Is Joyce's Ulysses worth reading?

I read Ulysses and found it tremendous fun but I think you will find the English considerably more complex than a lot of the authors you mention.

When I was reading Joyce, I started with his more accessible books (The Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist) before moving on. This was useful both in terms of deciding whether I "liked" Joyce, and also because characters from these books are referenced in "Ulysses". I would advise you to do the same.

What I found hardest about Joyce was the very, very dense intertextuality (Finnegans Wake is a lot worse from that point of view!). To me, I can't imagine how people read the book without knowing at least the basics of the Odyssey, and without being familiar with the other texts and styles that Joyce is using.

Now, this does relate rather to how much you know of the literature (and, indeed, the mythologies) that Joyce works into his books. I assume that people can, and do, read just the surface text but I feel that these people must miss the point of the book - they are missing what Joyce was trying to write.