11-22-63

I just recently finished the novel 11-22-63 by Stephen King. The date in the title is the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. It is a date that anyone who lived through that time would recognize. I suppose it would be equivalent of September 11^th, 2001 for anyone who was alive on that date, or December 7^th, 1941 for anyone who was alive then. This is a book about time travel. Our protagonist (Jake) is shown a portal that leads him back to 1958. Al, the man who shows him this portal,  wanted to use it to prevent the assassination but Al came down with cancer and is unable to do the job so he encourages Jake to do it. Jake is reluctant to do this because he doesn’t know what the consequences would be.

Right on Jake. The whole thing sounded like a really bad idea to me. You can imagine how even small changes in the past can mushroom into larger changes to history over time. But to alter a seminal event like the assassination of a president would have to have enormous consequences. Al tells Jake that things would change for the better without the assassination. He states that Kennedy would probably not have gotten us mired down in Viet Nam, leading to the saving of thousands of American and Vietnamese soldiers (and civilians). Other things reliant on the Viet Nam war would also not have happened, the disruptions of the later 1960’s, the Martin Luther King assassination etc.

He convinces Jake to do it (of course, or there would be no story). But I was just going “No. Don’t do it Jake.” Characters in books so rarely listen to me. All I could think of was the complete unpredictability of the consequences. We know for a fact that between the Kennedy assassination and now, the earth was not destroyed by nuclear war. But you make a major change like that and all bets are off.

But even if he made little changes. Jake goes back in time to live there for five years. How many subtle changes would be made by the very fact of his being there? The character of Jake was not born until the 1970’s. He could easily make a change that would insure that he was never born. All it takes is the slightest alteration of timing. His parents conceive on a different night and a different child is born instead of Jake. But if Jake wasn’t born how did he go back and change history? It is the big paradox about time travel. Does reality cease to exist? Does the universe wink out? Does God say “Oh no, not again?” This is one of the things that make time travel impossible (just one of the things). This is what should place time travel stories more in the realm of fantasy rather than science fiction.

But hey, I am willing to suspend my disbelief if the story is well written and the rest of the science is valid (like Connie Willis's time travel novels, which I highly recommend). In the case of 11-22-63, it is well written. He sets the stage well. I had forgotten what it was like to live in a world where cigarette smoke was everywhere, a world without cell phones or personal computers, yet a world where the food tasted better. There were good things and bad things about living in the early 1960’s and King lets us explore a good many of them.

Whatever time period people live in, they are still people. They live; they die; they love; they strive. The same things that brought heartache to the people of 1963, bring heartache to the people of today. The same things that bring joy to the people of today, brought joy to the people of 1963. Some things are universal, with or without the paradox.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an e-book through Amazon, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).