HL:
You would do well to examine the semantic differences between ignorant and stupid. Just as you would be well advised to decrement the use of pejoratives as close as you can get to zero.
There are many who hold the opinion that the vast majority of James Joyce's writings are the babbling of a drunken lunatic. Just as there are those who believe that Shakespeare is vastly over-rated (Hi, Jackie).
But NONE OF US on this board are stupid. You do not insult me by calling me ignorant; but at your own peril do you throw about the s-word.
And I don't give a fig for what the dictionaries or anyone else say about Joyce (or Hemingway for that matter.) I will soon be 60 years of age and I refuse to waste any part of my (hopefully many) remaining years by reading or trying to read utter tripe disguised as literature on the one hand or newspaper-style writing crudely fopisted offr upon the reading public as literature on the other.
Instead give me writers whose words inform, inspire, educate, exalt, entertain, and elevate. People like the Durants, Faulkner, Wolfe, Poe, Foote, Tuchman (whom I know some people here despise (too bad)), even Dickens. And I don't like Dickens but I'd rather read him than Joyce.
And don't ever imply that I am stupid again.
