I am reading 11/23/63 (no spoilers, please–I am avoiding the thread on the book, as I am still reading it!).
The hero encounters a time portal, taking him back always to the same May afternoon in 1958; he can come and go as he pleases, and of course he has a nice sponsor giving him lots of old money. And being a Stephen King book, I’m sure it winds up “in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead,” as Robert Benchley said of Shakespeare.
The book makes me feel awfully old, as I was *alive *in 1958, and I cannot think of a time I would less like to go back to. 1900, I think–in New York. I would need period clothes (and a wig till my hair grows out) and money, of course. As a writer and editor (and “typewriter girl”), I could earn a living–maybe reporting on the theater and the emerging new photoplays.
I would hate not wearing any makeup, and I would need to take lots of “stay alive” meds back with me, but I could see traveling back to 1900 and sticking around at least till WWI started.
I think 1940’s era Los Angeles would be nice, but I’m sure I only think that because of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, etc… The reality would probably bum me out too much, though. Let’s face it, I probably wouldn’t last long as a hard-boiled detective. In fact, not to be a downer on your fun concept for a thread, but, I have a feeling any period in the past I romanticized would just have the romance yanked rudely out of it forever if I went back.
So – assuming the time portal goes the other way as well – to the future I go! Not too far, maybe like 200 years or so. Will things be better, on the whole? Undoubtedly not, but the excitement of seeing what happens, what’s been invented, bad things from now that are hopefully no longer around (diseases, silly beliefs, etc.) would be too much for me to resist.
If the portal keeps me in Iowa, I’d need electricity, running water, and central heating, so anything earlier than the 30’s would be too early. I’d be okay with the 40’s – it’d be nice to live in a US where people pull together.
Oh, I don’t think people were any nicer–or any different at all–back then then they are now. Worse, if anything: they’d be pulling together for concepts I found appalling. Come to think of it, I would have a hard time keeping my yap shut back in 1900 and not getting run out of New York on a rail.
Americans pulled together during the war. I realize there was isolationism and profiteering and black markets, but for the most part, there was a common goal. Or so the history books would have us believe.
I’d like to go back and see the 1960’s, which I lived through as a child, through adult eyes. It would be interesting, as an adult, to get meet my parents as young marrieds and my grandparents as middle-aged people. They’d have no reason to recognize me after all.
In the book he always goes back to a lovely summer day; that’s about all I would need - the ability to go spend all the time I wanted in summer any time I wanted. I’d be a Timebird instead of a Snowbird.
Knowing what I know about the late 50s, I don’t think I could stand it for very long. I wasn’t born until '73, so I’d stick around long enough to make sure grandpa hit dad with the car so he’d meet my mom and take her to the Fish Under the Sea dance.
Eve, in the novel’s thread I said that the book is one only a white American male could write, and that the further away from that standard one is, the more unlikely 1958 is remembered so sunnily. I’m glad I’m not the only one with that viewpoint.
If I was going somewhere just to observe (and assuming I could stand it - where’s that GoBack™ button when one needs it?), I would choose 1517-1521, the start of the Protestant Reformation from the nailing of the 95 Theses to the Diet of Worms.
If I were to go back to live like a normal schlub, I wouldn’t go. I’m doing just fine here.
If I were to go back to change history, I would go back to 1914 and divert Gavrilo Princip from his mission, even if it meant my death. The one meaningful act in that assholes life lead to the destruction of over 100,000,000 people.
I don’t understand the nostalgia for past eras. If people actually could go back in the past, they’d soon find lots of reasons to live. Think of Marty Mcfly going back to the v19th century and eating with his ancestors – dirty water as a standard, buckshot in the rabbit meat. In most past eras you’d have poor hygeine (by modern standards), difficulty in getting things we take for granted (hot water, clean toilets), high incidence of disease, accident, and parasites. If you got hurt, your chances of getting good treatment wouldn’t be very good. You have to put up with the same things while camping, but you’d essentially be “urban camping” all the time you were there.
I’d be like the guy in Robert Silverberg’s Up the Line who staked out his own house in the past, stockpiled with goods from the future for his own personal use.
Visiting the several-decades-old past would be more fun, but I still wouldn’t stay long. It’d be a kick to see things and say “Hey, that’s what used to be here!”. But I’d still be uneasily cognizant of the way things are
Well, I have nothing and no one keeping me here. Besides, I’d like to see the beginnings of the movie industry in New York, and the theater of the era, too. Mind you, I *would *like to be able to pop back here from time to time!
Oh, I wouldn’t mind the visits – I don’t understand people who’d want to live in the past.
There are plentry of places and things I’d love to see. But I don’t want to wake up to lice and fleas and get my constipation treated with mercury-containing blue mass. They say the corridors of the storied palace of Versailles stank of urine – no bathrooms, you see.
Or women, or gays, or immigrants, or about 75% of the rest of the population . . . I think I could get by in 1900, though I’m sure I would get about a dozen unpleasant surprises within a day or two.
