Time and Again
We were given Time and Again, by Jack Finnie, as our first summer reading assignment in the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I believe. As was typical, I got about ¼ through the book before putting it down. At the time, my attention span was much more suited to comic books or stuff of similar length. I held onto the book, though, and it is still on my bookshelf over 20 years later. Of course it remained one of those books that simply sat there waiting to be read all this time, along with the hundreds of others! I am not only easily distracted, but a slow reader. I like to buy books that sound fascinating, but often don’t read them or if I do, I will start them but never finish.
This is why Audible.com has saved me in many ways. The company manages downloadable audio books via a subscription setup that is very reasonable compared to how much it costs to actually buy tapes or CD’s of these items. Of course borrowing it from the library would be far cheaper, but not nearly as convenient, and one would only have temporary access to them. With Audible I can download my books, play them on my computer at home, or transfer them to my iPod and listen to them on my commute to work, while out walking, etc. Because I can listen to them at other times, I feel like I am getting in extra time to read things when I normally would not be able to. Over the last several years by doing this I’ve been able to read over 100 books I think.
So, I was delighted when I found out that Audible had replaced their previous abridged version of Time and Again with a new unabridged one. Audible has tons of unabridged titles, but some of the publishers it deals with I suppose only put out abridged versions of their titles. Yet, as unabridged titles become available, Audible often replaces the abridged versions and even sometimes arranges for audio versions to be made of books that otherwise don’t have them.
Time and Again is one of those books that innately appeals to me because of my background and interests. So it seems odd that I would have waited so long to read it, but there you have it. First off, it takes place in New York City, Manhattan, where I grew up. Second of all, it deals with time travel, a subject that fascinates me endlessly (my favorite movie is 12 Monkeys). Thirdly, it deals with the New York City of the 1800’s, and illustrates these at least partly through old sepia photographs that have always fascinated me, especially considering my love of photography. And finally, of course, the fact that this was a book I was supposed to have read 20 odd years ago.
The book, as I’ve mentioned is about time travel. Simon Morley is a 28-year-old art director in an advertising agency (another link since my father was both an art director as well as a photographer) not very happy with his life or career. He’s been seeing a woman and thinks one day they may get married but doesn’t seem very excited about the prospect. His job of drawing insipid adds for soap and other products does not exactly fill him with excitement. He is then seemingly randomly approached by a stranger. This amiable man convinces Simon to come to a meeting where he is given some tests and let in on a secret government project involving time travel. Simon, in the beginning anyway, sees himself agree to joining the project almost as if he’s watching someone else and not actively making the decision himself.
What ensues is Simon’s adventures in the past and the common theme of whether one can affect the past (and thus the present), and more to the point whether one should. These themes always get me thinking and continue to occupy my mind way after seeing a movie or reading a book that uses them. Like I’m sure almost everyone else, I sometimes imagine how life would be different for me if I could go back in time and tell myself or my parents something that would affect the way they raised me or what I did with my life early on. Actually, the fantasy of simply waking up one morning in my childhood bed a the age of, say, 7, but with my current memories, is sometimes even more compelling, but I suppose not as often shared by others as simply going back in time to give forewarnings. Of course what I always come to realize about these things is that while alleviating some issues, they would also mean that most of my current friends, even my wife, would not know me. Sure I could somehow look these people up and try to establish relationships with them, but it would be artificial. They would be wholly different relationships if I could even establish them at all. Knowing that I would be losing those current valued relationships is enough to stop me and decide that maybe the devil I know is much better than the devil I don’t!
Getting back to the book, I had a curious experience with it. The book deals with Simon’s own “cultural immersion” but into a different time rather than place. He was constantly having to adjust his thinking about what he previously took for granted, let go of some stereotypes of the past, etc. In an ironic way, though, I had the same difficulty adjusting to the cultural differences simply between my current time in the 21st century, and the time that Finnie wrote this book, around 1970, or almost 35 years ago! While many of the modernisms that Simon goes on about in his comparisons between his current day and the past that he is visiting are still here today, many are long gone. The most noticeable difference is his attitude towards women. Apparently all the government people heading the project have “girls” and Simon often speaks of them in a way that while not blatently condescending, certainly indicates that he is still of a time where women are seen as having predefined roles different from men and can be neatly all pigeonholed in this way and others. The appearance of women is also a main focal point of their characters, although he certainly does finally break through that to explore the innerworkings of some of the more central female characters. The other very noticeable difference is that instead of using the term “Blacks” or “African Americans” he uses the pretty antiquated term of “Negroes” which really makes him sound from another time! There are other issues like this, but in all, it almost seemed like I was looking back on an old recounting of someone who was then recounting something from a yet more distant time. Did this double filter distort things? Perhaps. It was at least to some extent distracting. But the overall story was entriguing enough that I was able to get past this issue.
The main other thing that bugged me about this was how the actual time travel worked. I remember back in high school when first trying to read it being very excited because the method was very accessible to me. Now I just find it hokey and incredibly unscientific and improbable. Not that time travel is probable to begin with, but the way it is explained in this book, it’s almost as if a significant chunk of the population could do it in their living room if they new the “secret code.” I won’t tell you the actual method in case you want to read it yourself, but suffice it to say, it’s a bit silly.
The book was narrated by Paul Hecht, and while not terrible, I thought him pretty mediocre as a narrator. Up until the last third of the book, I thought he really only had one voice. He might sound a bit rougher for some characters, but otherwise there wasn’t much difference in intonation, accent, etc. Finally there were some characters who had irish or other ethnic accents which he simply couldn’t ignore because these accents were referenced in the text. Luckily they were only a few lines so he could not butcher them too much. There were also some words that he simply pronounced wrong. One in particular I just couldn’t understand because it’s not an uncommon word by any means: grimace. Instead of putting the accent on the first syllable and pronouncing it like “grim-iss,” he pronounced it with the accent on the second syllable as “grim-ais.” Perhaps that is an alternate pronunciation of the word, but I’d never heard it, so it sounded as if he simply didn’t know how to pronounce a fairly common word.