James Joyce James Joyce's novels flout the accepted conventions of the novel form. prior to him. The time factor becomes elastic and consciousness takes over and dictates the sequence of events. Plot and character emerge in a stream of association that carries on its ripples all the mental flotsam and jetsam that in the 'ordinary' novel do not rise to the surface. In addition, Joyce employed language like a musical notation, that is, the sound superficially supersedes the sense, but in reality communicates (like music) profundities which conventional words cannot hope to express. That, at any rate, is what Joyce intends, but not many readers can go along with him all the way. Of the value of his experiment with his elaborate system of analogy there can be no doubt, and he conducts the experiment brilliantly, but it is self-evident that further analogy must turn back on itself. There can be no development after a certain point is reached, and that point is reached in Finnegans Wake. Joyce's peculiar achievement has been to translate to the art of writing the conception and technique of the art of musical composition. According to this passage, James Joyce's greatest contribution is