In Robbe-Grillet’s novel Topology of a Phantom City (Topologie d’une Cité Fantôme), topological dislocations of space and time are portrayed by utilising detail and the layering descriptions of properties of space to enable the reader to subliminally make connections between other parts of the larger work. This subtle manipulation allows Robbe-Grillet to create a literary space that never unfolds in linear chronological fashion. “Before I fall asleep the city once more rears before my pallid face, my features marked by age and fatigue, rears high before me, far behind me, all around as far as the eye can see, blackened walls, mutilated statues, twisted ironwork, ruined colonnades whose giant shafts lie smashed amidst the debris.” Alain Robbe-Grillet, Topology of a Phantom City, 1976