Time and Again - Jack Finney

I love a good time-travel book and have since I was a young reader. My brother, Stewart, told me about Time and Again, by Jack Finney, a few years ago, and I finally made a point of reading it last month after we got together for lunch and he raved about it again.

Fun Fact: Jack Finney is the author of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which I will probably never read nor will I probably ever watch any of the three movies it inspired, but it is a classic worth mentioning.

Time and Again was excellent, albeit a bit dated, making it nostalgic. Published in 1970, the modern world is the NYC of 54 years ago, which was as much fun to visit as 1882 NYC.

Here is the GoodReads blurb: 

Science fiction, mystery, a passionate love story, and a detailed history of Old New York blend together in Jack Finney's spellbinding story of a young man enlisted in a secret government experiment.

Transported from the mid-twentieth century to New York City in the year 1882, Si Morley walks the fashionable "Ladies' Mile" of Broadway, 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.

Early on in the novel, I was a bit bothered by the sketchy time-travel mechanism, which was really no more than self-hypnosis--I would have liked more details as to why Si was able to travel through time, with pin-point precision in terms of time and place, but others failed when they tried. But, oh well, since I agreed to suspend my disbelief, I decided to sit back and enjoy the ride.

I really got a kick out of seeing how Si, who was rigorously trained for his mission back to 1882, occasionally fumbled when dealing with the inhabitants of the nineteenth century. Living in the past is a lot harder than it looks! 

I was also surprised by Si's view of the natives of 1882 NYC as being more vibrant than the modern New Yorkers he left back in 1970--I think this was Finney's indictment of the disconnection that he believed technology imposed on human relations. Now, fifty years later, we are still bemoaning the negative effects of technology and looking back on the 1970's as a golden era, which feels weird, but I get it. 

Si's love life in 1970 also made me smile--he is dating a woman in 1970 that he feels he may want to marry, and yet their intimate relationship is really ambiguous. I couldn't help but thinking that if this book was launched today, it would be written much differently. 

The novel contained photos that Si was supposed to have taken in 1882 of the buildings, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and street scenes using a borrowed camera. The photos in the copy of the book that I have were pretty fuzzy, and not just because they were old. I think this is a great fictional construct, and I loved the idea, but the cheap printing undermined the affect just a bit. Nevertheless, I loved seeing the Dakota, where Si has a room that serves as his portal from one time period to the other, as well as the Park and the farm lands which still existed just north of the Dakota.

The scene in the arm of the Statue of Liberty is priceless and ingenious. Did you know that the arm was temporarily on display in Madison Square Park in 1882--well, you know this if you've watched The Gilded Age, which I haven't yet. But it is another fun fact...

The best part of the novel was when Si was on his "trips" to the past--exploring the city, recognizing some landmarks, marveling at the views available when there weren't skyscrapers, taking a scary walk across the new Brooklyn Bridge, dealing with the crud and grime of the city (spittoons were everywhere!), eating in the various restaurants and bars. 

I confess, I thought the first part dragged a bit--after Si was recruited as a government-sponsored time traveler, it seemed to take way too long to actually get him into the past. Once there, the pace picked up and the story really found its legs.

There is a sequel, From Time to Time, which features the Titanic and 1912. I will probably read this one at some point although the GoodReads reviews are less than enthusiastic. I definitely enjoyed Time and Again--thanks for the recommendation, Stewart.