Time Travel discussion

I have just finished reading this book for the first time and I have to say with some surprise that this is NOT a time travel novel.

If we call this book a time travel novel we might as well class The Narnia Chronicles as time travel too. And any Scifi stories of space flight using worm holes for that matter.

This book involves travelling to other worlds via a method which I can only determine as space folding (referred to as tesseract in the book). There is no time travel to Earth's past or future as such. Its very much like a trip to Narnia through the Magic wardrobe.

I welcome an opposing argument about this but be prepared for my to strong attempt to counter it ;)


As for my thoughts on the book itself, I'll write up a review but I recall Amy saying she gave this 5 stars from loving it as a child but afraid if she reads it again, it wont live up to that rating. I think she would prove herself right. I give it a 3 star rating but I know the 12 year old me would rate it 4.5 stars.

Edit: my review if anyone interested:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

While this book does not involve time travel, I suspect that the other books in the series do. This may explain why this book is usually classified as a time travel novel. There are four books in the series, which is know as the "Time Quartet."

Maybe Tej would be willing to read the other three books and report back to the group.

Hint... hint...

Do you remember THE STORY OF THE AMULET by E. Nesbit (indubitably a time travel novel, and a children's classic to boot). The aphorism there is "Time is only a mode of thought."

Actually, John, I purchased the Quintet box set...there are 5 books in the series!

OK, blatant hint taken :) I will read the next one soon but I have a comittment to another group author's book first.

Brenda wrote: "Do you remember THE STORY OF THE AMULET by E. Nesbit (indubitably a time travel novel, and a children's classic to boot). The aphorism there is "Time is only a mode of thought.""

I remembered you mentioning that in another thread and that I didnt realise it was a sequel to Five Children and It and The Pheonix and the Carpet :) But Amulet sounds a genuine time travel story even if in thought (whatever that means, I'll have to read and find out lol). But honestly, A Wrinkle in Time has no time travel of any sort, by thought, physical, or particles. John suspects later books do though but I dont think that reason should qualify this particular book's entry in the time travel list.

What I meant(too obscurely) was that the very nature of the travel in WRINKLE -- the tesseract, or the folding of space -- must mean that they were traveling in time as well. It's a space-time continuum, as they say in the comics. You can't journey in one without making a trip in the other. Carrying this thought experiment to the maximum gets us all our fun time travel; I wrote an entire novel about using time travel as a cheap test case for interstellar transport.
AMULET is time travel of the basic sort -- the children in the story just hop through into the past, without any language, food, or germ difficulties at all. Omitting all these issues allows the story to skip right over to the fun parts.

Brenda wrote: "What I meant(too obscurely) was that the very nature of the travel in WRINKLE -- the tesseract, or the folding of space -- must mean that they were traveling in time as well. It's a space-time con..."

Yeah, I agree, I know what you are saying but I still think (stubbornly) that it really doesnt qualify this book as a time travel story imho. That's just getting from point A to B extremely fast through space-time, narrative wise its no different to using magic, teleportation, warp speed, tesseract, wormhole, etc. Tesseract may "scientifically" involve time travel through the space-time continuum but not in a true narrative sense, that's my main point. We time travelling through the space-time continuum all the time just by even running from point A to B. We all know that the faster we travel the more significant time dilation becomes. But we wouldnt call Chariots of Fire, Narnia chronicles, Arthur C Clarke's Rama Series, or The Dark Materials trilogy, time travel novels even though they all involve traversing through space-time in some way or another.

I will take a step back and ponder though, why is A Wrinkle in TIme firmly classified as a time travel story in the first place? Is it the title? Is it because of the fact that time travel is mentioned when tesserecting was described in the book? Was there actually a narrative sense of time travel somewhere, and I bloody missed it?!

For those who read the book, what is the main reason for A Wrinkle in Time to be classified as a time travel novel? If its a justifiable reason, I will move this thread into the time travel books section ;)

I haven't read it yet, but I did see the movie. When this question came up several months ago when I nominated this book for our book club, I decided to watch the movie and I would agree that the label of "time travel novel" is questionable. As I do not have time to read the entire series, I appreciate your willingness to investigate this further, Tej.

Perhaps the "tesseract" allows one to travel through time as well as through space (to cover seemingly impossible long distances). In this case, they use it to travel through space. But the potential for time travel is still there.

Well, Tej, obviously it's the title. People assume that anything called A WRINKLE IN TIME involves time travel! Probably Josephine Tey's THE DAUGHTER OF TIME has the same problem, even though it is a historical novel about Richard III.

Daughter of Time? Oh that sounds good, its got Time in it :D


John wrote: "Perhaps the "tesseract" allows one to travel through time as well as through space (to cover seemingly impossible long distances). In this case, they use it to travel through space. But the poten..."

I agree, the potential for travelling through time (as a main narrative) is there, given that plot tesseract device. Perhaps later books will have, I'll report back on that in time!

I agree that WiT is not a time-travel novel. I also agree that I liked it better as a child than I would now (I read it a few years ago and it seemed, erm, clumsy - ?).

I imagine that some, including the author, might argue that it's not even SF. After all, it may have been more accurate (to the internal science of the tesseract) to have been called "A Wrinkle in Space." But it wasn't called that, possibly because the author (or editor or publisher) might have feared that the story would then be dismissed as pulp.

I do recall reading at least the next one when I was a teen or young adult and not finding TT elements, but rather a Christian theme less subtle than that in the Narnia stories. But then, this could be my memory playing tricks on me. I do know I'm not in any hurry to read any of them again, but I'll be watching this space to see what you think, Tej! :)

I have found all the latter works to be less fun and interesting. Clumsy is not a bad description.

I agree with the clumsy description too though but there were some contrasting moments of brilliance, especially the chapters involving "IT" and the possesion. Loved that section, its so good and its that particular quality that I will hold out hope for in the sequel.

Admittedly, when I do continue reading the sequels, I dont think I would have ever approached sequel books with such low expectations as these ones! I bought the box set thinking I am going to love these books so I am very disappointed the first one didnt quite do it for me. The potential is all there though. Its just so spoiled by the heavy handedness of the cringe-worthy dialogue, blatant in your face Christianity teachings and an unsatisfying last act.

Hey John, is the film any good? Is it worth a watch?

Not really. Sounds like it's much like the book in that regard. I think it was a made-for-tv movie, so the special effects are terrible. I also thought the acting was second rate, but maybe the dialouge is to blame.

John wrote: "Not really. Sounds like it's much like the book in that regard. I think it was a made-for-tv movie, so the special effects are terrible. I also thought the acting was second rate, but maybe the ..."

That's a pity, if ever there was an great opportunity for a movie adaptation to be better than its book without too much effort, this was it!