Q3. Discuss issues of death/decline/decay and their function in the novel

[[deleted user]]

Martin Amis's Times Arrow offers an account of a human's life backwards in time. The novel opens with his death and reads the "decline" of Tod's body backwards, so that it appears that Tod's body becomes healthier. Discuss issues of death/decline/decay and their function in the novel.

[[deleted user]]

In a world where time moves backward death, decline and decay are things that are overcome. There are several mentions in the book about characters being immortal because they have already lived a life and that suicide is impossible for the same reason.

[Kristel]

I agree with book yet there is a circularity because as Odilo goes back to his mother's womb and then the father snuffs out the 'soul' there is death at both ends of the story. It is just weird.

From the first chapter, "blackest sleep-death"

My thoughts were; is this a case of hindsight, is this undoing the past, righting wrongs.

[John]

Book wrote: "In a world where time moves backward death, decline and decay are things that are overcome. There are several mentions in the book about characters being immortal because they have already lived a ..."

Not immortal, though. but can't suicide and can't be killed. Though near the end he talks about his father killing him at conception, with was a screwy thought.