I suppose sometimes we'd all like to go backwards to fix things, even when we can't...
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Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
Literature (1991 - 165 pp.)
***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***
(Of course, the book spoils itself on the back dust jacket…)
Sometimes a book is reviewed dozens of times, and the
reviews say all you meant to say. Your review feels meaningless as a result.
Other times, a book is reviewed dozens of times, and the
reviews are completely silent on what you want to say.
The narrative structure has been covered. Backwards
conversations that read cogently each way are the closest Martin Amis gets to
literary virtuosity. The rest is either novelty or kitsch.
The most interesting aspect of Time’s Arrow is the idea that, as life falls apart, we can somehow
track back to that critical moment when we could have fixed it. What if I hadn’t taken out that loan? What
if I’d dated that one girl instead of that one other girl? What if I’d flown to
Oslo when I had the chance?*
Life presents us with choices all the time. In Time’s Arrow, though, the reader can’t
look back. The reader has to experience the life of a deceased German doctor
who performed experiments in Auschwitz during World War II in reverse, narrated by a spirit or soul who follows along with the reader and is shocked by the protagonist's life events. Memories are of the future, and new experiences are of the past.
Obvious gimmick aside, along with the more literal
interpretations of backwards (such as the oft-cited everything being made of
shit), Time’s Arrow makes the ideas
of past and future unsettling. One of the book’s famous lines is when the
narrator, who is an observer inside the protagonist’s** head, realizes he can
never commit suicide no matter how horrible World War II gets. The future has
already happened. Our narrator can never look back and wonder what could have
been, because it’s already been decided. The railroading of time leads to few
opportunities for regret.
Amis is praised for the research he put into Time’s Arrow, most notably his reading
on the psychology of Holocaust doctors. The Auschwitz scenes capture the
intense mental anguish the narrator feels upon seeing the protagonist’s actions,
along with prosaic but no less gut-punching phrases like “It was I, Odilo
Unverdorben, who personally removed the pellets of Zyklon B and entrusted them
to the pharmacist in his white coat.” Recall when reading this passage that the
story happens in reverse.
This leads to the great disappointment of the book, which no
other review I’ve read has ever caught. The beginning of the book, or end of
the protagonist’s life, happens in 1998,** when the protagonist dies at 81.
From 1998-1946, Time’s Arrow follows
his life back through senior citizenship, middle age, and then that period
people apparently experience in their 30s when they philander constantly.
Auschwitz, which all the book’s promotional materials place at the forefront of
the book’s importance, doesn’t happen until three quarters of the way through.
One mirrored set of questions remains. It’s the set of
questions I slogged through monologues on a retired German-American doctor to
see answered.
To the reader and the narrator, where did it all lead? To
the historian and the protagonist, where did it all begin?
The protagonist is 22 when World War II begins.*** He is a
medical school graduate with a wife by the time he starts participating in the
Holocaust. The period of his life from 1939-1917 only lasts about twelve pages.
All those memories – or new experiences – of life as a young adult, adolescent
and then child in interwar Germany are barely mentioned. They are so formative
to the protagonist as a person, yet they are pre-empted by his later life.
Our protagonist is from Solingen, a medium-sized city in
Northwestern Germany. After the bizarre backwards rollercoaster ride that goes
from waking up in a dead senior’s body through New York City, Portugal, Poland
and Germany, shouldn’t there be more wonder at the place where his life started
– and ends? Aside from half a paragraph on famous knives and scissors, all Amis
can scrounge for information on a city of over 100,000 residents is: “Finally,
modest Solingen harbours a proud secret. I’m the only one who happens to know what
that secret is. It’s this: Solingen is the birthplace of Adolph Eichmann.” A
city where our young protagonist grew up, and where our weary narrator is
rewarded for his stunning patience, is reduced to this?
Time’s Arrow is a
fun read. It just feels front-heavy and back-light.
And then, to quote from the time when the protagonist
assumes the name of John Young during middle age, over a third into the book: “Thank
God. He’s out. Like a baby.”
Ease of Reading: 6
Educational Content: 3
*In 2011, in what is still my only ever foray to the Newark,
NJ airport, I passed a gate where a plane was about to depart for Oslo. I was
carrying my passport, too. My ticket was to Ithaca, NY, where I did go. I
probably couldn’t have boarded that Oslo flight at the extreme last minute, but
it’s always fun to wonder…
**The protagonist’s name changes so often I simply call him “the
protagonist”.
***Time’s Arrow
was released in 1991. Why Amis added to the already confusing timeline by
placing the start of the book seven years into the future, I’ll never know. I
got to this date by adding 81 to the protagonist’s birthdate of 1917. If I’ve
made an error here, let me know.
