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If computer technology ever achieves 'dictation by telepathy' what will an average person's daily stream of consciousness look like?Surely Ulysses is the closest anyone has yet come to anticipating the real shape of this imaginary technology's output.
But time doesn't flow evenly in Ulysses. There are big gaps, along with other distortions. Each chapter supposedly represents a single hour, but chapters range in size from 25k to 250k. So are its 1.5 megabytes of text anything like a good approximation of the size of one day's worth of thoughts?
Fast human speech achieves speeds around five words per second, or 300 words per minute, but reading a 500-word page of the Gabler Ulysses aloud, at a natural pace, takes me more like three minutes. (At this pace the whole book would take about 28 hours.) We think faster than we talk, though, so I'll use the faster speed as my first baseline.
An average word (plus the following blank) equals five bytes (which can be reliably compressed to one-fourth that). So 300 words/min is 1.5k bytes per minute (uncompressed) or 90k per hour, or 1.44 megabytes in a standard 16-hour waking day. (So Joyce picked a pretty good size to stop at, as a first approximation!)
But the halfway point in the 1922 edition (John Kidd likes to point out) falls between ch13 (which ends at 9pm, just after sunset at 8:30) and ch14, which starts around 10pm. So the first half of the book has an average wordspeed of only 60k per hour, while the last half rips along at 150k.
One way to think about this question is to picture a person's entire lifelong wordstream printed and bound on library shelves-- how many encyclopedias' worth of shelf-space would that be?
Britannica = Ulysses * 150
The current Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) claims 44 million words, or about 220 megabytes. (A CD-ROM could hold three of these, uncompressed, or 12 compressed.) At 1.44 megs/day, this is 150 days, or a little more than two EBs' worth per year.
70 years at 1.44 megs/day is 185 EBs (a roomful), or 37 gigabytes. (A four-layer DVD can hold 17 gigs-- half an uncompressed lifestream, or two full lives compressed.)
But by looking more closely at the flow of time in Ulysses we may be able to refine these estimates. So the rest of this page will examine the clues, chapter by chapter.
Gifford says 3:33am sunrise (Dunsink time), but compare:
[source] (adjusted for Dunsink by hand)June
Rise Set h m h m 16 0331 2030 17 0331 2030 18 0331 2031 19 0331 2031 20 0331 2031 21 0331 2032 22 0332 2032
Dublin is at 53 degrees of latitute (800 miles north of Chicago's 41) and it's near the summer solstice, so there's a definite 'midnight sun' effect here.
the schemata [qv] all agree that ch1 and ch4 both 'start' at 8am. they may be synchronised by the shared visions of cloud and Athena/Hermes.
8:45am
4.549 [qv] "Quarter to."
The six 'Heigho's are churchbells ringing twice for each quarter hour.H&K (Hart & Knuth's "Topographical Guide to JJ's U" [Bibliofind longshot]) speculate that Stephen's 'Liliata' prayer at 1.736 is also synchronised with (local) churchbells, but if so he'll have to hurrry-- Deasy's school is too far for him to have walked it by school's start at 9am. (A mile in 20 minutes is normal.)
Bloom isn't sure when the funeral starts (4.543) so he probably sets out promptly and walks a mile to the center of Dublin (arriving after nine, though-- so did he know it wouldn't be that early? the 16 June Telegraph mentions funerals at 10am, 10:30am, and 5pm, Corny mentions 10 and 10:30). He buys a Freeman's Journal and reads that he has until eleven, but by 5.462 it's 10:15... so where did the time go?
The Linati schema had "9 to 10" for ch2 and ch5, but the later ones changed this to "10 a.m." in each case. Ch2 probably starts around 9:45am.
10:00am
2.92 [qv] "Hockey at ten"
Talbot has probably waited until the last minute to put away his book, so the class waits a minute or two past before getting up.
10:15am
5.462 [qv] "Quarter past"
at 5.505 he observes he has no time for a massage
Stephen spends at least 15 minutes with Deasy, and then takes train and/or tram to Sandymount, arriving no earlier than 10:30. The Linati schema had "10 to 11" for ch3 and ch6, but the later ones changed this to "11 a.m." in each case.
3.504 [qv] "threemaster"
cf 16.450 [qv] "We come up this morning eleven o'clock" so maybe slightly before eleven?
11:00am funeral
Bloom spots Stephen at 6.39, but we can't say when this is in relation to ch3 [more]. (The 12 pages of ch3 can be read aloud in 35 minutes.)
11:10am
6.86 [qv] "Ten minutes"
his watch might be wrong, but probably not much
6.173 [qv] "An hour ago I was passing there"
5.210 [qv], more than an hour
11:20am
6.237 [qv] "Twenty past eleven"
we don't see LB check his watch, so this is probably a guess
The Linati schema had "11 to 1" for ch7, but the later ones changed this to "12 noon" (did the early versions specify eleven or ten for the funeral???)
12:30pm Mulligan's date with Stephen at the Ship (1.733 [qv])
12:35pm Ballast Office timeball descends (noted at 8.109 [qv])
12:42pm high tide
H&K say ch7 ends shortly before 1pm, but I don't know how they get this. They also say ch8 lasts an hour, starting a little after 1:00.
The Linati schema had "1 to 2" for ch8, the later ones changed this to simply "1 p.m." Its 27 pages take almost 90 minutes to read aloud.
8.481 [qv] "Since I fed the birds five minutes"
nine pages at 3 minutes each is 27 minutes reading time! (the ground covered is right for 5min, though)
1:55pm
8.790 [qv] "Two. Pub clock five minutes fast"
The Linati schema had "2 to 3" for ch9, the later ones changed this to simply "2 p.m."
2:35pm starting time for Gold Cup race (3pm Greenwich)
The Linati schema had "3 to 4" for ch10, the later ones changed this to simply "3 p.m."
Times in ch10 have been pretty well fixed by Clive Hart [more] as starting at 2:55 and ending at 3:57
2:55pm
10.2 [qv] "Five to three"
3:15pm Molly sees Dedalus girls (18.345 [qv])
The Linati schema had "4 to 5" for ch11, the later ones changed this to simply "4 p.m." H&K calculate ch11 starts at 3:38 and ends at 4:40 (so there's a 20min overlap with ch10, especially Cunningham, Dignam, and the cavalcade [more])
4:00pm Boylan's date with Molly
4:00pm
11.385 [qv] "Four?"
11.992-1141 [qv] The eleven verses of 'The Croppy Boy" take three pages (nine minutes reading time)
11.1242 [qv] "Four o'clock's all's well!"
ambiguous
4:30pm Bloom's watch stops (13.847 [qv]) as he's leaving the Ormond, hiding from the blackhatted whore
The Linati schema had "5 to 6" for ch12, the later ones changed this to simply "5 p.m."
The events in ch12 take place between 4:45 and 5:45, according to H&K (though they're presented as if being recounted by the Nameless One at some later hour).
5:00pm probable time of Bloom's date with Cunningham
12.604 [qv] "exactly seventeen o'clock"
literary parody
12.801 [qv] "Boosed at five o'clock."
vague
12.1122 [qv] "about the hour of five o'clock"
(must have been earlier?)
The Linati schema had "8 to 9" for ch13, the later ones changed this to simply "8 p.m."
13.2 [qv] "sun was setting... last glow"
about 8:25pm, then?
8:29pm sunset (or 8:27?)
13.547 [qv] "sun was set"
13.557 [qv] "getting darker but he could see"
(how long after sunset would this be?)
13.625 [qv] "bat"
still light enough to see it, but dark enough that it's come out
9:00pm
13.1289 [qv] "Cuckoo"
(also bell chimes). nine 'cuckoo's equal nine o'clock. so this 30-page, 90-min-readingtime chapter occupies about 40 minutes.
The Linati schema had "10 to 11" for ch14, the later ones changed this to simply "10 p.m."
14.486 [qv] "past ten of the clock"
11:00pm
14.1562 [qv] "There's eleven of them"
legally required closing time for pubs
11:10pm Haines's date with Mulligan at station (14.1027 [qv])
The Linati schema had "11 to 12" for ch15, the later ones changed this to "12 midnight"
15.156 [qv] "downcoming rollshutter"
closing a little before midnight???
15.467 [qv] "witching hour"
hallucination/memory
lines 674-1267 [qv] take no time, ditto 1354-1957 [qv], ditto 2754-3499 [qv] (or 3480?).. I suspect the chapter up to 15.3500 might take only fifteen minutes or so.
15.1362 [qv] "Midnight chimes"
since this is within a fantasy, it's unreliable
The Linati schema had "12 to 1" for ch16, the later ones changed this to "1 a.m."
16.1603 [qv] "getting on for one"
The Linati schema had "1 to 2" for ch17, the later ones changed this to "2 a.m."
17.232 [qv] "bought thirteen hours previously"
at 10:20am, so fifteen hours!?
1:30am
17.1233 [qv] "Heigho"
assuming the pattern holds, four 'Heigho's means 1:30am here (or maybe 2:30?)
if sunrise is 3:30 again, the sky should be lightening by 2:00am
None of the schemata give a time for ch18. Its 36 pages take about an hour and 45 minutes to read aloud (Gifford says three hours!??), but that could reasonably be speeded up.
18.927 [qv] "coming in at 4 in the morning it must be"
exaggeration
2:45am
18.1231 [qv] "3 quarters the hour 1 wait 2 oclock"
this is 28 pages into the chapter, or 90 minutes reading time, but if the chapter started at 2am then 2:45 is at least plausible. (it can't be 3:45 or the sun would have risen.)
3:15am
18.1540 [qv] "quarter after"
this is seven pages or 20 minutes reading-time from 18.1231 above, so time has speeded up (ie, her thoughts have slowed down). only a page and a half remains, so the book ends around 3:20am.
3:33am sunrise
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