|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Simon (Si) Morley considers his New York City life pleasant enough. He works as an illustrator, isnıt married but has a girlfriend, visits museums and restaurants, has a few good friends, but something is just not right. Si is sure that thereıs more to life and heıs starting to feel antsy. One ordinary day, a Friday, Ruben Prien shows up at Siıs job and offers to take him to lunch to discuss an interesting proposition. Ruben works for the government on a very unofficial Project. It seems that the government has been watching Si and feels he meets some unusual qualifications that suit their needs. Ruben would like Si to quit his job and join him and some others working on this unique venture. All Ruben is able to say is that the Project has something to do with time travel. Si, surprising even himself, agrees to accept the offer. With some special training, Si is able to go back in time to New York City during the late 1880ıs. The city and people seem almost alien to Si because New York is very different. The Statue of Liberty has not yet been erected, in fact, the arm thatıs holding the torch is sitting in Madison Square. Central Park is there, but itıs filled with horse drawn carriages and well dressed people. In 1880, The Dakota, Saint Patrickıs Cathedral, Trinity Church, and a few other edifices are some of the few buildings Si can recognize because he had seen them in his home time of 1970. Basically, New York City is flat and undeveloped and if you go just a little past Central Park, the city turns into working farmland. Itıs an astonishing difference, and Si finds he loves the City even more during that early time period. After traveling between the 19th and 20th century a few times, Si returns to 1880ıs with two missions. The first task is to find the author of a letter that Siıs friend gave him. Most of the letter was burned, but Siıs friend needs to know the reason the letter was written and what it said. Solving the mystery will answer the question as to why someone committed suicide in the future. The second mission was to find the grandmother of the Projectıs creator. Little did Si know that when he returned to the 1880ıs yet again, he was going to experience, first hand, all the corruption, excitement, and passion that the New York City of that era was so famous for. And little could he dream that he would even change history. You have to suspend belief in order to follow author Jack Finneyıs explanation on how Si can travel 100 years back in time. The first 50 pages of the novel is a little, just a little, slow because Finney is explaining the process to the readers. For some reason he thinks that detailing the jobs of hundreds of secret workers and telling us about multiple complicated tests somehow keeps the readers from noticing that the means of time travel described here doesnıt make sense. Donıt bother too much about it. Relax and go with the flow. The point of the book is what happens to Si in the past and the author had to get him there somehow. Once you set foot in New York City in the 1880ıs you wonıt care how it happened, youıll just be glad that you are there. TIME AND AGAIN is filled with likable characters and more than one solid story line. The book is also packed with wonderful photographs of life a hundred years ago. The author skillfully intertwined the pictures with the plot so that you could really believe that his character Si, was indeed the person responsible for creating the actual 19th century photographs and drawings that illustrate the book. I thoroughly enjoyed TIME AND AGAIN. It was first published in 1970 but is still a great story, decades later. Once you read the book you will want to reread it and get others to read it as well. It is truly marvelous.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, May 2003
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
