Some books sweep you up in the complexity and interactions of the characters; some impress with the lyricism of the writing; some with the mirror they hold up to infinite variety of human follies and strengths; some with their plumbing of emotional relationships; some with their take on historical moments and events. And then some books, like Time’s Arrow, can be appreciated for what it is that they try to do in illuminating, in a new way, something that has been, and continues to be, thoroughly described through histories and memoirs, an illumination that is more than just an accretion to a well-known story, in this case, the Holocaust. This is the category into which falls Time’s Arrow.

The story of the life of Tod (which means death, in German)Friendly is told backwards, from lying almost dead on a hospital table in the USA, to his time as a doctor in Auschwitz (as Odilo Unverdorben, the last name means uncorrupted/innocent), back and back to his re-entry into the womb. It is told by a narrator who is undefined: his soul…his alterego? ….some force that is alternately part of Tod’s being and an outside observer, but a force that does not foresee the unraveling of the secret to be exposed by the life lived backwards; ironically, the narrator can remember the future that is now the past, but Tod only lives in the moment and we never get inside Tod’s head. The narrator does, however, has a sense of humour as in his admission that, “I’m getting more and more tentative about cause and effect”. The “life in reverse” technique is not new, but some parts of the book are funny in a scatological way: bowel movements become progressively effective and efficient as Tod moves towards greater youth and health: some are just funny to picture as with the garbagemen distributing garbage from their trucks, and food reassembling itself from the garbage can to the mouth where it is re-assembled and deposited on the plate. But no one is going to find Tod, or the alterego, appealing characters.

So, does Amis bring new illumination, new angles of consideration to a well-told story? (“Understanding” would be too much for the Holocaust.) I think he does in a way, although it takes awhile to get to it through the rather boring reverse-reel of Tod’s post-war life. In the world of Time’s Arrow, the smoke from the crematoria funnels down into the ovens to reconstitute the bodies that are then pulled out, the gold teeth and filings re-inserted with pliers, the hair shorn back onto the head, the bodies stacked into the “showers” where they are re-animated, the people re-united with their loved ones at the trains that they then board for their reverse trip. Or a more specific example:

“Enlightenment was urged on me the day I saw the old Jew float to the surface of the deep latrine, how he splashed and struggled into life, and was hoisted out by the jubilant guards, his clothes cleansed by the mire. Then they put his beard back on.”

These are horrific images and their absurdity reinforces the horror. Similarly, the return trip of the Jews, the dismantling of the ghettos, the return of persons to their previous lives, towns, cities, even small, isolated hamlets of half-a-dozen poor huts from which they were all gathered…all of this highlights starkly the absurdity and the madness of the whole enterprise for which there is no “why?”.

At one point, the narrator notes that “Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.” And while he recognizes that it can be appealing to have, “no will, and no body anyway through which to exercise it….there is always the countervailing desire to put yourself forward, to take your stand as the valuable exception. Don’t just go along. Never just go along. Small may not be beautiful. But big is crazy.” Unfortunately, this is not true for the many, many people who make such absurdities and horrors come true: “I’ve come to the conclusion that Odilo Unverdorben, as a moral being, is absolutely unexceptional, liable to do what everybody else does, good or bad, with no limit, once under the cover of numbers.” These are not new perceptions, but they bear reminding as they are through Amis’s construct.

In the end, in fact in an afterword to the book, Amis recognizes the special feature of the Nazi killing programs (not limited to Jews, Odilio also spends time early on with the elimination of the physically and mentally handicapped):

“The offence was unique, not in its cruelty, nor in its cowardice, but in its style—in its combination of the atavistic and the modern. It was, at once, reptilian and “logistical”. And although the offence was not definingly German, its style was. The National Socialists found the core of the reptilian brain, and build an autobahn that went there. Built for speed and safety, built to endure for a thousand years, the Reichsautobahnen, if you remember, were also designed to conform to the landscape, harmoniously, like a garden path.”

Great book very enjoyable, felt like it twisted my perception of time for a little while. ( )

This is an interesting and engaging book. As you learn within the first few pages, time runs backward in this novel. I found the reversal of time really drew me into the story. Reading this book is similar to solving a puzzle, you have to remember clues to make connections because you get the effects of something before it actually happens, which I thought was one of the best parts about reading it. ( )

The narrator lives in another person's body and experiences time backwards. Sounds gimmicky, but the greatness of the novel is how it starts to disrupt the reader's own sense of time. While reading it, I found myself thinking often about how my actions appeared in reverse and a few times found myself a little confused about the direction of normal time. Also as a consequence, Amis gets you to notice and consider everything in the book in more detail because you're always jolted out of your usual frame of reference. ( )

I confess that I read this book quite a while ago (probably 10+ years ago), so the details are a little hazy. But the idea of the book stayed with me after all this time--so it must have made an impression on me (and books that make an impression or worth reading!). I remembered that I liked the book because the author chose to tell a life story backwards--starting at the end and moving toward birth. I remember being intrigued by this idea so I bought it. When preparing to write this little description, I went to Amazon.com to refresh my memory on the details and then it started coming back to me bit by bit. The person whose story the author choose to tell is a Nazi. Obviously, this is not just any old character and life, but one charged with significance and loaded with provocation. Because I don't think I could accurately write the description of how the book works, I'm borrowing the quick description from the Amazon.com review: "He puts two separate consciousnesses into the person of one man, ex-Nazi doctor Tod T. Friendly. One identity wakes at the moment of Friendly's death and runs backwards in time, like a movie played in reverse, (e.g., factory smokestacks scrub the air clean,) unaware of the terrible past he approaches. The "normal" consciousness runs in time's regular direction, fleeing his ignominious history." I remember being filled with dread and anticipation of how the one identity was going to confront the truth of his past. It is a thought-provoking read and, again, does an interesting job of playing with time. ( )