Wasn't this a typical reaction of traditionally educated readership to the Modernist literature? Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's La Recherche had a similar reception at first, didn't they? How did the public acquire a taste for this kind of literature?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/pop...
Edit: the book I was thinking of is this. Great read. https://www.routledge.com/Re-Covering-Modernism-Pulps-Paperb...