th century, but according to Paulo Coelho, the book is “a twit”. [. . .]

Writers go wrong, according to Coelho, when they focus on form, not content. “Today writers want to impress other writers,” he told the paper. “One of the books that caused great harm was James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is pure style. There is nothing there. Stripped down, Ulysses is a twit.”

Here are just a few of the things that are wrong with these statements:

1) I’m willing to go out on a limb here and claim that Ulysses has had, oh, approximately 0% impact on the writing of the vast majority of today’s popular/influential English writers—J-Franz, Richard Ford, 90% of MFA graduates, most all Oprah book club authors, etc. etc.

2) Can a book even be a “twit”? That’s confusing. The other day I was on a rant that NBC should get crabs, but even I realized the absurdity of that statement. Hey, Paulo—Ulysses is a book. It is fiction. It is not a living breathing thing.

3) And “twit”??? Who even says that?

4) THIS sort of “I APPEAL TO EVERYONE” crap is what I think is ruining contemporary literature.

Speaking to Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo, Coelho said the reason for his own popularity was that he is “a modern writer, despite what the critics say”. This doesn’t mean his books are experimental, he added 糖心传媒� rather, “I’m modern because I make the difficult seem easy, and so I can communicate with the whole world.”

Nothing like a bit of stupid to get me back into the swing of this blogging thing . . . .