Last week, not realizing that we had to write an actual summary post for today, I wrote the following:

“Numbers in Ulysses as a whole seem to interpolate three different poles. There are numbers as the language of science (thirtytwo feet per second per second et al.), numbers in a mystical numerological/Pythagorean/religious sense (“darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend,” the eight beatitudes, the trinity), and then there are the myriad mundane numbers: the prices, debts, and denominations of coins, the odds of the horse-race, the hours of the clock and the many dates recalled, and so on.”

We might say that the first two poles, the mathematical and the mystical, are both attempts to create order from chaos. In the Aristotelian and Platonic worldviews that so preoccupy Stephen, numbers are regarded as unmoving and static, in contrast with the physical world of becoming. For both scientists and numerologists, numbers control our destiny, through laws either physical or divine.

Like almost every other source of stable meaning in Ulysses, numbers in the mystical or scientific sense are drowned out in a deluge of mundane details, puns, and errors. The vast majority of numbers in the text are monetary amounts, grounding number in the very down-to-earth world of commerce and the satisfaction of human desires.

Also interesting is the prevalence of mathematical error. From Stephen’s inattentive view of Sargent’s algebra homework to the many errors and half-truths in Ithaca to Blooms semi-coherent musings about the mathematical basis of music in Sirens.

Ultimately, mathematical meaning clearly breaks down over the course of Ulysses, much like language itself. Beyond that, and a multitude of semi-interesting specific examples of numbers in the text, I don’t have a lot, but I’m hoping to use some of the articles in the Ashplant bibliography to develop and actual argument.