Grand Continuum

The assumptions that literary criticism and philosophy are closely linked-and that both disciplines can learn much from each other-lead David White to examine key passages in James Joyce's novels both as a philosopher and as literary critic. In so doing, he develops a thesis that Joyce's attempt to capture the mysterious process whereby perception and consciousness are translated into language entails a fundamental challenge to everyday notions of reality. Joyce's stylistic brilliance and virtuosity, his destruction of normal syntax and meaning, &quote;shock one into a new reality.&quote; In the book's final section, White examines the subtle relation between literary language and human consciousness and traces parallels between Joyce's stylistic experimentation and Wittgenstein's and Husserl's ideas about language.