[.ca] Time and Again (ISBN 0613164369)

A One-of-a-Kind Book:
To get it straight at the start, Jack Finney's novel Time and Again is not a great work of literature; it's an amiable and charming, if peculiar, rather lightweight hybrid of at least three genres--the mystery/spy/government-conspiracy novel, the historical romance and the nostalgic travelogue, with a short bow in the direction of science-fiction. It is not a definitive novel of time-travel; its method of changing eras is not far from squeezing your eyes really tightly together and tapping your heels together three times, though the theoretical basis is just a smidgen sounder than for Dorothy in Oz. It is not a great romance, though it is romantic. It is not even science fiction--well, okay, okay, to be kind, Finney's straight-faced use of Relativity theory allows it to barely squeeze under the fence into the field. Its plot is flimsy, with more holes than the Detroit infield, and some of its characters are mostly cardboard cut-outs to be moved here and there by the stage-hands moving the plot along. And you know what? I loved every silly, odd, funny, charming, implausible, exciting, interesting, occasionally poignant page of it. Why? Because rarely will you find a book where it's so obvious that the author had as much sheer fun writing 'Time and Again' as you'll have reading it. His protagonist, Simon Morley, keeps using words such as 'excited", "pleased" and 'glad' and phrases like "happy to be here" throughout the book, the book is full of happily excited people, and it's clear Morley's a fictional rubber-necking time tourist through which Finney has the time of his life swanning vicariously around the now-vanished hotels and theaters and civic buildings of Old New York. It's more than just travelogue, though. Finney was able to catch the details of day-to-day life for all these now-vanished people, known to us now only by old sepia photographs and antique knickknacks and a few old buildings which have escaped the demolishers. But then, it was their world, as familiar as ours is to us: that's where they lived their lives. Well, we'll be known the same way one day, after all--our day-to-day is going to be someone else's history up ahead, and in 'Time and Again', everyone wonders and asks Morley, what was it like, back then? what was it really *like*? As a science-fiction author, Finney never showed all that much interest in the future but was fascinated with and nostalgic for the past, in particular what came to be called 'The Good Years' for America and the industrialised world, a golden-afternoon period of increasing world prosperity based on accelerating technological progress and an uncrowded world at relative peace, its resources yet to be depleted--at least for the burgeoning middle-class and higher--beginning about 1880 and coming to a calamitous end in 1914. Through 'Time and Again' and his other time-travel novels and stories, it's clear that Finney mourned the loss of that world (as who wouldn't?), seeing the First and Second World Wars as hideous deviations from humanity's real path, one that we resumed, too briefly, between the late 1980's and September 11 2001. That the past and its people actually existed and still exist somewhere to be visited is a theme throughout much of Finney's short stories. His collection, 'About Time', collects a number of overtly time-travel stories, and another, 'I Love Galesburg in the Springtime', contains the nifty eponymous time-travel story as well as other science fictional themes). Besides 'Time and Again', at least two of his novels are explicitly about time-travel: its darker sequel, 'From Time to Time', which contains a chapter, in the opinion of this unworthy one, which is alone worth the price of the book, mostly just a front-porch conversation between several people on a hot New York summer evening, it's a loving evocation of daily life in the wide community of vaudeville performers and just may have been the best single piece of writing that Finney ever did, and an out-of-print novel called 'Marion's Wall', a lovely, funny ghost story in which a silent-movie queen who died relatively young comes into the lives of a modern (1970's) Hollywood couple--in it, Finney evokes the Silver Screen era as it impinges on, and occasionally collides with, the modern day. The plot of 'Time and Again' revolves around-- nawwww, it's really not that important. Really. Just go read the book. As long as you don't demand it to be Great Literature, you'll have a great time. And, like me, you'll probably recommend it to everyone you know as a 'Hey, ya gotta read this!' book, and re-read it yourself from time to time. Enjoy!

Snatched my attention and held it all the way through.:
I was first intrigued by the great cover art of this book and after reading the back I new it was a 'must have'. Finney did not disappoint. As I said before this book held my interest from beginning to end...but then I should have been born in this time period so it was a no brainer that I would be hooked!

One of the Best I've Read:
This is, personally, one the best books I've read. Well written, great storyline, and a wonderful ending.

Fabulous and fascinating:
This book is a little bit slow in the first few chapters but stick it out and get through them and you will be glad you did. It is truly a fantastic book. I couldn't put it down and stayed up late to finish it. That's what a novel should be!

An Unforgettable Journey:
This is the first book in months I have come across with that grabbed my attention so quickly. I kept looking for every opportunity to sit alone and read it, even snuck around at work and school. It's a sci-fi suspense novel about an ordinary man, Simon Morley, who was chosen to travel back in time and rediscover a world so far away in every way yet so close -- the year 1882 in New York City. However, this is not your oridinary time machine travel story, the means of time traveling is on a much different scale. The people Si Morley comes to know in 1882 are very real and intruiging and the purpose of Si's journey will have you turning pages. Jack Finney knows how to write a good, suspensful novel. His style is brilliant, very easygoing. Although it is a fantasy you'd want to believe in it!