Chris's review of To Say Nothing of the Dog

To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis

Chris's review

rating:

bookshelves: science-fiction, time-travel, top-shelf

status: Read in February, 2008

Yes, it's a Connie Willis Time Travel Double Feature! And in this book, we are introduced to the lighter side of time travel - something that was sorely lacking in The Doomsday Book. I mean, it's not that the Black Death didn't have its lighter side, it's just the overall it's not so much fun.

This book is a follow-up to The Doomsday Book. Not a sequel, really, but it's in the same world, and some of the main characters make appearances in this one. But whereas The Doomsday Book was all about how your image of a far-away place never really matches the reality of it, this book is more about how what you think you know about what's going on isn't actually what's going on.

To explain: Ned Henry is an historian, working for the implacable Lady Schrapnell who is determined, against all possible odds, to rebuild Coventry Cathedral exactly the way it was when it was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940. The reason ...more Yes, it's a Connie Willis Time Travel Double Feature! And in this book, we are introduced to the lighter side of time travel - something that was sorely lacking in The Doomsday Book. I mean, it's not that the Black Death didn't have its lighter side, it's just the overall it's not so much fun.

This book is a follow-up to The Doomsday Book. Not a sequel, really, but it's in the same world, and some of the main characters make appearances in this one. But whereas The Doomsday Book was all about how your image of a far-away place never really matches the reality of it, this book is more about how what you think you know about what's going on isn't actually what's going on.

To explain: Ned Henry is an historian, working for the implacable Lady Schrapnell who is determined, against all possible odds, to rebuild Coventry Cathedral exactly the way it was when it was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940. The reason for this goes back to the water-damaged diary of her many-times-great grandmother, who visited the Cathedral in her youth and whose life was changed forever. The credit for this change was given to her sight of an atrocious example of the worst in Victorian art - the Bishop's Bird Stump.

Schrapnell has enlisted every historian at Oxford to help get the new cathedral exactly as it was, regardless of their own personal safety and in complete defiance of everything that is known about time travel and its effects on the human body. And so Ned, who is suffering from severe time lag, is sent to recuperate in the Victorian Era, 1888. He has one simple job to do - return an object that was brought through from the past, something that should not have been possible to do. Once he accomplishes that relatively simple task, he has two weeks to enjoy an idyllic life of leisure among the upper crust of English society.

Of course, it's never that simple. Which is kind of the point of the book.

History is a chaotic and complex thing, one where the ultimate cause of an event can be hard to pin down, and even harder to change. There is no such thing as a non-significant object when it comes to history, and everything is important. Cats and seances and penwipers, fish, maps, croquet, candles and jumble sales - everything affects everything else, and the results of those interactions are sometimes very difficult for us to see. In the course of trying to correct one apparent incongruity, Ned and Verity (another historian, whose beauty pretty much snares Ned from the get-go) discover that they are part of a greater pattern to solve a far greater problem.

It's a great book, and a wonderful read. Very funny, too... Pick it up....less

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Chris's review of To Say Nothing of the Dog

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