The Lost Time Accidents is not a flawless epic masterpiece (say, Bolano's 2666), but it is an incredibly creative, penetrating, fun, well-written,The Lost Time Accidents is not a flawless epic masterpiece (say, Bolano's 2666), but it is an incredibly creative, penetrating, fun, well-written, thought-provoking 3-generational saga that defies genres or synopsis.
I didn't love this (4/5), and the execution didn't always work terribly well (4/5), but, I'm going with 5 for Wray's sheer originality and ingenuity. Because what this book manages to do is somehow weave together questions about historical memory (i.e. how do we atone for the sins of our forbears? how are psychoses, beliefs, passions passed down through generations?), a challenge to Einstein's theory of relativity (!! synchronicity), a mind-bending structure that spirals inwards in time, a century's worth of events, and an intelligent, ingenious exploration of the ethics of science and of the nature of time.
Above all, The Time Accidents is a story about time in all its dimensions: physical, experiential, historical, psychological, poetical, mathematical, etc. And who doesn't love/isn't intrigued/vexed/lost/beholden to/perplexed in/by time?!?!
Time, the supposed 4th dimension, only moves in one direction (as we experience it). But, mathematically, if it is just another dimension, it should be traversable, like space (also, in physics, time is just another coordinate in the spacetime fabric). Physically, we're always in seemingly the same time. Yet time can pass slower or faster, depending on how we're feeling/what we are doing (same in physics, it turns out: the "passing" of time is related to an object's movement through space). If you think about time as coordinates (x,y,z,t), and take an object that is first located at coordinate A, and then at B, then time begins to look a lot like movement, the coordinate that describes motion. What does this even mean? I have no clear idea - it's virtually impossible, really, to capture time, though many have tried, in all disciplines.
Then-what about dreams and memory? Memory can take us back in time. After all, isn't the world as we know it just our perception? And our memories are mental events, like anything else we process from experience. Is memory the ultimate time-travel? If so, what about historical memory? What about that which has been passed down through generations, what about concepts that have encrusted themselves with time that now seem "given", when in fact they are just artifacts of time and reenactment?
The Time Accidents is one of those books that won't give you an answer (a definite plus from my perspective), but rather lead you in a journey of questions-not only those explicitly asked in the story, but also those the reader is inspired to imagine on their own. For me, this translated into a crazed book-buying binge about things like octopuses (they are radial creatures after all - how do they experience space, and thus time, since spacetime is one and the same). And, into furiously printing out a slew of articles about stuff like "mathematical philosophy of time in Minkowskian space" (I'm a math geek, as all math teachers should be). Your inspiration could take many other forms, depending on your interests - there's the Nazi question, the question about how science intersects with ethics, the question of familial guilt and psychosis, the question about the nature of dreams and memory, you name it, Wray's got you covered.
The book is definitely an investment (of time, incidentally), a dense 500 pages. It's not perfect (for example, Wray's wittiness is at times self-conscious and somewhat awkward), but it's one of the most curiosity-inducing books I've ever read, and for that alone, I would HIGHLY recommend it!! ...more
I've spent the past few days reading this everywhere - waiting in line for a sandwich, walking down the hallways of the school where I work, at red liI've spent the past few days reading this everywhere - waiting in line for a sandwich, walking down the hallways of the school where I work, at red lights & in deadlocked traffic (I didn't hurt anyone, I swear!) With missionary zeal, I left it around, poured over it in public, and otherwise found ways to practically shove it into people's faces. As I endlessly ranted about it to anyone who (pretended to?) listen, I met a surprising response: people actually cared, because most love the show! (I haven't seen it, but now I probably will).
The Man in the High Castle is pure, unadulterated GENIUS. And that statement is not even based on the story itself, which as everyone knows is an alternate history of the world, had Axis Powers won WWII. Yes, the history portrayed is quite chilling and tremendously powerful as a tool for asking all sorts of Big Questions (i.e. "how does individual responsibility manifest in the acts of nations"). These questions are fascinating, as is Dick's approach, which is not to answer, but to provide perspectives that may inform the reader's own further questioning.
BUT, but, Dick's BRILLIANCE is much deeper than this transparent structure suggests (i.e. exploring Big Philosophical Questions in the context of an alternative history). Because, beneath this surface, The Man in the High Castle is really not an alternative history at all. Rather, it's a questioning of history: of historical memory, of interpretation, of personal appropriation, of collective perpetuation of certain "truths" that solidify as history.
Huh? Yeah, that was my mood throughout much of this book. It's a bit like a Mobius Strip - and like the I-Ching (used as an oracle by many characters in The High Castle). The harder you try to grasp its meaning, the more likely you are to fail, because its meaning lies not in what can be explicitly said or perceived, but in a deeper, intuitive, embodied understanding.
At first, it seems simple enough - "what if Germany & Japan ruled the world"... Ok. Quite interesting. But then, there's a subtle yet seismic rift, and your perspective is jilted completely off its axis. Because people are reading this book, and in this book, the US and the Allies won the war. And everything about out world, today is described in this book... from the perspective of a world in which the Axis won the war. It's trippy. It's beyond weird. It's completely uncanny how true it could have been, or how "true" it could still become. This space-time-warping is insane enough in its physical/mathematical/metaphysical incarnations; add the historical dimension, and voila, a MASTERPIECE. (Note: this is not the only instance in which the reader is forced to shift perspective to a different dimension; merely, the first... and the ending is by FAR the BEST EVER insane mind-explosive of all time).
History. Historicity. Truth. Reality. They converge, are the same, but are always subjective. They have no meaning outside of that which we create and bring forth into the world. Yet they are our world. Our world is created by us. Imaginally, not just concretely. We believe and live by tenets born in the throes of our ancestors' actions, and the relics, myths, stories we use to remind ourselves of our past. Meanwhile, we shape our own futures (generationally speaking as well as individually): collective consciousness becomes the future. We are all ultimately responsible. (Sidenote: PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO VOTE).
There's so many twisting, n-th dimensional (n>3) ways in which Dick plays with these ideas in this work. There are characters with several identities. There are authentic (carrying "historicity") and fake American artifacts. There are at least two different timelines, possibly many realities. There is energy, yin and yang, and wu, and the like. Then, there is the Oracle, the I-Ching, which people use to determine the future, and the truth.
There is a lot more, but I need some distancing and processing before finishing this review. I needed to gush for a moment, but I'll be too dumbfounded to be fully coherent for a while, because this is such an incredible, supremely imaginative, vividly hallucinogenic, philosophically creative book!!!!!!!!!
Recommended to: Everyone who enjoys thinking about things...more
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