A friend gifted me Martin Amis' Time's Arrow last year because it stayed with her for a long time. I'd been putting off reading it (because ???) so I decided to pick it up first thing this year. I really enjoyed this book and I don't know if I would have found it on my own, or if I would have read it based on the back cover copy alone... I need to start actually following through when someone recommends me something.
This was my first time reading Martin Amis so I wasn't super confident when I learned the conceit of the book: "A man's life story, told backwards, from death to birth". It sounded like it could have been a hollow gimmick, boring at best and annoying at worst. It really wasn't the case. This book is so short but so thematically rich that I can see why it stayed with my friend for a long time. I suspect I'll keep coming back to it for a long time, too.
Once You're Here, You Can't Leave
The unreliable narrator of the book is Tod Friendly, but not really. Tod Friendly has had (will have) many other names and identities, but our narrator remains nameless. He identifies more or less with Tod Friendly at different points of the book but, while he can tell what Tod is feeling, he never has access to his thoughts. He never has any influence on Tod's actions, either. He is merely a passenger next to Tod's consciousness, sharing his body, witnessing his life, trying to make sense of it.
And most of the time, it doesn't. The world doesn't make sense. People never look towards where they're going, only where they came from. All nourishment comes from the toilet and humans get together to spit out food on their plates. Doctors will pay to poison you and break your bones.
Using the device of "life in reverse", Amis defamiliarizes the most commonplace processes and conventions and the result is often funny, often poignant, often jarring. The narration manages to be dispassionate and visceral, violent and tender. Uncomfortable. Compelling.
At one point the narrator makes a passing comment comparing himself with "a voice of conscience" and from then on I could not stop thinking of him as such. A horrified wisdom, knowing what choices would have been better, unable to change them. He remembers things that will happen, he can see the consequences of Tod's actions, but interprets them as causes. Remember, Tod? Remember how lonely you were, how you hated doctors, how that thing made you sad? Why are you acting like this, Tod? Can't you remember how terrible it will be?
The narrator lives in a deterministic universe and he remarks on this a couple of times: once you're here, on Earth, you can't leave. You can try, you can think about it. But once you're here, here you will remain, until birth. I saw this through the lens of conscience as hindsight. Once you make your choices, you can't change them. You can wish to go back and choose different but they are done, they happened and so did their outcome. It's out of your control
In order for the worst thing you did to make sense, everything else must be senseless
This is the one place where the narrator has agency: assigning meaning. (Hmm this seems to be a pattern in books I've been reviewing. At what point should I stop posting book reviews and just email them to my therapist?)
He struggles with this. Why is violence the only source of creation? Why aren't people grateful for it? Is Tod Friendly a good man? When he was old he walked around taking toys away from children, but they smiled about it. The narrator is confused by how the world works.
He repeatedly says the world doesn't make sense, he keeps expecting it to and it never does. He posits theories and explanations but most of the time he does so with very little confidence.
There is only one period in Tod's life when the world makes sense. It is, of course, the reveal that the book is building up to, that we get hints of, that marked Tod for the rest of his life. The period of his life he keeps having "prophetic" dreams about. It's not especially surprising, what it was, but I won't spoil it (it's probably what you're thinking). In my opinion knowing it doesn't really take away from the impact of reading it, but I know some people feel different.
When we finally get there, when we follow (no longer/not yet) Tod through that time, the narrator is as close to Tod as he can get. He says "we" or "I", he identifies with Tod unambiguously. And it's because this part of Tod's life makes sense. There was a whole lot of violence, which, as we know, is a powerful force of creation. Tod was so selfless, helping so many people. Cause and consequence were logical and right. It made sense. Tod's incredibly important work, his relationships, his creation. The meaning of this period of his life is obvious: it's profound love. Love that the narrator feels himself.
Seeing the same events unfold in "reverse" order... they wouldn't make sense. They would lose all meaning. They would leave you (and everyone else looking back) asking why. Why did it happen. How could it have happened. It would be so obviously wrong, an impossibility.
But the event happened, that can't be changed. And Tod's conscience looks back, admiring the love and selflessness of humans. Their commitment to purpose and meaning.
Too bad nothing else in the world will make sense for him again.
