Alexander the Great novel gets bum rap in Canada 4. Ayn Rand fan spells out appreciation in world's largest book ad 3. "When Martin Amis at the Guardian book club The novelist joins John Mullan to talk about his novel from 1991, Time's Arrow Week four: Readers' responses Week three: Martin Amis on writing Time's Arrow Week two: Narrative voice Time's Arrow: Sam Jordison's book club blog Related The Ask by Sam Lipsyte Is there a new Martin Amis to chart the coalition's flaws? | Nick Cohen Short is sweet when it On Books Last 24 hours 1. As cities rebuild themselves, the planes retrieve their bombs by "a miraculous magnetism". This is the passage in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 where the hero, Billy Pilgrim, watches a backwards-run film of American bombing of Germany in the second world war. In an Afterword Amis acknowledges his debt to "a certain paragraph – a famous one – by Kurt Vonnegut".
Action is like a film being run backwards.
The protagonist gets younger, the universe contracts. Time's Arrow, however, truly reverses chronology. Time's Arrow by Martin Amis In all these cases, the separate episodes run forwards. Similarly, the six main sections of Don DeLillo's Underworld take us back in steps from 1992 to 1951, while Harold Pinter's play Betrayal is a study of adultery whose succeeding scenes take us back over the course of some nine years.
The breaks between these sections jolt us back in time to see the causes of consequences we have already observed. Sarah Waters's The Night Watch, for instance, is composed of three sections labelled, in turn, "1947", "1944" and "1941". Most narratives that run backwards do so in substantial sections of forward narrative. Photograph: Jane Bown Time's Arrow is not the first novel with a reverse chronology, but no other novel has reversed time so conscientiously. smaller About Us Today's paper Zeitgeist Search Books Search News Sport Comment Culture Business Money Life & style Travel Environment TV Video Community Blogs Jobs Culture Books Book club Series: Book club Previous | Next | Index Time's Arrow by Martin Amis Week one: reverse chronology (3) Tweet this (10) John Mullan The Guardian, Saturday 9 January 2010 Article history larger | smaller Books Martin Amis Culture Series Book club More features More on this story Martin Amis.Mobile site Sign in Register Text larger
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