Last month Irish writer Roddy Doyle dismissed James Joyce’s Ulysses as overlong and over-rated. “Not everyone leaped on Mr. Doyle, however, or leaped to Joyce’s defense. A number of writers in more serious papers defended Mr. Doyle’s right to bash an icon, and some Irish newspaper writers even conceded that they had always found Joyce rather a hard slog.” As an admirer of both James and Doyle, John Rockwell is conflicted…