Post questions or comments here about the seventeenth chapter of Ulysses. Return to Ulysses page at RobotWisdom.

-- Jorn (jorn@mcs.com), October 21, 1999

Answers

One of these days, I'm going to read "Ulysses" all the way through, but I noticed something unusual about the "Ithaca" chapter. There's one point where Bloom rubs a sore spot where he was stung by a bee "2 weeks and 3 days previously." Well, James gives the date that Bloom was stung on May 23,1904. If you do the math, you realize that this is 3 weeks and 2 days previous to Bloomsday, June 16th. I thought this was a mistake that editors didn't catch, but now I'm not so sure. I read someone's comments that all the dates mentioned in this "objective" chapter are wrong, but Molly's memories in the following chapter are right.

So is this a mistake on Joyce's part, or a deliberate strategem?

-- Edward J. Cunningham (eddiejc1@erols.com), May 14, 2000.