I think it's a common misconception and negative stereotype that things like Ulysses or Bebop are difficult. They're just an experience. Calling them difficult would be like calling Yosemite difficult (and lamenting that you don't fully get all of the rock formations, geological history, social history, flora, fauna...etc).

Anyone interested in tackling Ulysses in 2014 would benefit greatly from Frank Delaney's ongoing Re:Joyce podcast, in which he "unpacks" the book a paragraph or so at a time. He's been at it for three and a half years and is almost through "Calypso", the fourth chapter. That's an advantage for a first-time reader, as it gets you through the (deliberately ponderous and self-indulgent) "Proteus" stretch in Book I.

http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/

Ulysses is a singular book: Well-worth it if you love language, or for that matter almost anything about life as it is lived.

A book so complicated that it requires a podcast to make sense of it is not the best formulation of whatever message it is trying to bring.

But then I admittedly have not gotten past page 200 of ulysses in the three times I've tried, so that may be coloring my perception.