I agree with the above two posts that with Joyce it is usually a case of simply having to "get into" the idea that the author is writing about. I don't think that either of the two works you mentioned were unreadable, but more that your friend didn't get into the author's style, and was deterred from it for this reason.

But in some of Joyce's works, most notably Finnegan's Wake the language is almost made up and therefore incredibly frustrating to many readers. Wikipedia calls it "idiosyncratic language." I like to think about it as if he is writing in an Irish bastardization of English, or that he is writing as things would sound with an accent, but it is is so different from the norm that you have to think which word he is trying to get you to read. Here is a link to some excerpts of Finnegan's Wake, hopefully it will help you see what I'm getting at.
http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/454f/fw1.html

Regardless if you're interested don't let the bad reviews turn you off from Joyce. he's brilliant and if you have the time to get into his work, you may like it. But it's definitely not a quick weekend read, it's something you have to devote some time into not only to enjoy it but to get it.
Source(s):
wikipedia.org
http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/454f/fwexcerpts.html


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