The theme of time travel has proved perdurable
in science fiction. As we imagine the pageant of time, with the list of
noteworthy events and individuals, we are led to believe that our history
textbooks in some way have captured the essential moments that constitute the
backbone, so to speak, of history. Little do we appreciate that there is more
to the past than we imagine, and that is it instead a dynamic web of processes,
operating within a matrix of conditions that we can’t really isolate. I am
reminded of a quote by Stephen Jay Gould, who said that, if we could turn the
tape back several hundreds of millions of years ago, it would be highly
improbably that the “movie” of history would repeat itself the way it had. He
was referring to evolution, but we can just as fruitfully apply it to the
events of human history.
It has been over a year since I read Stephen
King’s novel “11/22/63”. It was fairly well received when it was released in
2011, and I remember putting myself on the wait list at our local library to
borrow this book. It represented an exercise in nostalgia for many, for the
date, of course, was indelibly marked in the consciousness of so many
Americans. It is the date in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in Dallas, Texas.
We all have certainly entertained the fantasy
that is distilled in the question, “What if?”. It is grounded, of course, in
the fallacies of history alluded to in the first paragraph, the idea that, if
we knew then what we know now, perhaps we could have changed history. Failing
that, if we could travel back into the past, then maybe, just maybe, we could
have avoided this national trauma and rescued ourselves from the difficulties
in which we currently find ourselves. Be these personal or public, if only we
could go back and prevent or change such and such an action, then maybe, just
maybe, things would be immeasurably better. Maybe we would still have intact
families, maybe we would have saved a loved one, and maybe our country would be
on a more positive course. Who is to say, however, that anyone in the past
would have bothered to listen to us? And not to be a Pangloss, in reference to
Voltaire’s character in his novel Candide, who proclaims that we live in the
best of all possible worlds, who is to say that our world would not be worse?
This novel is rooted, I believe, in a form of
liberal nostalgia about the Kennedy years. It is a sentiment that I have
noticed in a certain sector of our population, the idea that in the last four
decades, our country has been fallen prey to the machinations of conservative
groups, and that is has become a more divided nation. What if we could somehow
avoid this process, and what if we could return to a more hopeful period, to
the Camelot that is associated with the fateful presidency of a youthful John
F. Kennedy?
Of course, the idea seems foolish. Events are
not driven by individuals, that persist fallacy that consumes so many of us,
but are instead driven by processes, to adopt a Structuralist point of view
that focuses as much on economics and culture as on the role of institutions. This
is not to deny the role of individuals, only minimize it to point to the fact
that there is a grander dynamic at play. The Kennedy assassination haunts the
imagination of liberals (in the modern sense, of course, and not in the
classical conception of liberals in the 19th century), because they
view that event as a turning point, one that set the stage for the more
energized conservative movement that was supposedly to shift this country to
the right.
Stephen King uses this conceit in his novel,
one in which he imagines that it is possible for his protagonist to return to
the past. As such, his influence would be outsized, because he would be privy
to secret knowledge that would change the course of the world, but also,
because it represents also what may be termed a quixotic venture. Yes,
quixotic, for it is motivated by an impossible idealism, a desire to turn the
clock back, and to set in motion new processes. It also represents a novel of
encounters, for it gives the author the opportunity to recreate the feel of a
period of time that strikes me as incredibly wistful and personal.
There were many experiences during the 60s. It
was different for the middle classes, for those who lived in the cities, for
those who were members of ethnic minorities, for those who were women and, of
course, for those children, to name just a few. As the years pass by, we tend
to idealize the period that pertains to our youth, and in my case, this period
corresponds to the 70s, a decade that it became customary to dismiss. For the
protagonist, a divorced teacher by the name of Jacob Epping, he is able to
travel to this period by means of a mysterious transport mechanism that is
located in a storage space located in the back of a small and unobtrusive
restaurant. We don’t need to speculate on the actual mechanism, because this
isn’t important to the story. It is simply there, and the protagonist, a high
school teacher, is convinced by the restaurant owner to undertake a mission,
that of preventing Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy.
The evocation of the times is one that is
invested in a powerful sense of nostalgia. Yes, there are certain stereotypes
about this period that are given play in this novel, the sense that we lived in
a more cohesive culture, that people were much more trusting and open, that
there was more of a business-friendly outlook, but also, behind all of this,
the feeling that the international political situation was heating up and that,
at any moment, conflict might break out with the socialist block of countries.
But more than just imagining a return to this
era, what I found most mesmerizing was the depiction of the character of Lee
Harvey Oswald, the unstable, violent, ne’er-do-well loner who moved within
different circles, and was able to somehow engineer his defection to the Soviet
Union before returning once again. There have been so many conspiracy theories
advanced with regards to this individual and the training and help he may or
may not have received, in addition to that fact that, so many years later,
something within us refuses to believe that such an individual could have
carried out his plan to completion. He himself said that he was a “patsy”,
alluding to the help of other mysterious entities, but this connection has
never been adequately proved and we are left to consider the spectacle of a belligerent
and unstable loner who was able to carry out this assassination.
The protagonist feels distinctly like a
secondary character when we compare him with the assassin. Jacob Epping follows
Oswald, and each time we see the future assassin, there is a certain visceral
thrill that I imagine we all feel, this feeling that we are viewing a monster
at work, however small and petty he may seem. But the real monster, of course,
is another, and it is a testament to Stephen King’s prowess as an author of
thrillers and horror novels that he suggests this from an early stage.
The idea is, of course, grounded in our
understandable need to protect and cherish our most valuable illusions. These
correspond to our past, of course, but in this case, the protagonist finds
himself seduced by another character, a female teacher by the name of Sadie
Dunhill, fleeing a failing relationship, and by an entire small town by the
name of Jodie, located in Texas. It is the idea of something that is fleeting,
of something more vulnerable than a candle in a gale force storm, of something
to which he grows more and more attached to the point that he begins to
question his original rationale for traveling to the past. If may be that, for
him, his individual interest outweigh those of a certain liberal nostalgia that
seems much too abstract when compared to the corporeality of a vulnerable lover
who offers him the protection and warmth and companionship he didn’t have in
his own future. Is this not the case of a nostalgic idealization? I would have
to believe so.
There is another threat that haunts Jacob, and
this is the entity that is known as the “Jimla”. The phrase is first heard at a
high school football game, and he takes it to refer to the star quarterback,
but it resonates with him for it suggests a menace that lurks behind the
corners, at the edge of perception, a menace slowly creeping up on him. It is,
once again, a testimony to the mastery of the author that the precise nature of
this menace is not revealed until the final section of the book, and it has to
do, perhaps, with an idea of self-absorption. The Jimla is, indeed, a haunting
entity, and it is driven by loss as well, in a way in which we may personify
the loss that is felt by many who still mourn the death of an ideal, the
destruction of Camelot.
I am fascinated by this attempt to recreate a
lost period, one that, furthermore, is not too distant in the past but that is
different enough so that it seems more haunting. I can’t imagine us being able
to idealize the present year 2013 in the same way, and the presidency of Barack
Obama, one that has proven so disappointing to many of us progressives who were
hoping for so much more. But then again, this idealization needs the
intervention of time, and if our world comes to seem more disorienting and
bewildering than it already is, then this period, because it is a period that
will come to an artificial conclusion, may be ripe for idealization.
In the novel, we are in for one further treat:
we are able to imagine a world in which President Kennedy had not been
assassinated on that fateful day. What are the consequences? The author
imagines a nightmare scenario that gives much for thought for thought, as if he
were purposely trampling the cherished notion that things would be better. The
horror of this alternative world, one in which nuclear bombs have actually been
exploded in the United States, and in which the country is on the verge of
coming apart, is furthermore augmented by a giant “ripping” sound in the fabric
of the sky, as if this scenario were so unstable and horrifying that the author
were anxious to bring it to a close, to rip up the pages and crumple them, in a
sort of metaliterary intervention that is delicious to contemplate.
I conclude with the original thought that I
had written in my first note written last year. Nostalgia is, of course,
dangerous, and we had best not hesitate or turn to look back, because, like Lot’s
wife, we run the risk of turning into stone. And yet, I am immobilized by my
own past, and my own “What ifs?”. I have so many regrets, but no time travel
open to me other than the fanciful recounting of my own childhood with friends
and family members who were with me, or with reruns that leave me trembling
with sadness, or ultimately, with essays that I write in an effort to purge
myself from the presence of the “Jimla” from which I might never be able to
free myself if I were to allow it to capture me.
(Written on July 2, 2013)
====================================================
Original entry written on May 4, 2012:
It is almost 11:30 p.m., and I just finished
reading Stephen King's novel "11/22/63". It was a book that had
received much attention in preceding months, and I always intended to read it
but somehow postponed my decision for a later day. Despite my early impressions,
it turned out to be more emotionally resonant than I had expected. I'll write
about it another day, but it does confirm a sentiment that has been obsessing
me for the past few decades. Nostalgia is dangerous.
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
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