Jack Finney’s cult classic Time and Again is a work of historical speculative fiction following the time traveller, Simon Morley, in the 1880s. While originally from the year 1970, he uses a combination of historical artifacts and surroundings and hypnotism to travel back to the year 1882. This type of story creates a unique view into the daily lives of New Yorks of 1882. However, as supplemental reading for the very broad subject of United States history, it is too specific to be particularly helpful.
While a very interesting book, that would be useful in an English class or maybe a history class focusing only on the history of New York, as a US history supplement, it leaves a lot to be desired. Simply stated, it’s much too specific to be…show more content… It should either be very broad, geographically or time wise. However, that doesn’t mean historical fiction should be shied away from. It just means that there should be a very important place or time or something that spans a long timeline or even something about a traveller exploring the “New World”. I feel that the time travelling aspect of this book was wasted. Instead of going all over the country or even the world at different times, Finney focused on just one city in just one year. If instead, Si Morley had been exploring New York City from several other years, like comparing the Roaring Twenties and the time of the English settlers to 1880s New York Time and Again would have made a much better supplemental reading. For example, in chapter 3, Si goes through the offices and classrooms where other possible time-travellers are studying their eras. Not going into more depth about those people and what they were trying to when they went back in time was a seriously missed opportunity. On page 41, there were men sparring in World War II military uniforms and simply add a chapter or two on those two would have made this books better as a supplemental reading because it would have two eras of US history, and not only one. And on page 42, there was a young woman doing the Charleston, obviously from the Roaring 20s. There are countless