One of the books sitting on Bloom's bookshelves, according to
Ithaca, is "In the Track of the Sun." It
is one of several travelogues that Bloom owns, consistent with
his recurrent dream of doing more traveling. He thinks of the
book in Calypso after imagining a long day's stroll
through the streets of a Middle Eastern city, with a skeptical
attitude toward both the daydream and the book: "Probably not
a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read." Despite these
harsh words, the book is informative, observant, and fairly
judicious. It appears to have given Bloom some of his ideas
about far-flung, exotic parts of the world.
Frederick Diodati Thompson published In the Track of
the Sun: Readings from the Diary of a Globe Trotter in
1893. The book was bound in "yellow cloth,"
as Ithaca notes, but it does not have a "Sunburst
on the titlepage," as Bloom thinks in Calypso.
His odd statement may owe to other facts noted in Ithaca:
"titlepage missing, recurrent title intestation."
Whatever "intestation" may mean in this context (it usually
refers to being deprived of the right to make a will, as in
"dying intestate"), it seems that Bloom's copy lacks a title
page. (Perhaps someone has drawn in a sketch of the rising
sun?) Thompson's title page displays photographs of a Great
Buddha statue from southeast Asia and a musician from Japan.
Hundreds of other photographs and drawings adorn the pages of
the text.
Thompson traveled overland from New York to Victoria, BC, and
then to Japan, China, Ceylon, India, Egypt, and Palestine. The
last of these locales described in the book seems to have
especially captured Bloom's imagination. His picture of "Orangegroves
and immense melonfields north of Jaffa" a bit later
in Calypso, while he reads a proposal "To purchase
waste sandy tracts from Turkish government and plant with
eucalyptus trees," probably owes something to Thompson:
"Leaving Jaffa, we passed through many orange groves.
. . . The land may be to some extent worn out, but by proper
cultivation and the use of fertilizers it could be
made very productive" (190). A picture of
Jerusalem's Damascus Gate in Thompson's book (191), and
thoughts about the gates of Damascus itself (211), may have
inspired Bloom's thoughts, in the daydream, of a "city
gate" with a "sentry there." Thompson visited
several mosques in the area, and Bloom thinks of "The
shadows of the mosques among the pillars."
Thompson also made a trip to the Dead Sea, noting that "The
scenery is desolate and weird. On either side the
mountains rise abruptly, barren and harsh, without trees or
grass. . . . Numerous events of biblical record
happened on these Dead Sea shores. It was here that Lot's
wife, for looking back in disobedience to the command of the
Lord, was turned into a pillar
of salt" (197). Bloom thinks, "Vulcanic lake,
the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth.
No wind would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous
foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down:
the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom."
Attempting to swim in the mineral-laden water, Thompson found
that "my feet went into the air, the water being so buoyant,
and it was difficult to make any headway" (198). Bloom thinks
of a similar scene in Lotus
Eaters: "Where was the chap I saw in that picture
somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on his back,
reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn't sink if you
tried: so thick with salt."
However much Thompson's book may or may not have contributed
to Bloom's picture of the Middle East, its title has certainly
engaged his imagination. His daydream begins with a fantasy of
keeping one step ahead of the sun: "Somewhere in the east:
early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front
of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up
for ever never grow a day older technically." Stephen has
entertained a similar fancy in Proteus, imagining
the gypsy couple walking "Across the sands of all the world,
"followed by the sun's flaming sword, to the west."
