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, shock one into a new reality. In the book s...