Time Travel discussion
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Time and Again
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TIME AND AGAIN: General Discussion (June 2014)
Garrett wrote: "MK,OMG!"
Which one, Cynthia? (lol)
Yeh, hard to pick just one to say, do you think this was sanitary? Answer: no.I can see why a time traveler would want to go back to a more genteel time.
Amy, love your find. I tried crossing my eyes, but all I see is double.
This is fun. I wonder what other objects and architecture we will encounter.
Great pictures. I was in Times Square in '70 for the sleaze version (depressing), and more recently for the Disneyfied glitter (an improvement, I suppose) but haven't been to 1882 yet. I had a grandfather who worked at the Western Union building, which Si also mentions. He started there at age 12 in 1883, to retire decades later as Chief Cashier (Treasurer). He died well before I was born, but my mother was very proud of his success and the fact that he made sure his daughter was college educated. I wonder if Si Morley ran into him? Hope so. The past is still with us. Sometimes you can reach out and touch it.
Mod
Tom wrote: "I've read this twice, once when it was relatively new (I think one of my parents' Readers Digest Condensed Books) and once about a decade later. Both readings were ages ago and my memory of it is p..."Tom,
LOL! Many a good story has at its core a glaring lapse of judgment which we tsk tsk and applaud at the same time.
Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)
Garrett wrote: "Many a good story has at its core a glaring lapse of judgment which we tsk tsk and applaud at the same time."Great observation!
Mod
Picked this up at a yard sale yesterday after reading about Si's fascination with them. It's pretty cool. Definitely a unique way of looking at the past.
Mod
Picked this up at a yard sale yesterday after reading about Si's fascination with them. It's pretty cool. Definitely a unique way of looking at the past."
Oh. Now that's a timely and fortuitous find! Can we see some of the pictures?
Mod
Most of the ones that came with it are WWI photos of troops and a couple city shots. One is of the scene where the crown prince of Austria was assassinated. Interesting stuff. The photos of people really do spring to life.
Amy wrote: "I was intrigued by the stereoscope Si became so engrossed in when visiting the antique shop. I've never run across one in person, but I would imagine them to be similar to the Viewmasters popular ..."Very cool. When I take my glasses off and go in close it pops right out :)
Mod
P.S. You'll also want to do an image search for inside The Dakota.
Amy wrote: "The Dakota[has] had quite a cast of famous characters live there over the years including John Lennon ( who also died there)."Don't forget that the Antichrist was born there as well. Need I explain?
Amy wrote: "Has anyone looked at modern day pictures of The Dakota where Si begins his time travels? It still looks the same. Interestingly, it's had quite a cast of famous characters live there over the years..."Yes, it's a famous building. I think it was featured in another time travel novel I read quite some time ago, but I can't recall the name of it. Maybe it was a time travel movie. Too long ago, fuzzy in my memory.
Tom wrote: "Amy wrote: "The Dakota[has] had quite a cast of famous characters live there over the years including John Lennon ( who also died there)."Don't forget that the Antichrist was born there as well. ..."
No need to explain, Tom, but go ahead for those who may have missed it. That was one scary movie! I've walked by the Dakota on several occasions, once years ago when John and Yoko were living there -- wasn't invited in, though. (Probably weren't home.) Two days later I got off a plane in San Francisco and heard John Lennon had been killed. I'm still bummed out.
It's hard to imagine, without Si's sketches, that there was ever open space and small farms between there and the museum. Really enjoying this book.
Paul wrote: "No need to explain, Tom, but go ahead for those who may have missed it. That was one scary movie!"The Roman Polanski version of ROSEMARY'S BABY was set in the Dakota.
Mod
My sister used to own a condo across the street from the Dakota. (She had a view of the garage doorway where Lennon was shot!) Being near it is actually a plus in the NYC realty market.
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Wait. Did you correct my quote to not have a contraction? Are you anti-contractionary?
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Interesting. Did she own the condo when Lennon was living (and dying) there?
Amy wrote: "Wait. Did you correct my quote to not have a contraction? Are you anti-contractionary? "Nothing so droll. By replacing "where Si begins his time travels? It still looks the same. Interestingly, it's " with "has" I corrected it in order to change it from what you said to what I wanted you to have said. ;-).
No, she bought in after his time.
Ok, this time I did enjoy it much better. There's something magical about the writer's style, the way the story is crafted, that just put me in a kind of a, well, of a trance. I mean, it happened both times I read it - the first time I was not pleased, but this time I was impressed.I have never tried to write fiction, but I know we've plenty of writers in the group. So, chime in. Besides the attention to detail, what do you think did it? How did Finney work his magic??
I thought Finney may have actually overdone the detail—not in a bad way like Martin overdoes the heraldry, or King overdoes the pop-references—but he obviously researched it well and wanted to use as much of it as he could.
Mod
I enjoy the details, but would enjoy them more if they were fewer. I am also reading at the end of long days, and drift off to sleep if I don't skim past repetitive descriptions.
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "the way the story is crafted, that just put me in a kind of a, well, of a trance. ..."Be careful, Cheryl, Nathan, and Garrett(s). You weren't reading Danziger's hypnosis passages at the end of a long day were you? You could wake up in 1882.
You're feeling very relaxed . . . you can't lift your left arm . .
Finney knows how to use the prose to get that effect.
Mod
Just imagine what it would have been like to have had to share a bed with Finney at the end of the day. I think his level of detail explaining his day would drive me nutty. So the waitress who served his coffee (black, 1 sugar) was wearing a shirt with daisies on it, and one time he bought daisies from a street vendor that smelled of roasted almonds and was one week overdue for a haircut?
It does slow down the pace of the story and help you smell the proverbial flowers, but ... yowzahs!
At least Si has met his attention-to-detail match in Danzinger. I can't believe the attention to detail they're putting into the time travel project with each piece of worn and faded history regalia paired with the same piece remade and restored to its original color and glory. The number of objects, the training, the sheer effort is dizzying. A certain level of over-the-top enthusiasm would certainly be required to create such a project ... and to agree to become involved in it in the first place. Truthfully, I think I'd take one look at the miniature practice cities and run the other way, sure I was in the middle of an absolutely cuckoo project.
Why did Finney pick 1880s New York? He’d been a post-war ad-man in New York, but he was from the mid-West, and had been living in the North Bay (California) for a couple decades. Penn Station was demolished less than a decade earlier (1963) and its loss was just beginning to change the way we look at old buildings. I can remember 1970 (I turned 20 that year) and was as given to period pieces as anyone, but would never have picked the 1880s. Accept for the Robber Barons, it seems like such a dull time: after the depression of the 1870s and before we decided to become imperialists in the 1890s.What I liked best about the book was the way Finney was able to expand the time-travel envelop: his methodology was detailed enough to both enable suspension of disbelief, yet explains why people weren’t already doing it. And I really liked the little paradox twist at the end.
Mod
Maybe he had his own personal envelope he would have liked to have seen mailed? Maybe he personally got drawn into the world he saw through a stereoscope in an antique store in NYC and decided to write in that world? There's a book about Finney and his writings called Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney, but only a limited number of searches are allowed within it in Google Books, and I've reached my limit trying to find an answer to your question. Oh well.
David wrote: "Why did Finney pick 1880s New York? He’d been a post-war ad-man in New York, but he was from the mid-West, and had been living in the North Bay (California) for a couple decades. Penn Station was d..."I don't know why he chose 1882 but I'm glad he did. It was the perfect time to view the old New York. It was after the Civil War and before the turn of the century and before automobiles; and just before architect's started to build the first skyscrappers. The visual image it created for me was a perfect contrast to his 1970's New York and to our New York today.
I can give you a couple of suites of reasons for the author's choice.One would be availability. It is tons easier if there are print archives and photo archives. Previous to the Civil War this would have been problematic. The smart author picks the right level of difficulty.
Another angle would be the distance from the reading audience. Edwardians are easy (see DOWNTON ABBEY). We can sorta get our heads around Victorians. Previous to that point it becomes more difficult. It is rare indeed to find a fully convincing novel set in, say, ancient Greece. (If you want one, see Mary Renault.) Books set in that period tend to be costume dramas -- modern people rolling around in togas and chitons. We do not understand the citizens of Rome; it's just too hard to climb right into their heads. They are too distant.
And there is a virtue in setting it in New York City -- a town with a rich historical record to draw on. You would not want to set it in, say, New Rochelle.
Mod
Ig does make the book more expensive to produce, which cuts into the profits for the publisher.
Amy: Wow, those are all great spins.I think it would be easier to create from minimal archival evidence; it might be more important to actually walk to ground. San Francisco would have been easier for Finney, so I agree that there must have been something special in New York to attract him.
I understand that the Japanese “re-letter” (use paint to darken) the names of their ancestor (on their tombstones) but only the ancestors they personally remember (do the Chinese do this as well?). Most of us have very limited access to the psyches of people who predate their grandparents. Maybe the 1880s represent the time of Finney’s grandparents, and he saw the time as an extreme in terms of being accessibly remote.
The preoccupation with the 19th century isn't limited to this book, or even time travel literature. Steampunk is a re-imagining of the 19th century, is it not. Whether it be Victorian England or the Wild Wild West.Perhaps we are just going back to when, in a very real sense, our world began. Before the 19th century, inventions came along slowly, traditions were sacred, and lifestyles and demographics remained fairly stable from one generation to the next.
Our world today is the offspring of the industrial revolution, so we naturally admire our own heritage.
The drawings and photographs are a good foil for the writing.
I never thought of traffic jams in 1882 NYC, or of how loud all of those horses and iron wheels on cobble stone would have been.
Think about horse manure and urine, too.
Duane wrote: "Si Morley's New York of 1970 was vastly different from the New York of 1882. 88 years of change. We are now 44 years on from Si's time and I wonder how different the New York of 2014 would look to him."I've been pondering Duane's question. Seems to me that differences between NYC of 1970 and 2014 are in some ways as vast as those between 1970 and 1882 -- although it seems gradual for those who have lived these 44 years. Much is a result of technology, evident in Si's narration where he hasn't a clue of changes soon to come. He appreciates the joy on faces in the past, but what would he think of half the population with omnipresent smartphones and Twitter accounts?
But perhaps the bigger differences are cultural. Apparently, 1970, the year this book was published, was a time when men were men and women were "girls" until middle age, and then they were women. Not blaming Jack Finney; the story reflects the times but can grate on our ears today. Things were changing fast and I bet Finney wished someone had warned him. 1970 was also the year that 20,000 women (and men) marched down Fifth Avenue for Equality in the "Second Wave" of Feminism, still inspiring us today.
I have been to NYC in the 60s and 70s. So to me it does not sound all that strange, although of course the city has changed enormously. All cities do, mostly.
Brenda wrote: "Think about horse manure and urine, too."Give 'exhaust' a whole-nother meaning.
And can you imagine having to light a gas lamp when you came in a dark house. Nostalgia is lovely, but give me a switch on the wall near the door.
And read up on how that worked. Gas tended to explode. If it was heating the kitchen boiler, this meant boiling water as well. The fumes from the gas combustion tended to make people sick (remember that opening windows was frowned upon), and would tarnish metal and discolor wallpaper. It was sufficiently dicey that people tended to stick with candles or oil lamps.
Brenda wrote: "Think about horse manure and urine, too."I think you could get used to the manure more easily than the flies. They also used gasoline as a cleaner (my wife's grandmother blew up her kitchen heating gasoline on the wood-burning stove).
A great book to read on this subject is THE VICTORIAN HOME by Judith Fleming. She goes through an entire house, room by room, and describes what it was like and what Victorians did in there. No, you did not want to live back then. Note that Si Morley took care to go back as a person of means. It would have been highly un-fun to go back and be a farm laborer, or a street sweeper.
I wonder how much walking people did back then. What was the cost of a pair of shoes and how long did they last?
Just barely started it, wow, I'm late. So far, I'm in no way fond of a supposed physicist talking to Si so fantastically without any scientific expansion, as I just got finished with a book that did that non-stop, but I'm assuming I'll be happily corrected. Not sure how I feel about the time period mentioned. Is the author very good at the period? Seems a boring one to have chosen, but eh.
Unless you had money, for a horse or a cab or a street car, you walked. Having your own horse called for money -- to buy it, to shoe it, to feed and maintain it. And you had to have a saddle or a carriage or something as well, not free, and then probably a servant to keep all these things in good order and ready to go.Bicycles were a great invention, broadening the circle of area you could get to in one day.
Shoes, of real leather, could be patched and mended and reworked for a long time. But European peasantry wore wooden clogs, which you can hand-carve yourself. And you remember that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, poor Missouri boys, simply went barefoot all summer long.
Time Travel
Books mentioned in this topic
From Time to Time (other topics)Hollow World (other topics)
From Time to Time (other topics)
Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (other topics)
Winter's Tale (other topics)
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I found myself looking at some of the stereoscope double pictures on Google Images last night, bringing them close to my eyes and then slowly moving them away, crossing my eyes just right to see the image in 3D for a second or two. I think I'd prefer a stereoscope to my naked eyes.