Time's Arrow

Time’s Arrow; Or the Nature of Offence is not quite what I expected.  I’m not too sure what I was expecting, in all honest, but it wasn’t this.  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it (if enjoy can ever be the right word when applied to books about the Holocaust), I did.  I just thought it was going to play out differently.  Ironic, I guess, for a book that starts at the story’s end. 

In Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis tells the story of Dr Tod T. Friendly, a former Nazi concentration camp doctor living out his days in America under the most fake sounding alias ever.  As I mentioned, the story itself is told in reverse, from the point of view of an unnamed narrator: a soul like figure hitching a backwards ride through Tod’s life.  The reader learns of Tod’s life selling stolen drugs, visiting prostitutes and trying to escape his past long before his acts are revealed.

I think what surprised me most about Time’s Arrow was it treatment of the Holocaust.  Tod- at this point known as Odilo Unverdorben- is a doctor as Auschwitz during the war.  Although we know he is subsequently plagued by nightmares of the concentration camps, there isn’t actually that much detail about his role there.  Prior to this, the book makes a big deal out of suffering- stating “Atrocity will follow atrocity, unstoppably.  As if the atrocity that came before was necessary to validate the atrocity that will come after.  Stop now and… But you can’t stop.”  And so often when people write about the Holocaust they turn the atrocity into a spectacle.  It’s kind of shocking to have this missing.  On top of that, naturally, things are running backwards and so- to the narrator- the Nazis are benevolently creating thousands of lives.  It creates this strange and innocent disconnect between fact and perception of reality that’s really effective (more on that later).  It’s a nice contrast between what the narrator perceives as dreadful doctoring earlier in the book.

There are also some tremendously sad parts.  For example, the narrative waits decades- excited to finally meet his wife and daughter.  When we do meet his wife Herta for the first time, it is awful.  The marriage at its end is loveless and even the hope of the couple’s daughter, Eva, is extinguished.  She features in letters between the two, dying and then falling sick.  When Odilo finally manages to visit his family Herta is still pregnant and there’s a horrible moment when you realise that the narrator will never meet the daughter he has waited for for so many years.  It’s the same with Herta; when times moves past the point when the relationship starts, the narrator cannot understand why the pair no longer talk and is left broken hearted- especially as Odilo is not concerned in the slightest by the breakdown of a relationship that is, for him, yet to start.

One of my favourite things about the book is the way that the narrator retains its innocence.  Throughout, although there are indications something is wrong, the narrator never fully twigs.  It’s this that allows the Holocaust to not be an atrocity.  And it gives the reader a character to empathise with throughout the novel.  I mean, it’s probably not okay to care about a Nazi war criminal, but the narrator isn’t- it’s just a voice that’s stuck with that particular villain.  It has no impact on events.  It’s such a clever device. 

There are so many layers to Time’s Arrow.  I read a couple Martin Amis books previously, but I’m now left with the impression that he’s far better than I gave him credit for.  There’s very little about this book that’s not worth writing about (there’s lots that I’ve skipped over in regards to the changing names of the protagonist and his escape from punishment for his crimes)  or interesting in some obscure way.  My only gripe is that backwards conversations are right hard to follow. 

I’ve now moved on to Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters.  So far, so good.