Joyce is the most eminent example of the literature of the disintegrated mode of thought.Look for:
1) rejection of previous approaches to literature such as plot and character as meaningful artistic conventions
2) rejection of meaning itself as delusory.
3) contempt for telling a story
4) rejection of man in purposeful action as artistically worthless
5) instead of imagining some progression of events,look for an unstructured collage of their own or their characters' mental contents
6) subjectivism
7) disjointed collection of events
8) nihilism and destruction
9) elimination of content in the name of the illogical and the non-objective
10)non story, non-hero, non-grammar, non-language, non-objective, non-representational, non-intelligible, non-rational
11)all of the above for the purpose of destroying man's mind and values
Maybe dedicated to destroying the bridge that we are walking across when it disintegrates. A mundane day in Dublin is the bridge over the abyss. And the abyss is life itself.
I was hooked the moment I realized Buck Mulligan was being set up as the blasphemer. In other words, Dedalus was not.
Dedalus was almost immediately afterwards seen as the person who is used by others who have no idea of his depth or learning.
At “ineluctable modality of the visible” I was vindicated. He looks upon the invisible, or tries to. What could be more compelling? And he doesn’t disappoint.
In stream of consciousness writing, there is a lot of repetition, to reflect that way we constantly go back to our previous thoughts in order to . . . wear them out? Get sick of them? Let them lose their pain? Reflect on them further? See them in light of subsequent things that have happened? Recognize patterns?
Lesser writers such as Gertrude Stein copied this but didn’t understand it, and so created nonsense.
When Joyce was dying, someone asked Nora if they should call a priest. Nora’s answer? “I couldn’t do that to Jimmy.”