Time Travel discussion
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ONE RED THREAD- January 2015
I'm just getting started here, Nathan, but Ernie's 1st person narration certainly sets a tone, doesn't it? I'm enjoying already. The answer to your question is the same as with so many things: "It depends." Simple curiosity might draw me to the past with no agenda other than getting to know some people. And perhaps bygones are best left alone, but what if I stumble upon an irresistible secret that changes my mind? You never know. TT is a risky business.
I'd like to get acquainted with my mother as a young girl, just because I never got to know her family very well and I see her as very different from them. But there's no big secret to risk unearthing in my family.
I'm about 100 pages into it and am enjoying it. The writing style is almost dreamlike, more like a reverie than a narrative. It makes me unsure whether the narrator is reliable. Is he he describing actual events, dreams or even hallucinations? Intriguing.I'd like to get to know the grandfather who died before I was born. I have very little knowledge of his personality and there is no longer anybody who can tell me what he was like.
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An Extended Journey as his book was my favorite Time travel book I read in 2013.
One Red ThreadI am glad to announce is the winner of the second ever "Temporal Jester Award" for best time travel book I read in 2014. In a word, I can't endorse this book anymore. I look forward to reading it again as a group.
Mod
Great praise, Lincoln. Excited to hear your thoughts during the discussion.
Lincoln - I'm tremendously honored. This means a lot coming from a person who reads as much time travel as you do. I've enjoyed and valued your comments so far - and am anxious to hear you expand on them in the context of the full group during the upcoming discussion!
Anyone found it anywhere in eBook or preferably audiobook format?
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The author employs a writing technique in this narrative that breaks the proverbial 4th wall to the reader, essentially telling you the story and referencing you the reader in the book. How does this technique work for you? Do you feel more a part of the story? If this is not your preferred type of narrative, which style is?
Adam wrote: "Anyone found it anywhere in eBook or preferably audiobook format?"ebook versions are available for Kindle from Amazon and Nook from Barnes and Noble. Audiobook is not yet available.
Mod
I am fan of fast paced action that makes me turn the pages to see what will happen next.
With this book it is slow and vivid but I am completely there with Eddy seeing what he sees, smells, sounds...yes almost a breaking of the 4th wall but also can relate to Eddy.
Nathan wrote: "Reading Question 1The author employs a writing technique in this narrative that breaks the proverbial 4th wall to the reader, essentially telling you the story and referencing you the reader in t..."
Bringing the reader into the story with, shall we say, a shrink's eye view of the events is interesting but it's not without its drawbacks. Certain vital pieces of information go unsaid, possible because the person they are talking to is assumed to already know them. For example, where and when does the story take place? How old are Eddy and Sheila when the events they are describing took place? I assume it is in Austin as the acknowledgements say Ernie did a lot of research at the Austin Historical Society. I also assume the events took place in the mid-1980s as I recall some reference to an event in the 1930s that occurred 50 years in the past. If I remember correctly, Eddy was 8 when he rode in a brand new 1959 Cadillac which would probably put him and Sheila in their mid-30s when the story takes place.
These details may not be important but, and this may be relevant to this particular group, if one isn't firmly grounded in the temporal and geographic setting of a story, it is more difficult to feel involved in the story.
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What does everyone think of Eddy's and Sheila's personalities? I find I odd that neither ever attempt to have a conversation about Sheila's condition. If Sheila's upset about that, it's partially her fault for not talking about it either. She gets so upset that he's in his own world and not asking about hers, but everyone has an obligation to bring up a topic of conversation and not just stew because the other didn't notice the other wanted a conversation.
Amy wrote: "What does everyone think of Eddy's and Sheila's personalities? I find I odd that neither ever attempt ..."I think they bring out the worst in each other, at least in these circumstances. And while there's nothing wrong with a little obsession with the Past (been there myself), what could be more important than a new arrival in the present?
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I liked Tom's comment above, which might apply here. Readers get a bit of a "shrink's eye view" of events and relationships. I think that's a product of the 1st Person narration, 4th wall or not, and it works to draw us in.
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I had a conversation recently with my 94 year old grandmother who is in great health. Despite her biological ability to keep on living perfectly well, she says it's tough because so many of her family and friends and my grandfather are gone. She still lives in the same community she always has but did move to a different house. In some ways I think she was distancing herself from memories of my grandfather's passing while still trying to preserve the memory of the life there in general. It seems to become a balancing act, especially at that length of life, to add new content to your outlook so that you can counterbalance the weight of memory you carry around. It's almost as if when you don't keep grasping new ground, the balance tips, and your memory can drag you down until the past swallows you up. At that point you are stuck as a part of it.
Nathan wrote: " It seems to become a balancing act, especially that length of life, to add new content to your outlook so that you can counterbalance the weight of memory you carry around. It's almost as if when you don't keep grasping new ground, the balance tips, and your memory can drag you down until the past swallows you up. At that point you are stuck as a part of it. "Which poses the question, "Does Eddy's penchant for living in the past pose a threat to him and his family in the present and/or the future?"
Wow - what a terrific discussion so early! I'm extremely happy that readers so far are zeroing in on the people in the story -- as I was hoping these four folks in the present would create a different kind of story about traveling to the past. Not knowing where each reader is in the book at this point, I'm reluctant to say too much more - no spoilers! I will say, however, that a lot of the issues people are raising are addressed (and I hope resolved) later in the story. So everyone is right on target! Keep reading - and keep the great commentary coming!
Mod
Great question. Let's make that...
READING QUESTION 2
"Does Eddy's penchant for living in the past pose a threat to him and his family in the present and/or the future?"
Mod
As a political science major...I am always gauging time periods based on wars and who is president. I think I did reach out to Ernie and ask him how old is Eddy and Sheila but knowing those things did not help me place them in the bigger world of other things happening. This is very much a story about Eddy's family history and not about American and or World history.
Geography as well was not addressed. So yeah perhaps not being able to place the characters in that regard will take away from your reading experience...I feel your frustration but I got engrossed in the details of the story despite that.
I also felt terrible for Sheila and wanted to slap Eddy. Don't you know you have a wife and now a baby in the present? I think its awesome to honor and remember the past, but not at the cost of family relationships in the present.
Also, Nathan I should probably send you a private message but I just think it applies so well with the conversation you referred to your girlfriend as your Fiancee. Congrats on the engagement and way to live in the present! Perhaps you have been engaged for quite a while and you call her both fiancee and girlfriend?
Answer to Question 2:
Absolutely Sheila and Eddy could divorce as they are reluctant to address their issues. As Eddy spends more and more time in the past, he could find himself injured or killed.
Mod
Thanks Lincoln! The engagement is pretty recent so we are both still very excited.
Nathan wrote: " Lincoln Wrote: Also, Nathan I should probably send you a private message but... Thanks Lincoln! The engagement is pretty recent so we are both still very excited."
I second Lincoln's good wishes. I wish you both the best.
I didn't realize until just now how close you live. We're practically neighbors! Granted, someone from Rhode Island probably wouldn't see it that way.
Lincoln wrote: "As a reader of time travel I felt the frustration that Tom feels. I like placing myself in events and places in the past. Are we talking Korean War or Vietnam War...Great Depression...Or Revolutionary War...So far I'm making wild guesses, for same reasons you mention. I picture the town being in central North Carolina, mainly because I grew up there, with a big front porch, and that's what comes to mind, including Victorians. The weather feels southern, but it's not Deep South, because that's where Tim is from. And there are lots of dates and eras floating around, so ages might be there if we plot out the connections and the settings. I figure they're in their late forties or early fifties. But I forget why. WILD GUESS! I trust Ernie or Eddy will enlighten us at the right time.
Paul wrote: "So far I'm making wild guesses, for same reasons you mention. I picture the town being in central North Carolina, mainly because I grew up there, with a big front porch, and that's what comes to mind, including Victorians. The weather feels southern, but it's not Deep South, because that's where Tim is from. And there are lots of dates and eras floating around, so ages might be there if we plot out the connections and the settings. I figure they're in their late forties or early fifties. But I forget why. WILD GUESS! I trust Ernie or Eddy will enlighten us at the right time."My guess is Austin as his acknowledgements thanked the folks at the Austin History Center for help with information on "long-ago floods, public hangings and barnstorming New York Yankees baseball."
Sounds good! Works for me. I've ruled out Honolulu.
Mod
Surprise! You're both right. The basic geography is Austin (the Victorian house in the south part of town, river, downtown, courthouse, and to the north of all that, the neighborhood where Eddy and Libby grew up and where the greenhouse resides). But there are some elements of my hometown as well, Chapel Hill, NC, including some very specific places that appear later in the book. Because of the NC locales, I couldn't say the city was Austin - readers would call me out - "That's not in Austin!" -- so the city remains unnamed.
Mod
How much of the past events are based in reality Ernie?
oooooooooo. Maybe we should rephrase that as "How much of the past events are NOT based in reality?" You can probably guess that all those Tom mentions that involved research at the Austin History Center have at least a kernel of truth. As for others, ask me again as you come upon them. I don't want to commit any spoilers. But I will say that while some are total fabrications, I've also elaborated considerably on those that are based on real events. I found that trying to adhere too closely to the "truth" of history pulled me away from the "truth" of the story. (Now does that sound like Eddy's quest or what?)
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I related to that. My brain definitely works differently at night. Usually the times when I ought to be sleeping are when my mind decides to get creative.
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Before I knew the story to ONE RED THREAD, I knew how time travel would work. Eddy’s ability to connect to the past is a mashup of mystical/meditative techniques and real science. This basis in reality seemed important, though I kept it short in the book. Time machines, genetic abnormalities and such have never been as satisfying to me as a real theory—even if it is only the author’s theory.
How important is a plausible (or at least semi-plausible) theory of time travel to you as a reader? Or are you OK with a story that’s light on the “how” of time travel?
Nathan wrote: "How important is a plausible (or at least semi-plausible) theory of time travel to you as a reader? Or are you OK with a story that’s light on the “how” of time travel?"Personally, I think the idea time travel is just a construct to allow for an expanded number of what if... scenarios in fiction. To that end, the theory just has to be plausible enough for me not to lose all respect for the author.
Mod
I will say that the Time Travel in this novel has been getting "curiouser and curiouser," but that's OK. I'm confident that Ernie and Eddy know where they're going and I'm enjoying the story.And it is all about the story, whether the travel is scientific, paranormal, hereditary, meditative, accidental, what have you. I can enjoy them all as long as the Travel is consistent and plausible within its own rules.
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And ..."
I am with Paul on this one...but I agree with Nathan as well. You can have whacked out rules even very implausible stupid rules...but if you establish them and keep to them and not break the rules...I am with you.
That being said, I felt confident giving this book as a gift to several of my siblings who may not enjoy sci-fi or time travel in general as the story is where this book hits in the heart.
I hope everyone is enjoying it, as much as I did and am the second time through. I tried discussing it with family members this weekend and despite gifting it, no one has cracked the book quite yet...a pity.
Mod
As many here know (and I discovered--fortunately--early into writing my book), H.G. Wells famously wrote that once a writer has established what he called “the magic trick” of how a science fiction works, the writer’s job is “to keep everything else human and real.” I totally agree - the real story is in the people. And it all has to work within the world the author creates. But I still like it best when the explanation of the trick is something clever. It doesn't have to be complicated--in fact, simple is good--and it doesn't have to be something we've never heard of. It can be something entirely familiar that occurs in a unique way or place or time. But originality does catch my eye and hold my attention.
Mod
"I’ve had quite a few readers tell me they were struck by individual lines in the book— that ONE RED THREAD contains a lot of little gems of sentences that ring particularly true. I’ve collected some of the lines readers have called out in the “Quotes” section of my Goodreads author page here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Have you had the same experience with individual lines? Which ones struck you as particularly meaningful or true?"
Nathan wrote: "Question from the Author #2"I’ve had quite a few readers tell me they were struck by individual lines in the book—..."
I have more reading to do, but these are among my favorites so far, along with some on Ernie's Author page:
"Long-ago events were riding on sounds, smells, and moving air. The present simply overpowers our ability to see them."
"The present is so bright we can't see anything else, but the past is still out there."
"Don't people disappear fast? And when those who knew them are gone as well, what remains?"
Mod
I'm getting bogged down a bit in the middle with everyone's feelings and need to live in the past rather than the present. People who live in the past annoy me. Maybe I'm reading the wrong genre for that sentiment, but there it is. While the characters in this book are time traveling, it seems to be brought on by their dwelling too heavily on the past.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book so far:
"Underneath, people sometimes remain the same as they were when children. Other times, events tear and hurt, twist and reshape so deeply that there's no way to stay the same."
"As my memories of Stan slipped farther into the past, I was coming to realize that the whole world was just as transient as my brother had been. But if I paid attention, I thought, maybe it wouldn't be too late to capture and hold onto it."
I had a similar thought a few weeks ago walking around a museum and reading about random people captured as only an image in paint and a blurb on a placard. It's amazing how, even someone who had a full life is forgotten once everyone who ever knew them dies or everyone who ever heard a story of them or saw a picture dies. What do our lives boil down to. What's the memory left behind? I'm reminded of running back into my college friend John on FaceBook and finding that the story he hung onto from our adventures together was something I'd forgotten and a completely different story than the one I remember and had handed down to my daughter in bedtime stories (I can't leave her room every night without telling life stories to her). John had boiled down to a couple of stories passed down to my daughter. And those memories existed only in my mind until I passed them to her. And unless those stories pass on from her to someone else, they no longer exist when she forgets them and no longer exists in this world. I kind of feel like this book is a little bit about that ... how the stories we know are only a small part of the larger picture and how the whole world forgets all the pieces that came before with nobody to tell the story.
"It could be that everyone who lives to adulthood dies one hit at a time."
I certainly hope not, but it's an interesting glass-half-empty way of looking at life.
"It's not the present that's anonymous. The present is where we engage other people and where that engagement defines who we are."
I think I like this one most of all ... back to my desire to not live in the past. I'm not the me that I was in the past. I'm the me that exists now. You're the you that exists now. Perhaps the past made you who you are, but you choose now how to express it.
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even if your mood is a bit melancholy
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I'm closing in on the end and have just read the description of Old Jacob's experiences at (view spoiler)
These might be good places for spoiler alerts, eh?
It has occurred to me that time travel plots that follow the Back to the Future model where characters hope to improve the present by changing the past tend to forget one key point. Sometimes good things happen because bad things have shaped our lives. If it were not for my foolish first marriage, I never would have moved to California and met my current wife. I never would have had my two lovely daughters and my career would have gone in an entirely different direction. (view spoiler)
Mod
Very valid observation. There is no limit to the amount of good that can come from a given circumstance. (Or bad for that matter.) I think about that often in regard to my father whom I lost to cancer as a kid. I certainly wish I could have known him, but if I had, that person wouldn't have ended up me at all. Were I to travel back and save his life somehow, a definite ontological paradox would ensue. I might still exist, but certainly not this me. Mucking about in the past is a tricky business to be sure. I'm not sure there is much to be gained from it in a singular universe. There might be a few benefits in a multiverse... hard to say.
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"I didn’t intentionally write ONE RED THREAD as a “Southern” novel, but readers and reviewers keep saying it is. After all, it is set in the region and I did consciously include major characteristics of the genre: place and voice. The story also contains the kind of quirks that the “Southern” genre celebrates: (view spoiler)
But there are quirks in every region. What would change if the book were set elsewhere? What would stay the same? And are Southerners, with their reverence for history, perhaps more susceptible to Time Travel than others?"
Time Travel
Books mentioned in this topic
One Red Thread (other topics)An Extended Journey (other topics)
One Red Thread (other topics)
One Red Thread (other topics)
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
"ONE RED THREAD is my debut novel, but I've been an award-winning writer of non-fiction books, documentary film scripts, newspaper and magazine journalism, and advertising for years. I've also taught journalism. Like my protagonist Eddy McBride, I've followed architecture as a longtime passion, pursuing graduate coursework in the field and writing widely on the subject, including a history (University of North Carolina Press) supported by a research and writing grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Other non-fiction books on a range of topics have included a best-seller on the Dallas Cowboys (Taylor Publishing). I was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, majored in English Literature at Hamilton College in New York and now live in Austin, Texas."
Ernie is group member and will participating in the discussion!
This week the local NPR station in Texas where he lives is running a two-minute interview with Ernie regarding One Red Thread. You can listen to that here.
http://kut.org/post/meet-one-red-thre...
You can also visit his website at www.erniewood.com
Here's the book blurb:
When architect Eddy McBride, a fortysomething self-absorbed noticer of details and self-appointed seeker of truths, stumbles upon a way to visit, watch and ultimately participate in events from his family history, he finds answers to long-ago tragedies and mysteries. But each time Eddy returns to the present, he unleashes the unhappy consequences of exploring history on his family and friends. And as Eddy's knowledge of the past grows, he turns from curious seeker of truths to frantic fixer of mistakes--present, past and by those from the present who would change the past--as he follows a devastating trail of hurt, disappearance and death.
Here's where to buy it:
http://www.amazon.com/One-Red-Thread-...
Or anywhere books are sold.
I received my lovely hardback edition in the mail today and am excited to get reading.
PREREADING QUESTION #1
If you suddenly found yourself capable of time travel, would you look up the past activities of your own family members? Are family secrets fair game or would you consider bygones to be bygones in the interest of not upsetting life at home?"