Far away from Dublin and relying on Thom's, Joyce appears
to have gotten one detail of the cityscape very slightly wrong
in Calypso. The narrative says of Bloom, "He
crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of
number seventyfive." His house sits across from
number 77.
Bloom's house sits on the northeast side of Eccles Street,
facing away from the morning sun, so he crosses to the warm
and cheerful side of the street. There he turns left, to get
to Dorset Street. In James
Joyce's Dublin, Ian Gunn and Clive Hart write, "As on
one or two other occasions, Joyce overreached himself in using
Thom's to supply the meticulous factual background
which would give the reader such an uncanny sense of close
observation and of remarkable powers of recall. The houses
opposite no. 7 Eccles Street are nos 76 and 77. To reach no.
75 Bloom would have had to veer slightly to his right, away
from his intended path" (32-33).
"It is of course possible," Gunn and Hart concede, "that what
appears to be a mistake is a halfhidden indication that Bloom
begins by walking in the other direction and then changes his
mind. If so, that provides an interesting adumbration of the
end of Lestrygonians, when Bloom, about to cross sunny Kildare
Street on his way to the Library, veers to the right to avoid
Boylan. It is perhaps more probable, however, that this is an
error arising from Joyce's having used the street list in Thom's
to count seven houses back on the 'bright' side, beginning
with the last, no. 81, and thus arriving at 75. In physical
fact the corner of Eccles Street and Dorset Street, on that
side of the road, is occupied not by the last house in Eccles
Street but by 72-73 Upper Dorset Street (Larry O'Rourke's
pub), while on Bloom's side no. 1 Eccles Street is on the
corner. This matter, of minimal importance in itself, is an
example of how Joyce's working methods could occasionally lead
him astray" (33).