Time Travel discussion
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Time and Again
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TIME AND AGAIN: General Discussion (June 2014)
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Cheryl
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Jun 13, 2014 09:02AM
Does anyone recommend the sequel? I own it - but though some GR reviewers liked it, a lot didn't, so I'm thinking of moving along to one of the other thousands of books on my to-read lists.
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A.Z. wrote: "I wonder how much walking people did back then. What was the cost of a pair of shoes and how long did they last?"They did a phenomenal amount of walking. I live in south London. When he lived in Brixton, Vincent van Gough used to walk to and from his uncle's shop on The Strand every day. You can imagine that the roads and pavements must have been filthy back then. The roads were covered in horse manure and the pavements in dog mess. And I bet people's foot and body odour were horrendous!
I loved the book and was surprised to learn that Jack Finney was also author of one of my favorite short stories, dating back to junior high school. That story is "Of Missing Persons." Here's a link to the full story: http://www.101bananas.com/library2/mi...It's not really a time travel story, but it's time travel-ly. More of a fantasy and a powerful metaphor about lost opportunities. I've thought about it often over the (many) years since I first read it in school. If you liked this book, you might enjoy the short story too.
I always thought that if a modern person went back in time, the first thing he/she would notice would be the smells. We've deodorized the world!
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "Does anyone recommend the sequel? I own it - but though some GR reviewers liked it, a lot didn't, so I'm thinking of moving along to one of the other thousands of books on my to-read lists."Personally I enjoyed reading From Time to Time, the sequel. I wasn't expecting much based on a lot of negative reviews, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. Of course, the book has large shoes to fill, and I don't think it can really top Time And Again in terms of plot quality, but all in all I did find it to be a pleasant little adventure back in time.
I was not pleased by the sequel but I am idiosyncratic and demanding.The other thing you would really dislike, if you traveled back as Si does, is pain. No aspirin, no tylenol, no anesthesia. No dentists, no antisepsis, no antibiotics. During the Civil War the standard treatment before they amputated a limb was a swig of brandy. Reading about Victorian medical practices would chill your blood.
Brenda wrote: "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 c..."Great points. If I went back in time to those days maybe I would start a 'Rent a Horse' company where weary walkers could rent a horse for one day.
Also your mention of walking barefoot in the summer back then is interesting too. Hookworm was a major problem in the South.
David wrote: "Why did Finney pick 1880s New York? "I think this is a great period for a time travel story. I believe Finney picked it because it was the perfect place to portray an America on the brink of a great technological leap forward. The elevator had been invented giving rise to the sky scrapers so that the city was beginning to take on the modern look that we all know but transportation and civil services were still lacking. In just a few years we would have automobiles, subways, telephones, then radios, airplanes and more.
Yes, the Dakota would be a dreadful place to live without an elevator. Imagine hiking up 10 stories (in your long skirt and bustle) every day.
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"And I closed my eyes, suddenly more homesick than any child. It occurred to me that I literally did not know a single person on the face of the earth, and that everything and everyone I knew was impossibly far away."
Mmm. You clearly have not read my TT novel, REVISE THE WORLD. In which the disconnect is so great it amounts to a mental illness.
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That definitely sounds true to reality, especially if you find yourself stuck there. I'm sure it would be like the culture shock stages people go through when going to a foreign country, but there's an added depth with not knowing anyone on earth, especially if you're traveling alone or if you find yourself unable to return to your own time. Another thing you rarely see is the results of the culture shock of the character returning to their own time or even a longing for some things from the past. There are so many layers of emotion and experience that authors often pass over in order to get to the adventure or romance parts of their time travel stories. We certainly can't say this of Finney, though. He seems to revel in describing every sight, sound, smell, and emotion.
My hero was a relatively famous historical figure and is on record as valuing his privacy. It drove him nuts that everybody knew all about his life and death, and could quote his own letters and journals back at him. It is as if you woke up tomorrow and discovered you were Angelina Jolie -- famous, but with no time to get used to it. (Although possibly Brad Pit could comfort you.)
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Nathan wrote: "Despite Si's brief moment of loneliness, I feel he adjusts exceptionally well."I agree. And it was believable. I expect homesickness would be a bigger issue with time travelers than it is often depicted, however.
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That would truly be disconcerting. I suppose we don't think about what writings of ours are going to be passed along after we die. My husband has been going through family things that we inherited. Among them is excerpts of a journal written around the time Si was traveling to NY. It's interesting what's passed on into the future.
Amy wrote: "Strangely, here's a sentiment you never see in time travel novels. It would definitely help to be an extrovert if traveling alone through time..."Si’s an extrovert, but time travel would tend to isolate you, so I think being an extrovert might actually handicap the traveler (you would crave the kind of intellectual intimacy, which might prove extremely rare). Plus, it’s much easier for an introvert to adjust. For example, most professors are introverts (they prefer to study by themselves with a book) while most students are extrovert (they want to be told). I’ve seen extrovert students freeze up during presentations, and while I’m an introvert, I had no trouble lecturing 150 students (I just put on my “extrovert” mask—something I learned from my introvert father).
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Si’s an extrovert, but time travel wo..."
I'm only ever able to be extroverted when that's my expected role ... thus why I only ever function extrovertedly in my office or when I teach. I think the problem is that, in other social situations, I'm neither in control nor do I know my role or what to say.
Amy, yeah that’s interesting. With teaching, it’s much easier to assume a position of control because you’re paid to be in control. As for social situations, I mostly avoid them like the plague. When I have to be in a social situation, I put on my dad’s persona (if I only have to be at the periphery of a social situation, I bring a book). Most of the people who met my father thought he was very outgoing, and it was only working with him daily, my first seven or eight years after college, that I realized what a private person he was (behind the persona).You also have to feel comfortable with your own faux pas. I used to get nervous before I would play, until I realized that the kinds of errors I made were beyond the ability of nearly everyone in my audience to register (my playing was mostly improvisational, which can be very forgiving). I realized long ago that making mistakes just meant I was applying appropriate pressure to the envelope.
Writing is a very introverted activity—even with academic writing, nearly all of my papers were single author (and when someone asked me to write with them, I would just write my sections). I can’t imagine what it would be like writing for television, which seems such a group activity.
Just started reading it this morning's commute. The opening was time-travel: me back to my six-month internship in an advertising agency more years ago than I care to remember! :-)
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Back on topic ... Si is the perfect character to thrive at a time travel adventure because he's not one bit timid about going out and meeting people and having new experiences. I often wonder if Si and Jack Finney's other characters are very much like himself. They all feel like the same person. Or are the characters that Jack Finney writes an expression of what he would like to be? Some authors write to live vicariously through their characters in much the same way that readers read to live vicariously. And now I'm wishing Finney were still living and a GoodReads author so that we could pull him in for an interview.
Mark said: "me back to my six-month internship in an advertising agency more years ago than I care to remember! :-)..."
I would think being in advertising would be both fun and tedious. Yes?
PRE-READING QUESTION1. How many of you are reading for the first t..."
1- First time read for me. I have it from the library.
2- The big question as to whether it really changes the timeline is whether one of the couple decides to "stay" in the other's time (going either forward or back).
I am just a couple chapters in, so no time travel or photos yet. I will have to come back and read messages once I am further.I know very little about this time period or New York history, so I am interested in learning about it.
So I finished the book today. It took about the first 50 pages to get used to the author's style of writing but then everything just flowed along like a river of time. Really good book! Guess I will need to write a review. One thing I noticed which I don't think is a spoiler is that Finney seems to not have a great respect for authority. Anyone else get that sense?
Look at the copyright date. This is not a modern novel. It was written when it was not all that cool, to respect authority.
I doubt it was common in the time period of the publish date, but damn does Finney do too much explaining of tiny little actions. I mean, yes, it sure does make it precise and leaves no questions, but I like to imagine the small things. If he has something in his hand, and wants to light a pipe, I'm gonna assume he puts the other object down first--you don't actually need to tell me. I think so far I'm only finishing it because I'm now confused by the method, and I'd love to see more science than just some handwave kind of junk.
Superior Ven A. wrote: "...I think so far I'm only finishing it because I'm now confused by the method, and I'd love to see more science than just some handwave kind of junk. ..."Superior, you may be disappointed, but this book isn't really about the science of time travel.
Brenda wrote: "Look at the copyright date. This is not a modern novel. It was written when it was not all that cool, to respect authority."Yup. I agree. Reading this book even without the time-travel is kind of like time-traveling :)
Finney said that he wanted to write about the experience of TT, not the mechanics. So he developed a method that had, essentially, no machinery.
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Did anyone else think that Kate got dissed in the story? (view spoiler)
I'm at 27% and I have to say I'm finding it quite over-written and laborious. I do understand that that's a product of the protagonist's character and his immersive experience, but I still think it could have been quicker to the main story.Kate's just arrived at his apartment, so I expect things to start moving more quickly now...
Samantha wrote: "Nathan, [spoilers removed]"I agree, Nathan. It didn't seem like a real deep relationship. I just finished it and thought the ending was phenomenal. I did not see that coming.I agree with some others that the detail is a little overplayed. But the fire scene certainly created forshadowing of 9/11, on a smaller scale of course. I did wonder why he felt he needed to stay with the project in order to time travel. Seems like he could have just done it on his own.
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Brenda wrote: "Finney said that he wanted to write about the experience of TT, not the mechanics. So he developed a method that had, essentially, no machinery."That's an essential point you make, Brenda, this story is not about the mode of travel, but the experience of being a Traveler, and that's what I really enjoyed. If I were in Si's (buttoned) shoes, I'd probably be staring at the passengers on the horse-drawn bus as he did, those incredible living beings from the past.
I also wondered about the TT point that Nathan mentioned - why not travel to a different day? But I agree that Finney was intentionally keeping it simple. So I put that aside and just went for the ride.
Paul wrote: "I also wondered about the TT point that Nathan mentioned - why not travel to a different day? But I agree that Finney was intentionally keeping it simple. So I put that aside and just went for the ride. "I agree, Paul. Sometimes you've just got to suspend disbelief. The better books (and movies and plays) make it easier.
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Amy wrote: "The first time I read the book, I think that I enjoyed all the detail of the time period. I wonder what's changed with me that I now do not. Finishing this is quite the chore. The plot seems so v..."I'm 70% of the way through, so I've just got to the bit where things are happening. In terms of research and descriptions, you can't fault the guy. But there's just too much of it. This is an author being self-indulgent and showing off that they've really, really researched their subject.
The key to good writing based on research is to have the discipline to not include too much; to be able to know when enough is enough for the reader. His editor should have known that a line had been crossed. In mitigation, the author is describing much of the book through the eyes of someone who is charged with being a professional observer. Even so, there's a limit. And plot-wise, not enough is happening.
I'm did more skimming and scanning than reading through much of the book. There were just too many details bogging the story down. Once I understood a setting or plot point, I skimmed to find the next new thought.I know my reading tastes have changed over the last twenty years. I look back on all of the Michener novels I once read. Even then, I suffered the over abundant details, but I did read the books word for word.
I couldn't do that today. I have less time, more books I want to read, and I process information in a totally different way. Capture and keep my interest or it will flee the scene!
I think we are experiencing the 'you can't go back home' metaphor. It's true either because home has changed, or you have. In this case, I know I have.
Cynthia
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I'm going to take a different view than Amy and Mark but I can certainly understand your thinking. I actually liked the extensive detail that Finney used because I was/am very interested in what NYC was like in 1882. It helped me to get that vision or feeling of what it must have been like. I read a lot of classics and some of those can get a little long on detail. Henry James can take 3 pages to describe a rose bush, so Finney's style didn't bother me.
I’ll usually have two or three books in the pipeline, and will switch when I feel saturated. Right now, I’m doing two re-reads (Dune, and Lathe of Heaven) the second book in a cycle I started recently (Startide Rising) and one of the lesser Frank Herbert novels (Whipping Star—on the back burner, it’s been there for a while). I want to feel good about what I’m reading. If I decide that it’s impossible, I put the book in my abandoned stack, and sometimes come back to it later (I did this with Critique of Pure Reason). Sometimes I’ll just nibble away at a book (I recently took several months with a re-read of The Talisman, mainly because I feel King’s prose so annoying).Is this better than skimming? I don’t know. I want to hear the words (at least some of the better ones) and I never put much faith is speed reading.
This morning I read the passage about (view spoiler). Page after page of utterly unnecessary detail, complete with extracts from the contemporary newspapers the following day. This is just gratuitous page-filling: it doesn't carry the story forward a bit.
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Yes, with lists of superfluous names included. It started to feel like a high school research paper turned novel, didn't it? The more I think about it, the more it feels like those pages after pages of description and insertion of photos were a sloppy way of writing about a time period by regurgitating research. Perhaps it would have had more meaning if I were more intimately familiar with NYC.
I do have to say that the last 1/3 was more interesting than the first 2/3 of the book. The plot advanced rapidly enough that I did finally finish it.
Mark wrote: "...This is just gratuitous page-filling..."I think Finney was old-school sci-fi, in that he didn’t do a lot of editing. I remember hearing the apocryphal story (in the early 70s, when I started using one) that the electric typewriter was invented for science fiction writers because of the amount of verbiage they had to produce. I can see Finney’s over-writing as part of his “throat clearing,” trying to get himself in the frame of mind to continue the storyline. In 1970, sci-fi writers weren’t subject to the kind of editing (some would call it brutal editing) exercised on contemporary writers like Raymond Carver. This is part of what makes the early work of writers like Sturgeon and LeGuin so remarkable.
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I can believe it. There are too many sci-fi novels I've read that suffer from lack of editing. I always thought that perhaps it was because editors said, "Derp. Don't know what they're talking about. Better not change anything because I'd not want to look dumb by admitting I don't understand what they're talking about." Chances are, if you can't understand what they're talking about, it's bad writing. This isn't the case here, but it definitely does feel like a writing exercise in many places. It reminds me of the project my high school English teacher had us do where we had to write a ficticious historical autobiography. When one does all that research, it seems that you want to put everything in. But why not have Si and Julia run to a hay barge to spend the night rather than just mention that lots of street children sleep on hay barges in the cold? And that leads me to another question? How is it that children were sleeping in hay to keep warm, cabbies were falling asleep sitting down on the job and dying in the cold, but sleeping on cold metal steps inside the Statue of Liberty wasn't a serious problem? I'm fairly sure it wasn't heated inside.
Amy wrote: "David wrote: "Mark wrote: "...In 1970, sci-fi writers weren’t subject to the kind of editing..."I can believe it. There are too many sci-fi novels I've read that suffer from lack of editing. I al..."
Funnily enough, I wrote a blog post along those same lines this afternoon. Some writers just love to ram the research down the readers' throats because it's been such a big thing in their lives for months and they think it will impress them.
I guess some sci-fi is badly overwritten because much of the early stuff was more about the 'big idea', than the story. I firmly believe that you have to have credible characters carrying a plot in a credible situation.
Before Sturgeon, sci-fi was mostly about concept (with an adequate storyline, and 14-year-old-boy character). Language, as long as it was clear (after Asimov) didn’t enter into it. When writing is competitive and focused on concept, it becomes an issue of quickly staking out your “territory.” As a consequence, you write fast, develop your concept, and criticize other writers who come to close (so Frank Herbert wants to sue Lucas over Dune/Star Wars).I can remember reading things that were poorly written and assuming that the problem was with my reading. It takes a certain amount of confidence to consider that the problem might actually be with the writer. Maybe, more generally, the problem is with publishing (can you imagine an editor telling Stephen King to cut out a few of his pop-references?). Maybe Stephen King is right, and his time is more fruitfully spent fleshing out concepts (that might be depicted more tightly on the screen).
By the time he wrote the book, Finney had been in Mill Valley for a couple decades. Maybe he’d never been stuck out at night in freezing temperatures.
David wrote: "Before Sturgeon, sci-fi was mostly about concept (with an adequate storyline, and 14-year-old-boy character). Language, as long as it was clear (after Asimov) didn’t enter into it. When writing is ..."I came to the conclusion that Finney wrote this as a 'legacy' novel. Very nice to live off the profits of endless remakes of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but I'd wager he was wanting to be taken more seriously. The lack of editing would suggest Simon and Schuster were happy to go along with it - a 'classic' sells so much more in the longer-term than a bit of pulp fiction. God, I'm such a cynic!
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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