The Measureless Time of Joyce, Deleuze and Derrida

By examining the relation between time and processes of figuration in James Joyce's later work, this ground-breaking study identifies his attempt to engage with the philosophical problem of describing time's characteristic movement whilst acknowledging the impossibility of reducing this movement to anything that can be observed, represented or even experienced. Ruben Borg argues that this problem informs the narrative structure, imagery and complex rhetorical strategies in Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Derrida, Borg challenges the assumption that Joycean time is organised around the idea of a totalising present. Emphasising his treatment of time as a force of measureless passing, Borg offers a better understanding of Joyce's endeavour to characterise time as a multiplicity that resists representation or objective measurement and its role as a central theme and structural element in his later work.