Indigestible, That Is What You Are

I have seen renewed interest
in the writings of James Joyce,
Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf,
a century after their landmark works
were published. 

I can't mind Modernism in literature,
my problem is how difficult it is,
for the basic reader to grasp.

I can imagine that a century ago
Proust and Joyce accepted a literary duel;
I can write a sentence that is longer,
and is harder to digest, than your longest, 
your least digestible, sentence.

Each set to work in different languages,
each with mutually agreed translators.

The problem was that as each sought to win,
and impress the judges with their endeavour,
each got so immersed in writing of the sentence
that they lost themselves in competing to win the bet.

The bet got rewritten
as a celebration of the mark
each left on the world of literature.