I once told an English professor of mine that I had a goal in life of reading Finnegans Wake, she said, incredulously, "Why?!" 

I didn't really have an answer at the time but I think it comes down to the fact that it is probably the hardest book in the English language [tenuously tied to English though it is] and I wanted to test my reading skills.

There are two books that occupy the same place on my bookshelf.  Donald Knuth's tome "The Art of Computer Programming" and James Joyces "Finnegans Wake".  I have this undeniable urge to read them and I am frustrated by both of them.

Each time I try to read them I get about 50-75 pages in and I have to start over because everything I've read previously in the book seems to evaporate.  It's like I'm grasping what I'm reading right now but the context is hard to hang onto.

I'm like Jason McCullough from "Support Your Local Sherrif", he's always saying he's really on the way to Australia the whole way through the movie, but he never gets there.

Me? I have these two books I'm really gonna read...