I enjoy stories that are
about passage of time or premised on alternate universe and “what if you could travel back in time.”
The opening paragraph in
Cat’s Eye , a fiction written by Margaret Atwood reads:
‘ Time is not a line
but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. If you can bend space you can
bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move faster than light you
could travel backwards in time and exist in two places at once.’
I have read Less written by Andrew Sean Greer and it is brilliant so
when I came across The Impossible lives of Greta Wells and knew
that the fiction by Andrew Sean Greer is about ‘what if ‘ and time travel, I had to read it. The
concept is uniquely original as it is about time travel and yet it is not really
about time travel as the character has not left 1985, she merely experiences
the version of her in 1918 and 1941.
Greta Wells’ life is falling
apart. Her charismatic twin brother,
Felix, has just died of AIDS and Dr.Nathan Michelson, her lover of many years
has also left her. Her aunt, Ruth is her sole companion in these months. Ruth
is her father’s sister and her father ‘would not have approved of her
visits; he always found his sister flighty, selfish, uncontrolled, the
dangerous artist who had to be stopped.’ But Greta finds an ally and a
comfort in Ruth. To heal her pains, everyone has advice. ‘ Try acupuncture,
try acupressure, try yoga, try running, try pot, try oats , try bran try, try
colonics, quit smoking, quit dairy, quit meat, quit drinking, quit TV, quit
being self-centered. Finally she finds Dr Gilleo, a psychiatrist. She tries
antidepressants from Ambinalon to zimelidine. She still mourns for the loss of
her beloved brother. Then her psychiatrist recommends her to see Dr Cerletti
for electroconvulsive therapy which process will be twice a week. Purpose of the
therapy is to bring her back to herself. During these sessions, she finds
herself being cut out of her current world in 1985 and transported to 1918 or 1941. During the treatment process that will take twenty-five procedures, Greta
gets to travel back and forth between 1918, 1941 and 1985. When she goes back
in time, she is fully aware that she is experiencing life as it might have been
had she and Felix, Alan (Felix’s friend), Nathan and Ruth existed in those
years as well. In tackling events of her life in those earlier years, Greta has
the benefit of the wisdom that is
acquired through her experience in 1985.
She is definitely proactive in taking steps to gradually gain her present life back.
She explains to her aunt.
“ Electroconvulsive. It’s a last resort. They tell me it’s a seizure
to break a pattern in my mind, but I know what it really is. They think I
should be someone else. This Greta isn’t working, obviously. She’s worked for
over thirty years, but it’s time for an update. Replace all the parts.”
“ Just one part.”
“ Just one part. Just me. I hate it, but I don’t know what else to do. I
can’t…. I can hardly get up in the morning. And yet….”
Andrew Sean Greer’s writing is beautiful, acutely sensitive and funny. Here is an
example.
‘It is almost
impossible to capture true sadness; it is a deep-sea creature that can never be
brought into view. I say that I remember being sad, but in truth I only
remember mornings when that person in the bed – the person in which I was
contained – could not wake up, could not got to work, could not even do the
things that she knew would save her, and instead did only what was bound to
destroy her : alcohol, and forbidden cigarettes, and endless lost black hours
of loneliness. I’m tempted to distance myself from her, to say, “ Oh, that
wasn’t me.” But that was me, staring at the wall and longing to crayon-draw all
over it and not even having the will for that. Not even the will for suicide.
That was me in my room, looking out the window on Patchin Place s the maples
turned yellow into autumn.’
It is a commendable book if
you are a fan of stories about the character inhabiting alternate realities and
alternate versions of how one's life could go. I like reading stories that
are premised on themes like ‘ what if’ as
in what if there were a parallel timeline and there are different
versions of us or that you can travel
back and forth in time. The plot for The
Impossible lives of Greta Wells is fascinating and I
particularly like the moral of the story
that suggests that no matter what circumstances we land ourselves in , we are
the same person as our core remains the same and there is only one version of
us in every individual.
Do you ever ask yourself if this is the person you dreamed of becoming when you were little? I think we are chameleons if we allow ourselves to be and at times, we Decades ago I watched the movie Being There and absolutely love it. In the movie, the character, Chance is a gardener to a rich recluse who lives in a townhouse. Chance has lived all of his life inside the townhouse and he has learnt everything from watching television. When his benefactor dies, he is evicted from the house and for the first time, he has to step into the outside world where he chances upon a rich man's wife whose chauffeured driven car ran into him. He has been allowed by his benefactor to take the well-tailored clothes from the attic thus his attire is courtly and respectable. Chance is taken into the rich man's home. When he introduces himself as ' Chance, the gardener ', he is mistaken as Chauncey Gardiner. The plot is hilarious but the moral of the story is "Life is a state of mind." Brilliant. Click
