Time Travel discussion

It only took us 6 years to finally getting around to reading the beloved classic time travel novel ...

Time and Again which as written by Jack Finney (1911-1995) and first published in 1970.

After all these years, it's still always among the top 10 best-selling time travel novels on Amazon.

Time and Again follows Si Morley back in time to New York in 1882. The GoodReads book blurb says that Si is "enchanted by the jingling sleigh bells in Central Park and solves a 20th-century mystery by discovering its 19th-century roots. Falling in love with a beautiful young woman, he ultimately finds himself forced to choose between his lives in the present and the past." The book is followed by a sequel, From Time to Time.

Jack Finney writes in first person and seems like some guy you ought to know. Finney isn't funny so much as he's tongue-in-cheek. His first-person character makes you feel as if he's you in an extraordinary situation. You might know him as the author of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Among other works, he has a delightful collection of 10 time travel short stories called About Time: 12 Short Stories.

Reading Period:
June 1-30, 2014

Where to Buy:
•Amazon Paperback (1¢-$10.53): http://www.amazon.com/Time-Again-Jack...
•Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Time-Again-Jack...
•Compare Prices Elsewhere: https://www.goodreads.com/work/compar...
•Audible: http://www.amazon.com/Time-and-Again/...
•Your Local Library

Pre-Reading Questions
1. How many of you are reading for the first time and how many are re-reading? If you're re-reading, what were your initial reactions to the book?

2. What do you think about time traveling characters that allow themselves to fall in love with people who lived in the past? Would you suggest it be avoided for the sake of preserving the timeline? What about cultural differences? What about the possibility of a child being born from the union whose birthday is before your own?

definitely IN! It's waiting for me at my library's hold desk :)

MK wrote: "definitely IN! It's waiting for me at my library's hold desk :)"

Unfortunately, I "loaned" my copy to an ex and never got it back (nor do I intend to attempt to do so). My library has it as a large print book in storage. That sounds promising. *clicks to request*

heh ... booo on ex!

fingers crossed on large print in storage!

Everyone give a shout out if you plan to read with us! :-)

It is a grand book! However, the sequel sucks big time, and should be avoided. Be happy with the wonderfulness of the first book.

Brenda wrote: "It is a grand book! However, the sequel sucks big time, and should be avoided. Be happy with the wonderfulness of the first book."

Oh? I remember liking the sequel and wishing for a 3rd book.

Yes I will be there-going to try something new, and have both the audio and the book, and flip back and forth between-hopefully it will be easy to determine my place on audio in the physical book.

Definitely in. And I also enjoyed the sequel, except for one irritating issue, early on, that I won't mention here as it could be a spoiler. (Brenda, you may have the same issue in mind, and I agree on the "wonderfulness" of the first.) I'll be back to the (re-) reading this evening.

Heather wrote: "Yes I will be there-going to try something new, and have both the audio and the book, and flip back and forth between-hopefully it will be easy to determine my place on audio in the physical book."

I love doing that, Heather!

I'm in. Have my copy ready.

I'm in. Looking forward to it.

I own it (and the sequel) and have been hoping the group would read it so I could reread it. It didn't 'click' with me the first time, about a decade ago. So, it's on my nightstand!

I am a go for launch!

Bought it last week and got started this morning. Already fifty pages in. Looking good!

Instead of introducing myself in the proper place (sorry), I figured my first post would be to say I'm very excited to join in what is, essentially, my first group read. Never heard of this one, though I truly adore time travel literature, so I feel a bit ashamed having never met it before. Bought it on Kindle just two days ago, so I hope to discuss it with everyone soon. <3

It is a classic of the genre, and a perennial favorite.

While I'm waiting for someone to dig my book out of the deep dark recesses library storage, feel free to go ahead and discuss.

PRE-READING QUESTION
1. How many of you are reading for the first time and how many are re-reading? If you're re-reading, what were your initial reactions to the book?

2. What do you think about time traveling characters that allow themselves to fall in love with people who lived in the past? Would you suggest it be avoided for the sake of preserving the timeline? What about cultural differences? What about the possibility of a child being born from the union whose birthday is before your own?

I read this book about a year and a half ago and I really loved it. It is unique in the time travel genre in that the characters aren't trying to solve a problem or trying to avoid time paradoxes or anything like that. The whole story is whether or not people can time travel, and if they can, what can they observe about the past. The simplicity of the story and the joy of observation is what keeps us reading, and it is a pleasure from start to finish, and it feels profound.

The question of forming relationships with people from the past can only really be answered on a case by case basis. Depending on the story, it could make a mark or it couldn't. Every author seems to handle that predicament differently.

I read the book a few weeks ago in a buddy read and thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked the time travel aspect but what I liked most was the historical imagery. What New York must have looked like, the sounds, the people, the clothes. It's just such a great story and so much fun to read.

I'm enjoying it so far but I must say I don't find the method of time-travel described in it convincing (I'd better not go into any more detail about this for fear of spoilers). I think there are some excellent descriptions so far and because the book is set in the 1960s the work has a historical feel to it that appeals to me too.

As regards forming relationships with people from the past, my own feeling is that the present is the product of the past and so cannot be altered. As a believer in multiple universes, however, I think that alternative outcomes exist simultaneously and could legitimately result from such encounters.

As I mentioned (prematurely, sorry) this is the second read for me. I believe that I was expecting more SF drama, that first time; this time I expect to enjoy it more because I'll judge it for itself, not for what I expect.

I agree that falling in love with someone in the past is a concept that creates the possibility for a lot of different stories. Remember "The City on the Edge of Forever" (STTNG) for a not-so happy ending.

I have not read this story before, but am really looking forward to it, I will download the audio tonight

Having a relationship/child with someone from the past and the complications that arise from that is part of what I find fascinating in reading time travel.

Most memorable for me is Clair and Jaime -Claire brings him in 1767 pictures of his daughter from 1950 in a two piece bathing suit! Scandalous.

I haven't read this before (unless in a previous time) but ironically checked it out from our library last week before I saw this discussion thread! Just started it.

This is one of the first time travel books I purchased, just because it was constantly at the top of so many "Best of Time Travel" lists. I started it but lost steam because it wasn't what I was expecting. I made it less than halfway before setting it down. I had been looking for exciting adventure and this seemed to be more of a casual scenic stroll. Like Cheryl, I think I will be better adjusted to the pace this time around and be able to appreciate it for what it is.

I think the romantic relationships across time issue is okay if people stay put. That way it may have always occurred that way. Or you are creating alternate timelines. My personal favorite however is when both parties can time travel.

If you analyze it, what are the options for a novel? You travel (to France, to Mars, through time). Then what?

It could be a travelogue kind of book. RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA by Arthur Clarke is this kind of book, scarcely any plot or character but the setting is so cool that we are happy to explore it. So is THE TIME MACHINE, by Wells -- the protagonist doesn't really do anything much.

You could load in a conflict of some sort. We go there and we join in the wars! AVATAR. PELLUCIDAR. KING SOLOMON'S MINES. We go there and we do home renovation! A YEAR IN PROVENCE. We go there and we achieve spiritual growth! EAT, PRAY, LOVE.

Or, we go there and we do more personal stuff. Minor stuff (ooh, I hate my landlord) is idiotic -- move to another hotel! So you need major stuff. And the easiest one here is falling in love, because that forces you to stay and forces you to cope. And of course that combines handily with the previous possibilities. Fall in love with the princess who is having a war. Fall in love with your spiritual counselor...

Falling in love, again:

I don’t think you can approach time-travel as a logical positivist: time travel is about thickening the stew. If love is counter-entropic (the general assumption) then love adds something to the universe that wasn’t previously there. Sounds good to me.

1. This is the book that made me fall in love with the time travel genre. I read it more than a decade ago, so my memory of it is foggy. However, I do remember that it made me feel as if I were in a magical winter wonderland. I loved the New York of the late 1800s in the novel. Another novel that gave me the same feeling was Winter's Tale (also set around the turn of the century in New York). I especially enjoyed the voice of the narrator when I read, and it still sticks with me all these years later.

2. One thing that I don't often see explored is the difficulties inherent in a relationship with someone from the past. There's a shared culture of time that's missing. It's like dating/marrying someone from another generation; there's a shared pop culture base that doesn't exist to draw from. There are references that are lost from one generation to the next. There's a difference in life experience and the meaning behind words. Relationships outside of one's own culture and generation are not impossible, but they are certainly more challenging than the average relationship. I think what would hold them together would be new shared experiences. As someone else has mentioned, if they both have the ability to time travel, this is something that would bind them together. They'd have that shared experience to use as a scaffolding for understanding each other, and their travels together would become something solid that they would share. But it would be the truly forward-thinking of most time periods in the past that would be able to relate the best to a modern time traveler. For example, could you have a relationship with someone who found slavery to be an acceptable and necessary evil?

In terms of developing a relationship between fellow travelers, I loved the way Connie Willis treated the Polly Churchill/Colin Templer relationship in Blackout/All Clear.

I think that problems in a consuming relationship (like marriage) have more to do with the values we inherit from our parents (they are cultural or generational only to the extent that those values are widely shared). Some of our current values (e.g., repugnance with the ideas of slavery or rape) represent a personal distancing from the jungle (“red in tooth and claw”). We could live in a more brutish society, but we wouldn’t embrace it the way we might a less brutish society.

In terms of the kind of Victorian sexual values Julia might have brought with her: I remember my mother telling me that my grandfather never saw my grandmother naked (I’m not sure how she would know this, and didn’t ask) but it was a Victorian thing, although they were a young married couple during the Edwardian era (it didn’t keep them from having three children).

It is not any more strange than marrying somebody, from, say, Nepal. I assure you that you can, for the mere price of an air fare, find cultures that are at least as strange as 1881 are. No time or space travel is needed.

I went once to central Crete, where there is a cave that is rumored to be the birthplace of Zeus. It is -very- rural there. I do not look like a Cretan, or a Greek, or even a European. The peasantry lined up to look at me.

I loved "Time and Again" first time I read it and am enjoying the re-read even more. Maybe it's because I'm already comfortable with the story's initial pace, that of a neophyte who's astonished by the entire experience. And Si Morley is a great first person narrator to travel with. He notices every detail so we can enjoy his discoveries and unabashed amazement right along with him. I suspect I'd feel the same way that he does on a trip to the past.

As for characters allowing themselves to fall in love, well, that's gonna happen, cross-cultural, cross-temporal, and cross-everything else. Vive la difference. I think the toughest one would be cross-political, but maybe even that could be overcome. Maybe.

Brenda wrote: "It is not any more strange than marrying somebody, from, say, Nepal. I assure you that you can, for the mere price of an air fare, find cultures that are at least as strange as 1881 are. No time or..."

You visited the Cave of Zeus on Mount Ida? Is it worth seeing?

Yes I did. It takes all day to get to, from Heraklion, so you do have to organize to get there. We rented a car. It turns out there are two caves billed to be the birthplace of Zeus, so you could always go to the other one.

Paul wrote: "I think the toughest one would be cross-political, but maybe even that could be overcome. Maybe. ..."

You just agree to disagree ... well, unless their political party is Nazi or something like that. Then you have to ask yourself what the hell you're doing.

Just started reading this book today. Is it just me, or does this book have a lot of metaphors? I love metaphors, so I may see them where others do not.

Cynthia

first time, and hoping to get the book tomorrow at the library after work.

As for the morality of falling in love seriously in the past, I guess it depends on whether you have a love in the present, and whether you chose to be whisked back or forth and know you are going home or not.

1. I will be reading it. Finally came in at the library. Excited to get started! :)
2. Like someone else said, I think one would want to stay with the person and the timeline would then be your timeline. No biggie! :)

This has nothing to do with the plot but Danzinger eating his pie really made me want pie. Dangers of reading while hungry.

Picking it up from the library tonight, but I don't think I'll be able to start before next weekend :(

I love this book, and the second one too. Read them many years ago.

Michael (The Smith half of Garrett Smith)

Nathan wrote: "This has nothing to do with the plot but Danziger eating his pie really made me want pie. Dangers of reading while hungry."

Yeah, I thought that sounded good; Finney does details well. I just hope Danziger's habitual cigar doesn't make us want that, too. Probably safe on that one.

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.

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 ..."

I am looking forward to the different looks at NYC. 1970 NY was bad. I'd imagine whoever Si is would like it much better. Don't think 2014 would be preferred over 1882 tho.

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 pretty vague. Sadly my dance card is pretty full this month so the best I'll be able to do is skim it to keep up with the conversations.

As far as time-traveling romance goes, I'm all for it. The word 'SHOULD' is used to make things run smoothly and novels where everything runs smoothly tend to be boring. Therefore, time-travelers SHOULD be advised to refrain from temporal hanky-panky but the authors of such books should make sure their subjects ignore that advice.

A time traveler's jet lag would be intense.

Late 1800's Time Square


1969 Time Square


2014 Time Square

You need a better street level view of the center one to see what it was really like. Peep shops, hookers, criminals, 'malaise'.

Complete do-ver in the late 90s and 2000s.
Now it's Disneyfied ;-)

MK wrote: "You need a better street level view of the center one to see what it was really like. Peep shops, hookers, criminals, 'malaise'.

Complete do-ver in the late 90s and 2000s.
Now it's Disneyfied ;-)"

You mean something like this - Time Square at low tide

yep!

Here's more: https://www.google.com/search?q=times...


wow, that's a long link ;-)

Here's a webpage chronicling Times Square through the 20th century: http://playingintheworldgame.wordpres...