The Lost Time Accidents Paperback – 17 May 2016

The Lost Time Accidents", the wonderful new novel by John Wray, is difficult to describe; it's not exactly science fiction, although there is a component of that genre. And it's not a time-travel book per se, it is more of a family saga about a family that has been obsessed with TIME for three generations.

The Toula/Tolliver family has been searching for the missing pages of Ottokar Toula's "formula" for time travel which he entrusted to his mistress minutes before his death at the beginning of the twentieth century. The novel follows his brother, son and grandson as they search for the secret of the "Accidents". The novel is narrated by great-grandson, Waldy Tolliver, son of science fiction writer Orson Card Tolliver (who's name will not be lost on science fiction fans), as he recounts the family lore to his ex-mistress, "Mrs. Haven". How all these characters and time periods inter-connect is what is so much fun about this novel! You could even say that the novel actually DOES time-travel back and forth among the generations.

I wouldn't be surprised if the book is full of allusions to science fiction/time travel that I missed, but I did recognize the similarity of Waldy's hoarding and reclusive twin aunts to the real-life Collyer brothers, and the allusion of having a science fiction writer (in this case inadvertently) begin a religion/cult (in this case called the United Church of Synchronology).

I highly recommend this delightfully entertaining reading experience. Time did seem to fly as I was reading it!

The Lost Time Accidents is not a flawless epic masterpiece (say, Bolano's 2666), but it is an incredibly creative, penetrating, fun, well-written, thought-provoking 3-generational saga that defies genres or synopsis.

I didn't love this (4/5), and the execution didn't always work terribly well (4/5), but, I'm going with 5 for Wray's sheer originality and ingenuity. Because what this book manages to do is somehow weave together questions about historical memory (i.e. how do we atone for the sins of our forbears? how are psychoses, beliefs, passions passed down through generations?), a challenge to Einstein's theory of relativity (!! synchronicity), a mind-bending structure that spirals inwards in time, a century's worth of events, and an intelligent, ingenious exploration of the ethics of science and of the nature of time.

Above all, The Time Accidents is a story about time in all its dimensions: physical, experiential, historical, psychological, poetical, mathematical, etc. And who doesn't love/isn't intrigued/vexed/lost/beholden to/perplexed in/by time?!?!

Time, the supposed 4th dimension, only moves in one direction (as we experience it). But, mathematically, if it is just another dimension, it should be traversable, like space (also, in physics, time is just another coordinate in the spacetime fabric). Physically, we're always in seemingly the same time. Yet time can pass slower or faster, depending on how we're feeling/what we are doing (same in physics, it turns out: the "passing" of time is related to an object's movement through space). If you think about time as coordinates (x,y,z,t), and take an object that is first located at coordinate A, and then at B, then time begins to look a lot like movement, the coordinate that describes motion. What does this even mean? I have no clear idea - it's virtually impossible, really, to capture time, though many have tried, in all disciplines.

Then-what about dreams and memory? Memory can take us back in time. After all, isn't the world as we know it just our perception? And our memories are mental events, like anything else we process from experience. Is memory the ultimate time-travel? If so, what about historical memory? What about that which has been passed down through generations, what about concepts that have encrusted themselves with time that now seem "given", when in fact they are just artifacts of time and reenactment?

The Time Accidents is one of those books that won't give you an answer (a definite plus from my perspective), but rather lead you in a journey of questions-not only those explicitly asked in the story, but also those the reader is inspired to imagine on their own. For me, this translated into a crazed book-buying binge about things like octopuses (they are radial creatures after all - how do they experience space, and thus time, since spacetime is one and the same). And, into furiously printing out a slew of articles about stuff like "mathematical philosophy of time in Minkowskian space" (I'm a math geek, as all math teachers should be). Your inspiration could take many other forms, depending on your interests - there's the Nazi question, the question about how science intersects with ethics, the question of familial guilt and psychosis, the question about the nature of dreams and memory, you name it, Wray's got you covered.

The book is definitely an investment (of time, incidentally), a dense 500 pages. It's not perfect (for example, Wray's wittiness is at times self-conscious and somewhat awkward), but it's one of the most curiosity-inducing books I've ever read, and for that alone, I would HIGHLY recommend it!!

Let me state right out that I didn't understand this novel. Not much goes over my head but this one may have. It's wonderfully written. It's got great characters. When I was finished reading it I said "what the [fudge] was that?" I said it out loud. Maybe if someone explains it to me. Unless you are an uber-mensch, give this one a miss.

This is a thoughtful and deeply interesting novel that caught me from beginning to end. Filled with a sampling of the 20th century's most profound and most troubling ideas and trends, the author expertly takes his characters through triumphs and tragedys. Very highly recommended for serious readers.

captivating story. kind of difficult to keep the plot and characters straight but that's part of the point. worth keeping at it.