Time and Again
by Jack Finney
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack FinneyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-02-01
ISBN: 0684801051
Number of pages: 399
Publisher: Scribner Paperback Fiction
Book Reviews of Time and Again
Book Review: There is Better
Summary: 1 Stars
I think this book is overrated in comparison to the great romantic and time travel literature. There is just so much better.
I am an old lover of great literature. I love to view the various BBC productions of Jane Austen's works. The old Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour movie "Somewhere in Time" is one of my favorites. Somewhere in Time (Collector's Edition). "Sleepless in Seattle" and others are just fun to watch cuddled under a blanket with hot cocoa.
So, when a woman friend said "Time and Again" was a great romantic, time-travel novel, I ordered the book immediately, because I love romance and I am really intrigued by time travel.
After reading the book, my friend asked, "Wasn't that a great romantic novel?" Well, in comparison to what? There is a 1960s man and an 1880s woman that run around 1880s New York together, even freezing for a night in the 1880s Statue of Liberty arm. They also visit 1960s New York. But my description here is about as warm as the romance gets, especially in comparison to the great romantic masterpieces. For example, who has a heart so cold that the moonlight moment in the garden between Maria and Captain Von Trapp doesn't melt you away? That's magic. This book just was not magic.
As for the time-travel element, the book was interesting but not gripping, nothing like the classics of time travel I note as follows.
First, Finney questions Ray Bradbury's "Butterfly Effect." Finney's view of time travel is that most actions by an individual traveling to the past would have little or no effect on future history (said actions being like twigs in a mighty river of history: the twig is not going to alter the course of the river of events). It is only direct intervention in a past major "crossroads" event (upon which the future depends) that can change the future. That assumption makes for the surprise ending, something akin to Asimov's "End of Eternity."
Finney's treatment of the philosophy of time travel was interesting, but not as gripping or compelling as Asimov, Card, Crichton, or Willis's treatments of the philosophy of time-travel. If you have limited time, go to these classics first, noted in detail at the end.
Second, much of fiction in which characters go to another time or place (C.S. Lewis, even "Monsters, Inc.") employ a door, gate, portal, or some machine through which characters pass.
Jack Finney employs an interestingly different "portal." In "Time and Again," the characters immerse themselves emotionally, physically, and psychologically in a past place and time. When this immersion experience reaches a critical mass of intensity, the past becomes in reality the present. The person does not step through a door; it is more like stepping off a boat, seeing the present recede into the future, and then stepping back onto a past boat on the river of time. The person actually becomes part of, an actor in, the flesh and blood time of the moment visualized. I thought this was an interesting concept, particularly in light of accounts of visionaries who sit pondering deeply and are then "carried away in the spirit" to the past or future. But again, not particularly gripping, given limited time to read everything you want to read.
Third, the best part of the novel was the foray into 1880s New York City. I kept my map and memories of NYC streets handy as I read, which helped orient me and made the book more interesting. But after a while the descriptions of the streets, dresses, and coaches began to sound like a description right out of a Smithsonian catalogue.
Fourth, as to Si Morley, Julia, Andrew Carmody, Jake Pickering, Dr. Danziger, the author draws characters, but he is not in the league of characterization grandmasters, from Dostoevsky to Iain Pears to John LeCarre. He seemed much more interested in getting period details right than in developing characters--which makes the romantic element so cold.
Fifth, and finally, the writing was a little too self-conscious at points, jerking me out of the story into a reflection of Finney's late 1960s' viewpoints (the book was published in 1970). Just one of numerous examples: Finney mentions a coffeetable in an office in the government-run facilities from which the time travel project is being run. Finney has a character pick up a Playboy from the coffeetable and thumb through it. Playboy? You have to read the story to realize how random, how anachronistic(even for the 60s), how laughable even this reference is. To each his (or her) own. But for me, it just didn't fit. In this regard, as I noted above, Finney's descriptions of 1880s New York began to sound like a non-fiction essay (set in the excuse of a fictional story) that those 1880 people really did live and really did wear bright-colored clothing. Okay, but a great romantic, time travel classic? No.
Romance? Go to the classic films and novels. Time travel? Hit the greats: Isaac Asimov's "End of Eternity" (The End of Eternity); Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch" (Pastwatch); Michael Crichton's "Timeline" (Timeline); and Connie Willis's "The Doomsday Book" (Doomsday Book). In fact, for a great time-travel romp to Victorian England, with an hilarious romantic/comedy element, you have to read Connie Willis's "To Say Nothing of the Dog." (To Say Nothing of the Dog).
Summary of Time and Again
"Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind. Tonight is January 21, 1882. There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television. 'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary. You have never heard the name Richard Nixon."Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night -- right into the winter of 1882? The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed -- or did it?
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