Time's Arrow recounts a man's life in reverse, starting at his death in the early 1990s and ending with his birth in the 1920s. The man is a doctor; the narrator is an ill-defined consciousness (with a wide vocabulary) that has access to the doctor's feelings but not his thoughts. The narrator knows the doctor has a secret in his "past" that causes him some anguish, but has to wait until the past arrives to learn what it is.
The backwards time gimmick is fascinating and sometimes comic. At restaurants, the waiter brings a dirty plate to the table, which the diner slowly fills with food taken from his or her mouth; before leaving, they reminisce about the meal by reading the dishes from the menu. The doctor treats patients by introducing injuries, after which the patient timidly knocks on the door before leaving. The less said about using the bathroom the better.
One notable thing about the reverse chronology is that most of the changes are positive. The doctor gets younger and stronger over time, the air gets cleaner, and people are less traumatized after calamities than they were before (i.e. after) them. The story is journey from corruption to innocence.
Things take a serious turn as World War II approaches with the doctor's (somewhat predictable) secret. In reverse, the Holocaust is a miraculous process of conjuring Jewish lives from the air and dust.
I read Time's Arrow immediately after Evelyn did, like a private book club. She really enjoyed the first half, especially for its comic effect and slowly improving world, but felt like she didn't understand the ending. Her major complaint was that Amis never explains who the narrator is or how he ends up associated with the doctor. She waited in vain for that secret to be revealed.
I wasn't as concerned about the nature of the narrator, but I too struggled to understand what Amis was trying to say. He sees most human activity as corrupting, and is saying something about the relationship between morality and cause-and-effect. I appreciated the effect of the reverse perspective and the big ideas that the story makes us ponder, but ultimately I couldn't tell whether Amis' ideas about destiny, morality, and humanity are subtle or muddled.
P.S. This analysis from the Time's Arrow chapter in the book Understanding Martin Amis attempts to answer Evelyn's question about the provenance of the narrator.
The backwards time gimmick is fascinating and sometimes comic. At restaurants, the waiter brings a dirty plate to the table, which the diner slowly fills with food taken from his or her mouth; before leaving, they reminisce about the meal by reading the dishes from the menu. The doctor treats patients by introducing injuries, after which the patient timidly knocks on the door before leaving. The less said about using the bathroom the better.
One notable thing about the reverse chronology is that most of the changes are positive. The doctor gets younger and stronger over time, the air gets cleaner, and people are less traumatized after calamities than they were before (i.e. after) them. The story is journey from corruption to innocence.
Things take a serious turn as World War II approaches with the doctor's (somewhat predictable) secret. In reverse, the Holocaust is a miraculous process of conjuring Jewish lives from the air and dust.
I read Time's Arrow immediately after Evelyn did, like a private book club. She really enjoyed the first half, especially for its comic effect and slowly improving world, but felt like she didn't understand the ending. Her major complaint was that Amis never explains who the narrator is or how he ends up associated with the doctor. She waited in vain for that secret to be revealed.
I wasn't as concerned about the nature of the narrator, but I too struggled to understand what Amis was trying to say. He sees most human activity as corrupting, and is saying something about the relationship between morality and cause-and-effect. I appreciated the effect of the reverse perspective and the big ideas that the story makes us ponder, but ultimately I couldn't tell whether Amis' ideas about destiny, morality, and humanity are subtle or muddled.
P.S. This analysis from the Time's Arrow chapter in the book Understanding Martin Amis attempts to answer Evelyn's question about the provenance of the narrator.
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