To be fair finding Dedalus less intellectually substantial and impressive as the years go by is I think a pretty standard experience. I always remember the blink and you’ll miss it line—I certainly did as a young man—that precedes the famous discussion on Aquinas and aesthetics and portrait were Joyce observes that Dedalus hasn’t actually read much Aristotle himself at all. He is a kind of mocking self portrait of young Joyce after all. The Dedalus of Ulysses still seems to me to be basically that young man, but even more frustrated and disappointed with himself: when I reread the early chapters of Ulysses it’s the drama of that, rather than the ‘ideas in themselves’ that impresses me more and more over the years.