I like novels to have a story and I like something to happen during the course of them - I read primarily to be entertained, not to be impressed so I find novels written purely as self-concious experiments (and novels that clearly involved too many drugs in the production process!) to be a bit boring and annoying, not to mention pretentious. However (now I sound pretentious myself - crap!) I do enjoy writers experimenting with different form and viewpoints provided they're still working with a good story and just playing around with the telling of it. You can be as weird as you like but that core of a "this unusual thing happened to this character" has to be there somewhere to anchor it together. I have to be able to follow what's going on - I like most of Jeanette Winterson's novels, even though she for the most part completely dispenses with linear narrative, because I can still follow what's going on and she still has engaging characters and a strong storyline (or several storylines) - William Burroughs stuff I can't be doing with at all - it's just like a string of words on a page to me, I don't see how I can get any kind of entertainment or message from that (othe r than maybe "Don't do acid."!) I also have a few problems with Virginia Wolff and Modernism in general - I read Mrs Dalloway and just got really cross because I was so bored of being in this woman's head where nothing really happened. I understand the idea behind the experiment, but I guess if a book bores me or seems like hard work I feel like the author isn't really doing their job very well- I don't want reading to be a chore.