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Title: Making History: A Novel by Stephen Fry ISBN: 1-56947-150-9 Publisher: Soho Press, Inc. Pub. Date: May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (55 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: It has it's weak points, but overall a very good read
Comment: Whenever the words "time machine" end up in a book there's always this little voice in my head screaming "DANGER! Lay down the book and step away from it" but in this case Stephen Fry seems to get away with it. Not so much because of the plot, which is rather thin and contains too many 'mistakes', but because of his amazing style of writing (quick, funny, detailed).
In the book Michael Young, a history student specialised on Hitler's youth, and scientist Leo Zuckermann, highly interested in WW II since his father was a Nazi 'doctor', decide to create a time machine (how else can you survive boring sunday afternoons?) so they can stop Hitler from being born. Not a bad start for a book and a pretty interesting idea to work with (how would you stop Hitler from being born, Kennedy from being shot, planes from crashing into trade towers and what would happen if you would?). They succeed but since history has been changed their own lives change too and they both end up in Princeton, USA where Michael knows about his 'former' life (the first chapters of the second part with Michael walking around without having the faintest idea what's going on are dead funny) but Leo doesn't (god knows why).
Even worst Hitler has been replaced by another dictator, Rudolf Gloder, who succeeds where Hitler has failed and conquered Europe and pretty much killed all Jews. Therefore Michael, Steve, a friend of the American Michael, and Leo create ANOTHER time machine to redo what they've done and they all end up back in Cambridge (where both Michael and Steve CAN remember what happened and Leo can't, again god knows why).
The mistakes made, besides the fact that the effect on memory seems to change per person there's also the time schedule when they return in Cambridge (Michael and Leo meet some time before Michaels girlfriend leaves for Princeton herself, when they all return Michael and Leo HAVEN`T met but his girlfriend is already living in the USA), are irritating but don't spoil the entire book. The American Michael, and therefore the English Michael, being gay seems a bit odd and Fry doesn't give any extra info on that part. But besides all that this book is a very good read!
Rating: 3
Summary: Making a Pig's Ear
Comment: As an enthusiastic reader of alternative history fiction, I have found that certain themes seem to appeal to writers more than others. Among the more popular ones are "What if there had been no Reformation?", "What if the South had won the American Civil War?" and,of course, "What if Hitler had never been born?" and "What if the Nazis had won World War Two?"
Stephen Fry exercises considerable ingenuity in combining these last two questions with the science-fiction theme "Could we travel back in time and alter the past?" The central premise of his novel is that two Cambridge academics, Michael Young, a young historian, and Leo Zuckerman, an elderly German-born physicist, decide to prevent the birth of Adolf Hitler by using a time-machine to introduce contraceptives into the water-supply of his home town of Braunau shortly before his conception.
Unfortunately, this experiment goes awry. Then second half of the novel is set in a world where the Nazis still came to power in the early 1930s led by one Rudolf Gloder, a man as ruthless as Hitler but more subtle and cunning. Under Gloder's leadership, Germany develops the atomic bomb and uses it to dominate Europe. America remains independent and nominally democratic, but develops into a deeply reactionary society, racist, anti-homosexual and with an intrusive secret police.
This is a clever idea, and Stephen Fry writes with a good deal of wit and style. There are a couple more, very dark, twists of the plot, which I will not reveal. Nevertheless, the book suffers from structural weaknesses. The main one is the decision to set the second part of the book in America rather than Nazi-ruled Europe. (In the alternative universe he has conjured up, Michael is a student at Princeton rather than Cambridge). This means that we never see the effects of the tyranny of Gloder and his successors for ourselves, but merely hear about it at second hand. Nor is it explained why an America engaged in a cold war with Nazi Germany should have become so much more reactionary and backward-looking than an America engaged in a cold war with Soviet Russia. The concentration on the failings of American society in the alternative universe makes the book seem rather unbalanced; indeed, when Michael and his Princeton friend Stephen Burns come up with a scheme to undo the damage by ensuring that Hitler is born after all, one is left with the impression that they are motivated less by the desire to liberate Europe from Nazi rule than by the wish to make America safe for long hair, gay pride marches and Ecstasy.
The second structural weakness is that, although most of the book is written in the form of a first-person prose narrative, lengthy (and key) sections are written in the form of a film screenplay. The two styles of writing do not mesh together well, because the screenplay mode of writing does not serve to convey characters' feelings and motivations as well as does prose narrative. In a film, of course, the bare bones of the screenplay are fleshed out by the contributions of the actors and director, who have other techniques of conveying emotion, but when the screenplay stands by itself it makes for very flat reading. This adversely affects the book in one very important way. During the first half of the book, Michael is heterosexual with a girlfriend. During the second half, he becomes a homosexual and he and Stephen fall in love. Unfortunately, the scene where they realise their love for each other is one of those written in the screenplay form, so the reader is left with no idea what has prompted this sudden reversal of the sexual orientation of the central character, and Michael's sudden conversion to homosexuality seems completely implausible.
Another point that interested me was the tension between Stephen Fry's obvious political liberalism and the deeper conservative theme of his book. The Law of Unintended Consequences - the law that says that in seeking to make a thing better we often make it worse and that the more radical the change we seek, the more likely it is that it will lead to disaster - is, after all, a basic element of conservative political thought, but one that is generally rejected by liberals and radicals as too pessimistic. I wonder if Mr Fry was aware of this contrast- something I would have like to have seen explored more deeply
As another reader has pointed out, Hitler's home town is named Braunau, not Brunau, the spelling that appears in the book throughout. Mr Fry, however, seems to have researched the historical background thoroughly, so I presume that this error is the fault of an editor or proof-reader rather of his own.
The idea behind this book is an interesting one; I would, however, like to have seen it better handled. Hence the title of this review- my grandfather's favourite expression for something done clumsily that could have been done better.
To declare an interest, Stephen Fry and I were at Cambridge together, and I knew him slightly. I doubt if he remembers me (if he is reading this, he is probably thinking "James who?"), but I certainly remember him. I hope this has not coloured my review.
Rating: 3
Summary: Decent read for a transtlantic flight, or the beach
Comment: A tall tale, cheerfully spun out, of a couple of Cambridge (UK) academics who use a time machine to improve world history by deleting Hitler, only to make things worse than ever. For those who've read much science fiction, the alternate history theme -- what would happen if you could go back in time and alter historical events? -- is hardly novel. Nevertheless, the premise is worked out skilfully, and the novel is a fast lively read, with an engaging main character, clever story twists (e.g. imagining Hitler as a child), and reasonably good writing. The other reviews I read here, however, led me to expect more; I found the book funny and clever at times, but not particularly witty, and far from brilliant. All in all, a pretty good yarn with enought intellectual content to make you think -- but not too hard.
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Title: The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry ISBN: 1569470545 Publisher: Soho Press, Inc. Pub. Date: June, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography by Stephen Fry ISBN: 1569472025 Publisher: Soho Press, Inc. Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Liar by Stephen Fry ISBN: 156947012X Publisher: Soho Press, Inc. Pub. Date: June, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Revenge : A Novel by Stephen Fry ISBN: 0812968190 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie ISBN: 067102082X Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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