Across the Words: Joyce's Legacy in "There but for the" by Ali Smith

Complete with an interview with the author, this essay aims to examine the influence of James Joyce on Ali Smith, with particular focus on her novel 'There but for the' (2011). Through a comparative textual and intertextual analysis, the study highlights a number of shared techniques - stream of consciousness, polysemy, punning - and thematic affinities that include the concept of otherness, and the disruptive perception of time. Indeed, drawing on Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity, the essay interprets Smith’s narrative structure as a network of interconnected events that echo modernist concerns with simultaneity and notions of the collective unconscious.