What do you think?
Rate this book
I Have Been Here Before
I Have Been Here Before belongs to Priestley's 'time' plays, in which he explores the idea of precognition and pits fate against free will. Set in a rural inn in Yorkshire, three people enter a strange confrontation with the hallmarks of déjà vu, and a physicist attempts to prevent a disaster.
First published January 1, 1939
3 people are currently reading
211 people want to read
About the author
J.B. Priestley
469 books292 followersJohn Boynton Priestley was an English writer. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and after schooling he worked for a time in the local wool trade. Following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Priestley joined the British Army, and was sent to France - in 1915 taking part in the Battle of Loos. After being wounded in 1917 Priestley returned to England for six months; then, after going back to the Western Front he suffered the consequences of a German gas attack, and, treated at Rouen, he was declared unfit for active service and was transferred to the Entertainers Section of the British Army.
When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently he found work as theatre reviewer with the Daily News, and also contributed to the Spectator, the Challenge and Nineteenth Century. His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928). His breakthrough came with the immensely popular novel The Good Companions, published in 1929, and Angel Pavement followed in 1930. He emerged, too, as a successful dramatist with such plays as Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), When We Are Married (1938) and An Inspector Calls (1947).
The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.
During the Second World War Priestley became a popular and influential broadcaster with his famous Postscripts that followed the nine o'clock news BBC Radio on Sunday evenings. Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme.
Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.
After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style.
His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.
It should not be overlooked that Priestley was an outstanding essayist, and many of his short pieces best capture his passions and his great talent and his mastery of the English language. He set a fine example for any would-be author.
When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently he found work as theatre reviewer with the Daily News, and also contributed to the Spectator, the Challenge and Nineteenth Century. His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928). His breakthrough came with the immensely popular novel The Good Companions, published in 1929, and Angel Pavement followed in 1930. He emerged, too, as a successful dramatist with such plays as Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), When We Are Married (1938) and An Inspector Calls (1947).
The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.
During the Second World War Priestley became a popular and influential broadcaster with his famous Postscripts that followed the nine o'clock news BBC Radio on Sunday evenings. Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme.
Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.
After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style.
His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.
It should not be overlooked that Priestley was an outstanding essayist, and many of his short pieces best capture his passions and his great talent and his mastery of the English language. He set a fine example for any would-be author.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
April 7, 2024
What does the title I Have Been Here Before conjure up to you? Some kind of memoir ... reminiscenses perhaps? Or a sense of déjà vu? Hold on to that thought.
The author of I Have Been Here Before, J.B. Priestley, is not as well-known for his plays as in previous decades. However, this Yorkshireman was a prolific playwright, author and broadcaster, and his work was very popular during his lifetime. Many people will be familiar with the play “An Inspector Calls”, another of his “Time Plays”, and the one which is probably his masterpiece. In the 1930s and 1940s, the author wrote a series of plays, each dealing with a different concept of time; each play revolving around a different alternative theory. Time itself became the central metaphor. Using this as a theatrical device, in each play each of the characters’ lives is affected by how they react to the unusual events of their particular timescape. Each play is peopled by a small cast, and has an intimate feel.
There are six “Time Plays” in total, and several different theories are propounded through them. The inspiration for I Have Been Here Before was P.D. Ouspensky’s theory of eternal recurrence, which he conceived in his 1931 book, “A New Model of the Universe”. I Have Been Here Before was first performed on the London stage in 1937.
The play starts deceptively innocently, in a small inn called the “Black Bull”, on the remote Yorkshire moors. A conversation ensues between the landlord, Sam Shipley, and his daughter, Sally Pratt, who runs the inn with him. They are preparing the premises for the arrival of three paying guests: three ladies. Into their comfortable domestic world intrudes another visitor; an elderly German professor called Dr. Görtler. Sally begins to apologise, saying that they do not have any room, and Dr. Görtler begins to make strange observations about the guests whom they are expecting, describing them quite specifically, which unnerves Sally and her father. They think he is very odd, especially when Dr. Görtler begins to mumble mysteriously to himself about it being possibly the “wrong year”.
Since his conjectures appear to be wrong, he leaves, to the relief of the proprietors. However this feeling is shortlived, since the three women whom they had been expecting imminently, cancel their bookings by telephone. At first Sally is annoyed at the cancellation, and when almost immediately another booking comes, she welcomes it. A prosperous local businessman, Walter Ormund, and his much younger wife, Janet Ormund, have telephoned to book two separate rooms. Another guest, who is also staying at the inn, enters the scene. He is a schoolmaster, Oliver Farrant, and has just returned from a walk. Three of the four rooms are therefore taken, but there is still a vacancy, because of the third cancellation.
Dr. Görtler has followed the schoolteacher in, as he has seen the young schoolmaster enter. Eagerly, he now asks for a room. Sally is uneasy, but cannot see a reason why not to accept the booking, and the professor introduces himself simply as “a German refugee”.
Later Sally confides her uneasiness to her father, and Sam Shipley replies,
“Nay, what tickled me was him saying he must ha’ come at wrong year. Now that’s as good as aught I've heard o’ some time. If he’s going around asking for people – not friends of his, mind you – and he doesn’t know where they are nor what year they’ll be here – I reckon he’s got his work cut out.”
This is the point at which the strangeness begins. The coincidences – the feelings of uneasiness and imbalance felt by each character – except for Dr. Görtler. But how exactly did Dr Görtler manage to describe the guests so precisely? Increasingly we begin to be aware through the characters’ conversations, how jumpy they all seem, and how each seems to have a growing sense of déjà vu.
That evening, Dr. Görtler joins the Ormunds and unnerves them by asking specific and strangely accurate questions about their feelings of déjà vu,
“But now I see that we do not understand ourselves, the nature of our lives. What seems to happen continually just outside the edge of our attention – the little fears and fancies, as you call them – may be all-important because they belong to a profounder reality, like the vague sounds of the city outside that we hear sometimes inside a theatre.”
After the German professor, Dr. Görtler, has gone to bed, Sally confuses and worries everybody even further, by telling the guests about the inexplicably successful predictions which the professor had made that afternoon about each of their identities. She has no time for Dr. Görtler’s theories,
“A lot of use it is you or anybody else saying what they’d do if they had their time over again – as I know only too well. A fat chance they have, haven’t they? Time moves on and it takes you with it, whatever you say.”
By Act two the scene has been set for a lot of tensions, and revelations. We learn that Dr. Görtler is a physicist, and conducting some sort of investigations, but we are not sure how knowledgable he is. Is he merely an observer, or a puppet-master? Does he have some foreknowledge as he appears? How can that be? The guests are increasingly unnerved and annoyed by his questions, yet intrigued despite themselves.
Halfway through the play we are beginning to suspect that we know how this may all end. If the professor has come here in order to change reality, what is it he is trying to prevent? We have already had a gunshot. Perhaps each of the pair has been influenced by Dr. Görtler’s theories about the circular, or rather the spiral nature of time, and the autonomy we have over our own destiny. Here he expounds his doctrine of eternal return to them all,
“But time is not single and universal. It is only the name we give to higher dimensions of things. In our present state of consciousness, we cannot experience dimensions spatially, but only successively. That we call time. But there are more times than one – ”
There is recurrence and there is intervention,
“Some people, steadily developing, will exhaust the possibilities of their circles of time and will finally swing out of them into new existences. Others – the criminals, madmen, suicides – live their lives in ever darkening circles of their time. Fatality begins to haunt them. More and more of their lives are passed in the shadow of death.”
By the end of Act Two one of the characters has left. But another finds something which has apparently been left behind; something of significance. The final Act shows how all the events will come together.
How will the play end? Several endings seem to have been telegraphed or hinted at throughout the play, yet the ending, in another twist which I have not explained under the spoiler, is muted and not what is expected at any point.
Dr. Görtler says,
“I have lived longer than you. I have thought more, and I have suffered more. And I tell you there is more truth to the fundamental nature of things in the most foolish fairy tales than there is in any of your complaints against life.”
“Yes, but you do not know – you will not understand – that life is penetrated through and through by our feeling, imagination and will. In the end, the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a fairy tale created by ourselves.”
I have to admit to a fond liking for J.B. Priestley’s imaginative “Time Plays”. I share the author’s fascination with the physics and philosophy of time, and enjoy his exploring the different concepts in this way. But in fairness, although the play is very appealing, it does come across as rather dated. In particular, the simple-minded landlord, Sam Shipley, that “bit of old Yorkshire” and his fussy, interfering daughter both mistrusting the intellectual “foreigner” Dr. Görtler, can provide light humorous moments – but sometimes this feels a little off-key.
It is interesting as a precursor of the more sophisticated and adept “An Inspector Calls”. Several characters seems familiar. The blustering Walter Ormund is like an early version of Mr Birling, and Oliver Farrant is surely the theatrical ancestor of the rather weak Gerald Croft. In I Have Been Here Before, it is a German professor, who pokes and probes the motivations and misgivings of the other characters. Dr. Görtler is an early incarnation of the later “police inspector” Ghoul; he is an omniscient being, performing a social experiment on unfamiliar strangers, who are revealed ultimately to be intimately connected. There is an expertly controlled, mounting realisation and despair in “An Inspector Calls”, but here it is more muted; a feeling or a suggestion, in accordance with the sense of déjà vu, rather than of true horror.
Determinism: what is predestined, as opposed to free choice, is always a ripe subject for debate, but the author’s philosophical interest is rather too overt. His characters are all too clearly mouthpieces for the opposing arguments. People in general, or at least mere acquaintances as these were, do not behave in this way. Here the conversations are analysed and deconstructed into theories, expositions and explanations, and increasingly so nearing the end. We feel that in the main the characters are there to outline J.B. Priestley’s personal grappling with the concepts, and his own thinking, via his character of Dr. Görtler. Yet no doubt almost 80 years ago, this would have seemed startling and new.
According to J.B. Priestley, although the play was quite successful in London, and “often played both here and on the Continent”, I Have Been Here Before was “a disastrous failure” initially in New York, and he rewrote it several times,
“chiefly because it was very difficult to explain Ouspensky’s theory of recurrence on which the action was based,”
The author claims his play is “an excellent example of the stealthy edging away from naturalism”, asserting that “many of the speeches in the third act are far removed from conventional realistic dialogue, and yet nobody commented on this fact.”
I think however, that a contemporary audience would notice this. The spouting of hypotheses increases throughout the play, much as it does in some of his fellow Socialist thinker George Bernard Shaw’s plays. Agree or disagree as you will with the ideas and concepts, a play is not the best vehicle for this. So even though this play was intriguing and very enjoyable, I find it has to stay at a solid three star rating.
Recurrence ... and Intervention ...
The author of I Have Been Here Before, J.B. Priestley, is not as well-known for his plays as in previous decades. However, this Yorkshireman was a prolific playwright, author and broadcaster, and his work was very popular during his lifetime. Many people will be familiar with the play “An Inspector Calls”, another of his “Time Plays”, and the one which is probably his masterpiece. In the 1930s and 1940s, the author wrote a series of plays, each dealing with a different concept of time; each play revolving around a different alternative theory. Time itself became the central metaphor. Using this as a theatrical device, in each play each of the characters’ lives is affected by how they react to the unusual events of their particular timescape. Each play is peopled by a small cast, and has an intimate feel.
There are six “Time Plays” in total, and several different theories are propounded through them. The inspiration for I Have Been Here Before was P.D. Ouspensky’s theory of eternal recurrence, which he conceived in his 1931 book, “A New Model of the Universe”. I Have Been Here Before was first performed on the London stage in 1937.
The play starts deceptively innocently, in a small inn called the “Black Bull”, on the remote Yorkshire moors. A conversation ensues between the landlord, Sam Shipley, and his daughter, Sally Pratt, who runs the inn with him. They are preparing the premises for the arrival of three paying guests: three ladies. Into their comfortable domestic world intrudes another visitor; an elderly German professor called Dr. Görtler. Sally begins to apologise, saying that they do not have any room, and Dr. Görtler begins to make strange observations about the guests whom they are expecting, describing them quite specifically, which unnerves Sally and her father. They think he is very odd, especially when Dr. Görtler begins to mumble mysteriously to himself about it being possibly the “wrong year”.
Since his conjectures appear to be wrong, he leaves, to the relief of the proprietors. However this feeling is shortlived, since the three women whom they had been expecting imminently, cancel their bookings by telephone. At first Sally is annoyed at the cancellation, and when almost immediately another booking comes, she welcomes it. A prosperous local businessman, Walter Ormund, and his much younger wife, Janet Ormund, have telephoned to book two separate rooms. Another guest, who is also staying at the inn, enters the scene. He is a schoolmaster, Oliver Farrant, and has just returned from a walk. Three of the four rooms are therefore taken, but there is still a vacancy, because of the third cancellation.
Dr. Görtler has followed the schoolteacher in, as he has seen the young schoolmaster enter. Eagerly, he now asks for a room. Sally is uneasy, but cannot see a reason why not to accept the booking, and the professor introduces himself simply as “a German refugee”.
Later Sally confides her uneasiness to her father, and Sam Shipley replies,
“Nay, what tickled me was him saying he must ha’ come at wrong year. Now that’s as good as aught I've heard o’ some time. If he’s going around asking for people – not friends of his, mind you – and he doesn’t know where they are nor what year they’ll be here – I reckon he’s got his work cut out.”
This is the point at which the strangeness begins. The coincidences – the feelings of uneasiness and imbalance felt by each character – except for Dr. Görtler. But how exactly did Dr Görtler manage to describe the guests so precisely? Increasingly we begin to be aware through the characters’ conversations, how jumpy they all seem, and how each seems to have a growing sense of déjà vu.
That evening, Dr. Görtler joins the Ormunds and unnerves them by asking specific and strangely accurate questions about their feelings of déjà vu,
“But now I see that we do not understand ourselves, the nature of our lives. What seems to happen continually just outside the edge of our attention – the little fears and fancies, as you call them – may be all-important because they belong to a profounder reality, like the vague sounds of the city outside that we hear sometimes inside a theatre.”
After the German professor, Dr. Görtler, has gone to bed, Sally confuses and worries everybody even further, by telling the guests about the inexplicably successful predictions which the professor had made that afternoon about each of their identities. She has no time for Dr. Görtler’s theories,
“A lot of use it is you or anybody else saying what they’d do if they had their time over again – as I know only too well. A fat chance they have, haven’t they? Time moves on and it takes you with it, whatever you say.”
By Act two the scene has been set for a lot of tensions, and revelations. We learn that Dr. Görtler is a physicist, and conducting some sort of investigations, but we are not sure how knowledgable he is. Is he merely an observer, or a puppet-master? Does he have some foreknowledge as he appears? How can that be? The guests are increasingly unnerved and annoyed by his questions, yet intrigued despite themselves.
Halfway through the play we are beginning to suspect that we know how this may all end. If the professor has come here in order to change reality, what is it he is trying to prevent? We have already had a gunshot. Perhaps each of the pair has been influenced by Dr. Görtler’s theories about the circular, or rather the spiral nature of time, and the autonomy we have over our own destiny. Here he expounds his doctrine of eternal return to them all,
“But time is not single and universal. It is only the name we give to higher dimensions of things. In our present state of consciousness, we cannot experience dimensions spatially, but only successively. That we call time. But there are more times than one – ”
There is recurrence and there is intervention,
“Some people, steadily developing, will exhaust the possibilities of their circles of time and will finally swing out of them into new existences. Others – the criminals, madmen, suicides – live their lives in ever darkening circles of their time. Fatality begins to haunt them. More and more of their lives are passed in the shadow of death.”
By the end of Act Two one of the characters has left. But another finds something which has apparently been left behind; something of significance. The final Act shows how all the events will come together.
How will the play end? Several endings seem to have been telegraphed or hinted at throughout the play, yet the ending, in another twist which I have not explained under the spoiler, is muted and not what is expected at any point.
Dr. Görtler says,
“I have lived longer than you. I have thought more, and I have suffered more. And I tell you there is more truth to the fundamental nature of things in the most foolish fairy tales than there is in any of your complaints against life.”
“Yes, but you do not know – you will not understand – that life is penetrated through and through by our feeling, imagination and will. In the end, the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a fairy tale created by ourselves.”
I have to admit to a fond liking for J.B. Priestley’s imaginative “Time Plays”. I share the author’s fascination with the physics and philosophy of time, and enjoy his exploring the different concepts in this way. But in fairness, although the play is very appealing, it does come across as rather dated. In particular, the simple-minded landlord, Sam Shipley, that “bit of old Yorkshire” and his fussy, interfering daughter both mistrusting the intellectual “foreigner” Dr. Görtler, can provide light humorous moments – but sometimes this feels a little off-key.
It is interesting as a precursor of the more sophisticated and adept “An Inspector Calls”. Several characters seems familiar. The blustering Walter Ormund is like an early version of Mr Birling, and Oliver Farrant is surely the theatrical ancestor of the rather weak Gerald Croft. In I Have Been Here Before, it is a German professor, who pokes and probes the motivations and misgivings of the other characters. Dr. Görtler is an early incarnation of the later “police inspector” Ghoul; he is an omniscient being, performing a social experiment on unfamiliar strangers, who are revealed ultimately to be intimately connected. There is an expertly controlled, mounting realisation and despair in “An Inspector Calls”, but here it is more muted; a feeling or a suggestion, in accordance with the sense of déjà vu, rather than of true horror.
Determinism: what is predestined, as opposed to free choice, is always a ripe subject for debate, but the author’s philosophical interest is rather too overt. His characters are all too clearly mouthpieces for the opposing arguments. People in general, or at least mere acquaintances as these were, do not behave in this way. Here the conversations are analysed and deconstructed into theories, expositions and explanations, and increasingly so nearing the end. We feel that in the main the characters are there to outline J.B. Priestley’s personal grappling with the concepts, and his own thinking, via his character of Dr. Görtler. Yet no doubt almost 80 years ago, this would have seemed startling and new.
According to J.B. Priestley, although the play was quite successful in London, and “often played both here and on the Continent”, I Have Been Here Before was “a disastrous failure” initially in New York, and he rewrote it several times,
“chiefly because it was very difficult to explain Ouspensky’s theory of recurrence on which the action was based,”
The author claims his play is “an excellent example of the stealthy edging away from naturalism”, asserting that “many of the speeches in the third act are far removed from conventional realistic dialogue, and yet nobody commented on this fact.”
I think however, that a contemporary audience would notice this. The spouting of hypotheses increases throughout the play, much as it does in some of his fellow Socialist thinker George Bernard Shaw’s plays. Agree or disagree as you will with the ideas and concepts, a play is not the best vehicle for this. So even though this play was intriguing and very enjoyable, I find it has to stay at a solid three star rating.
Recurrence ... and Intervention ...
December 4, 2018
جی.بی.پریستلی نمایشنامهنویس معرکهایه. شروع این نمایشنامهش هم مثل بقیهی کارهاش خیلی خوب بود و با استفاده از متدهای آثار پلیسی، خواننده رو جذب میکرد و نسبتاً پرکشش بود. ولی از آخرش که ماجرا یکمقدار ماورایی میشد خوشم نیومد. البته این مسئلهی زمان و مکان انگار دغدغهی همیشگی آثار پریستلیه و در این زمینه صاحبنظره، ولی اینجا دیگه قضیه خیلی فلسفی میشد
December 6, 2020
جالب بود. ایده ی کلی کتاب راجع به تناسخ و زندگی بعد از مرگه و اینکه همیشه هستیم بدون اینکه زندگی قبلیمون یادمون باشه
September 14, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2023
This is my favourite play because it's such an interesting and provocative idea. The play isn't often performed so it was about time I read the play again.
This is one of Priestley's 'time' plays though the influence here is not JW Dunne - he was the inspiration for An Inspector Calls for example - but PD Ouspensky and his book A New Model of the Universe.
Dr Gortler arrives at an inn on a lonely moor hoping that three characters will be staying the night - a single man and a married couple - only to find the expected guests are a single man and three single females. He leaves, assuming he has the wrong place...
Then...the three single females have to cancel due to an illness and a married couple ring up on the off chance there are two rooms available. There are and they arrive. Dr Gortler returns to find that the people he was hoping to find are now in place...
That's as much as I will say, but this is such a fascinating situation...
This is one of Priestley's 'time' plays though the influence here is not JW Dunne - he was the inspiration for An Inspector Calls for example - but PD Ouspensky and his book A New Model of the Universe.
Dr Gortler arrives at an inn on a lonely moor hoping that three characters will be staying the night - a single man and a married couple - only to find the expected guests are a single man and three single females. He leaves, assuming he has the wrong place...
Then...the three single females have to cancel due to an illness and a married couple ring up on the off chance there are two rooms available. There are and they arrive. Dr Gortler returns to find that the people he was hoping to find are now in place...
That's as much as I will say, but this is such a fascinating situation...
July 11, 2024
Priestley again plays with time to build suspense, comment on narrative in theater and life, and gesture at mysticism.
July 31, 2018
این نمایش نامه رو از نمایشگاه امسال و به پیشنهاد یکی از غرفه داران نشر نیماژ خریدم
بسیااااار دوستش داشتم
همیشه درک اینکه بعد مرگ واقعا چی پیش میاد برامون برام سخت بوده و خیلی نظریه ها در این مورد غیر قابل باور بوده برام، و از اونجا که مثل همه آدمها درک نیستی برام غیر ممکنه، تمایل شدیدی به این دارم که فکر کنم که به طور بی نهایتی هستیم همیشه! زندگی های مکرر بدون اینکه از زندگی قبلیمون چیزی به یاد داشته باشیم.
ایده کتاب که میگه شاید زمان و مکان فرد و قالبش تغییر کنه در هر بار زندگی مجدد، ولی نهایتا یه هسته مشترک داره همه این زندگی ها و یه حرکت دایره وار ولی در عین حال رو به بالا (یه فنر رو تصور کنید) برام بسیاار بسیاااار دل چسب تر بود. کمی که سرچ زدم دیدم نظریه های فیزیک هم در باره زندگی های مجدد و دنیاهای موازی و... وجود داره که البته فعلا به صحت و سقم و درصد احتمال ممکن بودنش کاری ندارم، همین که دلچسبه راضیم میکنه تو این مرحله از زندگی :)
و خب چه زیییبا حتی با این نظریه به مفهوم بهشت و جهنمی میشه رسید که ملموس باشه. از اونجا که ذات زندگی ثابته مگه اینکه خود فرد تکونی به خودش بده، پس اونی که نا امیده و منفی تو همه زندگیهاش همین میمونه نهایتا و این میشه اون جهنم ابدی و اونی که دائما برای پیشرفت میجنگه دائما در هر زندگی یه پله میره جلوتر و نهایتا به کمال میرسه! اونی که خودش رو میکشه در یک زندگی، تو تمام زندگی های بعدیش هم به نقطه خودکشی میرسه و عملش رو تکرار میکنه و این میشه همون جهنمی که به افرادی ک خودشونو میکشن وعده داده شده
شاید از دید خیلی ها فانتزی باشه این طرز فکر ولی منو خیلی خوشحال میکنه :)
بسیااااار دوستش داشتم
همیشه درک اینکه بعد مرگ واقعا چی پیش میاد برامون برام سخت بوده و خیلی نظریه ها در این مورد غیر قابل باور بوده برام، و از اونجا که مثل همه آدمها درک نیستی برام غیر ممکنه، تمایل شدیدی به این دارم که فکر کنم که به طور بی نهایتی هستیم همیشه! زندگی های مکرر بدون اینکه از زندگی قبلیمون چیزی به یاد داشته باشیم.
ایده کتاب که میگه شاید زمان و مکان فرد و قالبش تغییر کنه در هر بار زندگی مجدد، ولی نهایتا یه هسته مشترک داره همه این زندگی ها و یه حرکت دایره وار ولی در عین حال رو به بالا (یه فنر رو تصور کنید) برام بسیاار بسیاااار دل چسب تر بود. کمی که سرچ زدم دیدم نظریه های فیزیک هم در باره زندگی های مجدد و دنیاهای موازی و... وجود داره که البته فعلا به صحت و سقم و درصد احتمال ممکن بودنش کاری ندارم، همین که دلچسبه راضیم میکنه تو این مرحله از زندگی :)
و خب چه زیییبا حتی با این نظریه به مفهوم بهشت و جهنمی میشه رسید که ملموس باشه. از اونجا که ذات زندگی ثابته مگه اینکه خود فرد تکونی به خودش بده، پس اونی که نا امیده و منفی تو همه زندگیهاش همین میمونه نهایتا و این میشه اون جهنم ابدی و اونی که دائما برای پیشرفت میجنگه دائما در هر زندگی یه پله میره جلوتر و نهایتا به کمال میرسه! اونی که خودش رو میکشه در یک زندگی، تو تمام زندگی های بعدیش هم به نقطه خودکشی میرسه و عملش رو تکرار میکنه و این میشه همون جهنمی که به افرادی ک خودشونو میکشن وعده داده شده
شاید از دید خیلی ها فانتزی باشه این طرز فکر ولی منو خیلی خوشحال میکنه :)
October 25, 2025
Very moving. I have only read two plays by JB Priestley - ‘Time and the Conways’, and this one (‘I have been here before’) but both involved metaphysical concepts. I was starting to wonder if Priestley only wrote about such things but then I discovered that he had written three ‘Time plays’ (the third being Dangerous Corner) which I presume means the mysteries of time are not touched upon in his other work. I now feel compelled to read Dangerous Corner as the first two time plays have been so good.
The play about the Conway family featured precognition, as family members (one in particular) appeared to experience feelings of occupying two places in space and time simultaneously. This one (‘I Have Been Here Before’) is about the never-ending (and possibly somewhat repeating) circle of life. Priestly’s genius is to set his grand ideas in such prosaic settings - in this case a pub called the Black Bull Inn on the high moors of North Yorkshire. Priestly knows there are several Black Bull inns on those moors (they are still going today), so he knows his audience will feel they know the place already.
As well as a recognisable place, there is also a small but recognisable cast of a father and daughter running the pub; a successful but heavy drinking factory owner and his wife, who are staying for the holiday weekend of Whitsun; a young burned-out school headmaster staying at the inn for a rest-cure; and, a mysterious German scientist who has had to flee his country and is now residing in London as a refugee. As it transpires all the characters are connected in some way and what plays out is also recognisable, at least to the scientist.
I really enjoyed this play. It’s a pity it has taken me more than sixty years to read Priestley, but perhaps it was always meant to be…!
The play about the Conway family featured precognition, as family members (one in particular) appeared to experience feelings of occupying two places in space and time simultaneously. This one (‘I Have Been Here Before’) is about the never-ending (and possibly somewhat repeating) circle of life. Priestly’s genius is to set his grand ideas in such prosaic settings - in this case a pub called the Black Bull Inn on the high moors of North Yorkshire. Priestly knows there are several Black Bull inns on those moors (they are still going today), so he knows his audience will feel they know the place already.
As well as a recognisable place, there is also a small but recognisable cast of a father and daughter running the pub; a successful but heavy drinking factory owner and his wife, who are staying for the holiday weekend of Whitsun; a young burned-out school headmaster staying at the inn for a rest-cure; and, a mysterious German scientist who has had to flee his country and is now residing in London as a refugee. As it transpires all the characters are connected in some way and what plays out is also recognisable, at least to the scientist.
I really enjoyed this play. It’s a pity it has taken me more than sixty years to read Priestley, but perhaps it was always meant to be…!
September 14, 2014
From BBC Radio 4 EXtra:
A group of people thrown together by chance when they decide to stay at a remote Yorkshire inn, discover that they're so interdependent that a decision taken by any one of them is likely to have a profound effect on the lives of the others.
Have they lived through the experience before? Is there a chance to make different decisions this time?
Stars Lesley Nichol as Sally Pratt, George A Cooper as Sam Shipley, Geoffrey Banks as Dr Gortler and Alan Rothwell as Oliver Farrant.
Directed by Alfred Bradley.
A group of people thrown together by chance when they decide to stay at a remote Yorkshire inn, discover that they're so interdependent that a decision taken by any one of them is likely to have a profound effect on the lives of the others.
Have they lived through the experience before? Is there a chance to make different decisions this time?
Stars Lesley Nichol as Sally Pratt, George A Cooper as Sam Shipley, Geoffrey Banks as Dr Gortler and Alan Rothwell as Oliver Farrant.
Directed by Alfred Bradley.
October 21, 2013
I don't like fictions - or any other art form - which intend to present or discuss scientific theories, maybe the only exception was Resnais' movie "Mon oncle d'Amérique". Priestley failed in make me interested even with an interesting subject in itself.
May 13, 2023
Oooof i really don't like this one. It's structured like a mystery without questions, without tension, and then the last quarter of it is just expository dialogue with some half assed sci fi fantasy manifesto explaining 'the point of the play'.
Its very meh.
Its very meh.
September 3, 2024
Again Priestley, like Shaw, proves himself the better Ibsen. The esoterics of the thing are not something I quite agree with or understand (but then again, I don't think you should), but their general vibe, and the very true, and very important, moral they are used to illustrate, I do. Dr. Görtler's impassioned arguing for the futility of self-pity especially is wonderful, wonderful to read. Written the Ibsen mold, the play is quite simplistic, but it deviates in one important way. Ibsen's characters are marionettes, wooden and inhuman, and their fates and deeds seem to operate on a Boolean understanding of human psychology and interaction - if this then that, if not this then that, if this then not that... Priestley keeps the schematic formula, but he, like Bertrand Russell, knows that human beings do not think this way, and it is much easier to imagine a life for these characters beyond the page (although, incomprehensibly, the old Norwegian is said to have delved so deeply into his characters as to even carry out imaginary conversations with them).
August 28, 2025
It is knowledge alone that gives us freedom. I believe that the very grooves in which our lives run are created by our feeling, imagination and will. If we know and then make the effort, we can change our lives.
October 12, 2018
فكرة جيدة جدا وممتعة
January 4, 2016
Peça que utiliza a concepção do tempo de Ouspensky conciliando determinismo com livre arbítrio, permitindo assim a existência de desvios na fatalidade do destino. Tal concepção apesar de não endossada pessoalmente por Priestley, resultou na produção de uma peça eficaz. A leitura de An experiment with time de Dunne exerceu tanta influência sobre o pensamento de J B Priestley que apesar da visão deste não ser utilizada nesta peça, percebe-se claramente sua influência na concepção do personagem Dr Götler. Talvez por isso a imprecisão em um dos textos de Borges, que menciona esta como sendo a mesma concepção que Priestley utilizou em Time and the Conways. Por fim, de se notar que a escolha da primeira linha do poema Sudden Light de Dante Gabriel Rossetti se adequa como luva ao argumento da peça.
January 8, 2015
Priestley's theory of predetermination with limited freewill.
November 6, 2023
J B Priestley’s plays discuss wider intellectual issues about the universe within the context of a series of mundane domestic dramas. That is the reason why he is not more highly-regarded as a playwright.
In the end it is much easier for a writer if s/he either writes in a visionary manner or sticks to a more realistic style. Combining the two forms is often bathetic.
Yet in a way Priestley reflects the reality for many intellectuals. For the thinkers and dreamers, life is caught between the mundane and dreary realities of the world (family and domestic squabbles, paying expensive repairs on the house, grumbling about a pay rise that never happened) and the important cosmic issues (the existence or otherwise of a god, the correct ethical way to live, the movement of the heavenly bodies, and so on).
Perhaps Priestley’s style is just a little too close for comfort. The peculiar dichotomy is reflected in the title of another one of Priestley’s ‘time plays’, Time and the Conways. The name of the play is itself an anti-climax.
Here we have I Have Been Here Before, a plain title for another one of Priestley’s ‘time plays’ that takes an unexceptional love triangle, and places it in the context of P D Ouspensky's book, A New Model of the Universe.
The action takes place in the Black Bull inn, a fairly typical British pub name. This pub is also a place where you can stay for the night. Sam Shipley and his daughter Sally Pratt are the proprietors of the inn.
Imagine their astonishment when the expected guests cancel their reservations, and are replaced instead by Walter and Janet Ormund. The proprietors have their money invested in concerns ran by the wealthy Walter. He has also founded a school which is attended by Sally’s son.
Coincidentally another guest staying at the Black Bull is the headmaster of the school, Oliver Farrant. The Ormunds form an instant dislike to their employee Farrant, but this turns out to be due an implausible but fatalistic emotion felt by Janet. The situation threatens to create a tragedy that will tear everyone’s life apart since their fortunes are tangled together.
Fortunately there is another guest at the Black Bull, a German professor called Dr Görtler, and he is able to intervene this time round. This time round? Well Dr Görtler is a believer in a doctrine of eternal return. Görtler believes that we repeat our lives infinitely. However this is not a circle but a spiral.
The relationship between the Ormunds and Farrant has been played out before. This time Dr Görtler wishes to intervene to see if he can achieve a more positive outcome by warning the characters what will happen to them in advance. He is influenced by a spirit of scientific curiosity, and sees this as an experiment. Perhaps he cares as well?
Dr Görtler’s problem is compounded by the fact that his intrusive questions and Germanic nationality arouse suspicion in the guests and hosts. Like the inspector in An Inspector Calls, Dr Görtler possesses an alarming amount of other-worldly knowledge, and he makes everyone uncomfortable. Will they listen to him? Will it change anything if they do?
Priestley’s play raises a number of issues. Are we fatalistically destined to make the same mistakes? Can we change the future? How much free will do we have?
It also raises a number of questions that might be termed plot holes. How is it that Dr Görtler remembers the past so clearly when everyone else has only a sense of déjà vu? If Görtler can tell what happens when he relives his life, then why does he not work to protect himself and his loved ones, who are German emigres, rather than spending time helping a few strangers?
Even if Dr Görtler changes the outcome this time around, will they simply experience the same fate next time around, or will the changes that he has implemented this time hold good for the future?
I Have Been Here Before is a modest enough play that only really has one idea in it. Still it is an interesting idea, and it is worth giving this forgotten play a glance.
In the end it is much easier for a writer if s/he either writes in a visionary manner or sticks to a more realistic style. Combining the two forms is often bathetic.
Yet in a way Priestley reflects the reality for many intellectuals. For the thinkers and dreamers, life is caught between the mundane and dreary realities of the world (family and domestic squabbles, paying expensive repairs on the house, grumbling about a pay rise that never happened) and the important cosmic issues (the existence or otherwise of a god, the correct ethical way to live, the movement of the heavenly bodies, and so on).
Perhaps Priestley’s style is just a little too close for comfort. The peculiar dichotomy is reflected in the title of another one of Priestley’s ‘time plays’, Time and the Conways. The name of the play is itself an anti-climax.
Here we have I Have Been Here Before, a plain title for another one of Priestley’s ‘time plays’ that takes an unexceptional love triangle, and places it in the context of P D Ouspensky's book, A New Model of the Universe.
The action takes place in the Black Bull inn, a fairly typical British pub name. This pub is also a place where you can stay for the night. Sam Shipley and his daughter Sally Pratt are the proprietors of the inn.
Imagine their astonishment when the expected guests cancel their reservations, and are replaced instead by Walter and Janet Ormund. The proprietors have their money invested in concerns ran by the wealthy Walter. He has also founded a school which is attended by Sally’s son.
Coincidentally another guest staying at the Black Bull is the headmaster of the school, Oliver Farrant. The Ormunds form an instant dislike to their employee Farrant, but this turns out to be due an implausible but fatalistic emotion felt by Janet. The situation threatens to create a tragedy that will tear everyone’s life apart since their fortunes are tangled together.
Fortunately there is another guest at the Black Bull, a German professor called Dr Görtler, and he is able to intervene this time round. This time round? Well Dr Görtler is a believer in a doctrine of eternal return. Görtler believes that we repeat our lives infinitely. However this is not a circle but a spiral.
The relationship between the Ormunds and Farrant has been played out before. This time Dr Görtler wishes to intervene to see if he can achieve a more positive outcome by warning the characters what will happen to them in advance. He is influenced by a spirit of scientific curiosity, and sees this as an experiment. Perhaps he cares as well?
Dr Görtler’s problem is compounded by the fact that his intrusive questions and Germanic nationality arouse suspicion in the guests and hosts. Like the inspector in An Inspector Calls, Dr Görtler possesses an alarming amount of other-worldly knowledge, and he makes everyone uncomfortable. Will they listen to him? Will it change anything if they do?
Priestley’s play raises a number of issues. Are we fatalistically destined to make the same mistakes? Can we change the future? How much free will do we have?
It also raises a number of questions that might be termed plot holes. How is it that Dr Görtler remembers the past so clearly when everyone else has only a sense of déjà vu? If Görtler can tell what happens when he relives his life, then why does he not work to protect himself and his loved ones, who are German emigres, rather than spending time helping a few strangers?
Even if Dr Görtler changes the outcome this time around, will they simply experience the same fate next time around, or will the changes that he has implemented this time hold good for the future?
I Have Been Here Before is a modest enough play that only really has one idea in it. Still it is an interesting idea, and it is worth giving this forgotten play a glance.
December 15, 2024
Aprecio muchísimo cómo pudo crear una narrativa tan simple para una idea tan profunda. El tercer acto realmente me encantó.
La idea que intenta trasmitir la resumiría en las siguientes citas:
"DR GÖRTLER: But I must remind you — there’s no escape.
ORMUND: No? I suppose because you believe that if I take the jump into the dark, I’ll find myself back again on the old treadmill. Well, I don’t believe it. I can find peace.
DR GÖRTLER: You can’t. Peace is not somewhere just waiting for you.
ORMUND: Where is it then?
[...]
DR GÖRTLER [sternly]: If you must talk and act like a child, then at least be as humble as a child. If you cannot create your own peace, then pray for it. Go down on your knees and ask for it. If you have no knowledge, then have faith.
[...]
DR GÖRTLER: Yes, but you do not know — you will not understand — that life is penetrated through and through by our feeling, imagination and will. In the end the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a fairy tale created by ourselves.
ORMUND: What — by going round and round the same damned dreary circle of existence, as you believe?
DR GÖRTLER: What has happened before — many times perhaps — will probably happen again. That is why some people can prophesy what is to happen. They do not see the future, as they think, but the past, what has happened before. But something new may happen. You may have brought your wife here for this holiday over and over again. She may have met Farrant here over and over again. But you and I have not talked here before. This is new. This may be one of those great moments of our lives.
ORMUND: And which are they?
DR GÖRTLER [impressively]: When a soul can make a fateful decision. I see this as such a moment for you, Ormund. You can return to the old dark circle of existence, dying endless deaths, or you can break the spell and swing out into new life. [...]"
La idea que intenta trasmitir la resumiría en las siguientes citas:
"DR GÖRTLER: But I must remind you — there’s no escape.
ORMUND: No? I suppose because you believe that if I take the jump into the dark, I’ll find myself back again on the old treadmill. Well, I don’t believe it. I can find peace.
DR GÖRTLER: You can’t. Peace is not somewhere just waiting for you.
ORMUND: Where is it then?
[...]
DR GÖRTLER [sternly]: If you must talk and act like a child, then at least be as humble as a child. If you cannot create your own peace, then pray for it. Go down on your knees and ask for it. If you have no knowledge, then have faith.
[...]
DR GÖRTLER: Yes, but you do not know — you will not understand — that life is penetrated through and through by our feeling, imagination and will. In the end the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a fairy tale created by ourselves.
ORMUND: What — by going round and round the same damned dreary circle of existence, as you believe?
DR GÖRTLER: What has happened before — many times perhaps — will probably happen again. That is why some people can prophesy what is to happen. They do not see the future, as they think, but the past, what has happened before. But something new may happen. You may have brought your wife here for this holiday over and over again. She may have met Farrant here over and over again. But you and I have not talked here before. This is new. This may be one of those great moments of our lives.
ORMUND: And which are they?
DR GÖRTLER [impressively]: When a soul can make a fateful decision. I see this as such a moment for you, Ormund. You can return to the old dark circle of existence, dying endless deaths, or you can break the spell and swing out into new life. [...]"
November 13, 2022
In a room filled with clocks--the drawing room of a Yorkshire inn called the Black Bull, to be precise--six disparate people converge for a strange, life-changing weekend. The inn is run by a gentle old soul named Sam Shipley and his fretful daughter Sally Pratt, who came to work for her father after her husband died a couple years back. Both are made uneasy by the appearance of Dr. Gertler, who arrives unannounced, asks whether a woman married to an older man and another younger man are staying here, and--when the reply is negative--wonders whether it's the wrong year. He disappears; the phone rings, bringing news that the three ladies from Manchester who were supposed to be coming down for the weekend have to cancel; then it rings again--a wealthy married couple, Walter and Janet Ormund book two rooms. He's quite a bit older than she. A younger man, meanwhile--the personable schoolmaster Oliver Farrant--is already in residence at the inn. Suddenly, Dr. Gertler's enigmatic mumblings seem to have real significance. And of course, it's not long before he's back at the Black Bull, ready to take the last available room.
So what's going on? I Have Been Here Before is the kind of play whose secrets would be revealed only by an evil reviewer; you'll have to read it to find out. Your interest will not flag, I don't think. The only hint I can give is the one Priestley gives, in the title.
So what's going on? I Have Been Here Before is the kind of play whose secrets would be revealed only by an evil reviewer; you'll have to read it to find out. Your interest will not flag, I don't think. The only hint I can give is the one Priestley gives, in the title.
July 30, 2025
A fascinating play exploring past lives & P.D. Ouspensky’s theory of eternal recurrence. It’s a quick paced play with a slow brooding atmosphere, a strong sense of unease throughout (you know something is going to happen but you don’t know what) & I’d also say there’s a touch of gothic with this. If you’re ever watched dark shadows 1966 Tv series I’d say this has the exact same type of atmosphere even though both are different.
The play centres around a weekend at an inn but everyone has met before …. Events have already happened by the force of their passed lives but at the same time their existence is not set stone.. What I found absolutely fascinating about his play is all of these characters are strangers to one another but there lives are linked .. & the actions of one is like a domino effect on the others. It’s a difficult play to review without giving too much away but I think it’s best to go in without knowing much. Even if you don’t believe in past lives I highly recommend this. I stumbled upon this in a reading slump & although I’m not sure whether I believe in past lives this play has become a favourite of mine.
The play centres around a weekend at an inn but everyone has met before …. Events have already happened by the force of their passed lives but at the same time their existence is not set stone.. What I found absolutely fascinating about his play is all of these characters are strangers to one another but there lives are linked .. & the actions of one is like a domino effect on the others. It’s a difficult play to review without giving too much away but I think it’s best to go in without knowing much. Even if you don’t believe in past lives I highly recommend this. I stumbled upon this in a reading slump & although I’m not sure whether I believe in past lives this play has become a favourite of mine.
October 13, 2024
i read this book in one sitting. Priestley has a way of writing that builds brilliant tension then explodes out everything in the final act.
this play explores the idea of being in a time loop- that you can recall memories from your past cycles. however, with the help of a suspicious man staying at the inn who knows more than he lets on - a man can break out of his loop with a selfless act.
"In the end the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a faory tale created by ourselves."
"Peace is not somewhere just waiting for you.
...
You have to create it."
"I think what I've resented most is that the only widom we have is wisdom after the event. We learn, but always too late."
"You can return to the old dark circle of existence, dying endless deaths, or you can break the spell and swing out into new life."
this book probably used up my whole highligher, thanks priestley.
side note- AIC is really one of his only works that made it the furthest through time. all his others are severely underrated, im enjoying them more than AIC!
this play explores the idea of being in a time loop- that you can recall memories from your past cycles. however, with the help of a suspicious man staying at the inn who knows more than he lets on - a man can break out of his loop with a selfless act.
"In the end the whole universe must respond to every real effort we make. We each live a faory tale created by ourselves."
"Peace is not somewhere just waiting for you.
...
You have to create it."
"I think what I've resented most is that the only widom we have is wisdom after the event. We learn, but always too late."
"You can return to the old dark circle of existence, dying endless deaths, or you can break the spell and swing out into new life."
this book probably used up my whole highligher, thanks priestley.
side note- AIC is really one of his only works that made it the furthest through time. all his others are severely underrated, im enjoying them more than AIC!
July 28, 2019
I thoroughly enjoy a book that keeps an ongoing mystery: with an interesting plot. I believe I Have Been Here Before gives me all the great parts of a mystery book and more.
Set in a beautiful area, the characters are all on holiday for a weekend away. They learn that time is set into continuous patterns and the Doctor has come to stop the problems from ever occurring.
It truly is a fantastic read as you learn that the Doctor has already heard the events of the story. I’m grateful that Mr Ormund did not kill himself (however I’m also slightly surprised he didn’t at the end). I’m am also glad that all the characters get a happen ending unlike other pieces of work by JB Priestley.
There are some powerful messages of love and money within this play. This all adds up to make an exciting read for any reader!
4/5 Stars
Favourite quote: “In our present state of consciousness, we cannot experience these dimensions spatially, but only successively. That we call time”
Set in a beautiful area, the characters are all on holiday for a weekend away. They learn that time is set into continuous patterns and the Doctor has come to stop the problems from ever occurring.
It truly is a fantastic read as you learn that the Doctor has already heard the events of the story. I’m grateful that Mr Ormund did not kill himself (however I’m also slightly surprised he didn’t at the end). I’m am also glad that all the characters get a happen ending unlike other pieces of work by JB Priestley.
There are some powerful messages of love and money within this play. This all adds up to make an exciting read for any reader!
4/5 Stars
Favourite quote: “In our present state of consciousness, we cannot experience these dimensions spatially, but only successively. That we call time”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2018
A quick introduction: J. B. Priestley was a popular, prolific British novelist and playwright who lived from 1894 to 1984 and whose most successful writing years seemed to be from 1930 to 1950. He also had a political career.
To me, he seemed most comfortable at writing comedy, but his two best known plays, An Inspector Calls and Time and the Conways are dramas. He also seemed better at creating male characters than female.
This is one of his five time plays -- plays that experiment with flexible time, mixing the past, present, and future -- and, to me, one of the more successful ones, maybe because the characters are likable and interesting. In some of his other time plays, the characters are revealed to be despicable, seemingly for no reason other than to develop the plot. There's a lot of misery, nastiness, and yelling, for no particular reason. This play is tender, both in itself and by comparison to the others.
To me, he seemed most comfortable at writing comedy, but his two best known plays, An Inspector Calls and Time and the Conways are dramas. He also seemed better at creating male characters than female.
This is one of his five time plays -- plays that experiment with flexible time, mixing the past, present, and future -- and, to me, one of the more successful ones, maybe because the characters are likable and interesting. In some of his other time plays, the characters are revealed to be despicable, seemingly for no reason other than to develop the plot. There's a lot of misery, nastiness, and yelling, for no particular reason. This play is tender, both in itself and by comparison to the others.
March 1, 2025
So close to 4 stars. Feels like it didn't quite land the plane. Cool premise builds up to an almost satisfying ending. Could honestly be 5 to 10 pages shorter, and I think it would hit home more. If producing this, I would look into if the rights allow you to make cuts. Either way, it's a cool way to use familiar sets and motifs with a more bizarre subject matter.
January 25, 2024
De aanloop van dit theaterstuk roept vragen op, maakt nieuwsgierig. Maar dan wordt het van langsom meer prekerig, moralistisch en oeverloos expliciet, met een voorloper van new age geneuzel en ongeloofwaardige bekeringen… en haak ik definitief af…
January 2, 2026
This is not bad, a real evolution of the themes from Time and the Conways. It's still a bit tidy and stiff and English for my personal tastes, but there's interesting discussions in here about time and fate and choice, and much stronger character work.
December 12, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyed. If only it were possible.
April 24, 2018
Enjoyed re-reading this after having first come across it some 40 years earlier.
sony-or-android
June 20, 2020Aldiss says this is SF.
October 15, 2021
چه میشود اگر کسی به مانند پیامبر بیاید و بگوید که من قبلاً اینجا بودهام...
۲۳ مهر ۱۴۰۰
۲۳ مهر ۱۴۰۰
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews