Time travelling

David Lowenthal

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139024884.005

2 - Time travelling

from Part I - Wanting the past

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2015

David Lowenthal

Show author details

David Lowenthal: Affiliation:
University College London

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Is it not possible … that things we have felt with great intensity … have an existence independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? … Instead of remembering here a scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into the wall; and listen in to the past … Strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start.

Virginia Woolf, 1938

What if you could live your life over again? and again? and again? and again? Most of us would die for a chance to replay.

Ken Grimwood, 1988

When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.

Augusto Monterroso, 1959

The pull of the past transcends nostalgic longing for a fanciful or surrogate yesteryear. Revisiting some actual past has long been a fond desire. Many would pay handsomely to relive a year of their personal lives, most to retrieve a day or an hour, especially from youth. ‘O for one hour of youthful joy! / Give me back my twentieth spring! … / One moment let my life-blood stream / From boyhood’s fount of flame!’

The allure of time travel mirrors that of reincarnation. That the past should be irrevocably lost seems unbearable. We crave its recovery. Is there no way to recapture, re-experience, relive it? Some agency, some mechanism, some faith must let us know, see, sense the past. We will feel afresh the daily life of our grandparents, the rural sounds of yesteryear, the deeds of the Founding Fathers, the creations of Michelangelo, the glory that was Greece.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Past Is a Foreign Country – Revisited , pp. 55 - 79

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139024884.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Woolf, Virginia, ‘A sketch of the past’, in Moments of Being (Chatto & Windus, 1976), 61–139 at 74

Grimwood, Ken, Replay (New York: Arbor House, 1988)Google Scholar

Monterroso, Augusto, ‘El Dinosaurio’, in Complete Works and Other Stories (Texas 1995), 42Google Scholar

Cottle, Thomas J., Perceiving Time: A Psychological Investigation with Men and Women (Wiley, 1976), 222–4Google Scholar

Holmes, Sr. Oliver Wendell, ‘The old man dreams’ (1854), in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (Boston, 1859), 76Google Scholar

Faulkner, William, Requiem for a Nun (Random House, 1951), 92Google Scholar

Matheson, Richard, Somewhere in Time (London: Sphere, 1980), 37Google Scholar

Compton-Burnett, Ivy, A Father and His Fate (Gollancz, 1957), 164Google Scholar

Lively, Penelope, According to Mark (Heinemann, 1984), 110

Persuitte, David, Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon, 2nd edn (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000), 17Google Scholar

Rais, Guy, ‘Old Masters’ spirits took over, says Tom Keating’, Telegraph, 2 Feb. 1979

MacGillivray, Donald, ‘When is a fake not a fake? When it’s a genuine forgery’, Guardian, 2 July 2005

Arnau, Frank, Three Thousand Years of Deception in Art and Antiques (Jonathan Cape, 1961), 223–5

Miller, J. Hillis, ‘History as repetition in Thomas Hardy’s poetry: the example of “Wessex Heights”’ (1972), in Tropes, Parables, Performatives (Duke, 1991), 107–34 at 127

Poulet, Georges, Studies in Human Time (1949; Johns Hopkins, 1956), 185–200

Babbage, Charles, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, 2nd edn (1838), in Works (NYU Press, 1989), 9: 36–8

Marsh, George Perkins, Man and Nature (1864; Harvard, 1965), 464–5n

Draper, John William, History of the Conflict between Science and Religion (1873; Cambridge, 2009), 111CrossRef Google Scholar

Benjamin, Walter, ‘Theses on the philosophy of history’ (1940), in Illuminations (New York: Schocken, 1969), 253–64 at 254

Bushnell, Horace, ‘The power of an endless life’ (Heb. 7.16), in Sermons for the New Life (New York, 1858), 304–25 at 310–11

Strömberg, Gustaf, The Soul of the Universe (1938; Philadelphia, 1948), 188–92Google Scholar

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space 1880–1918 (1983; Harvard, 2003), 41–2

Greene, Brian, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Lives of the Cosmos (Knopf, 2011), 48Google Scholar

Laurie, Peter, ‘About mortality in amber’, New Scientist, 3 Apr. 1975: 37

Wells, H. G., ‘The grisly folk’ (1921), in Selected Short Stories (Penguin, 1979), 279–98 at 297–8.Google Scholar

Laszlo, Ervin, Science and the Akashic Field (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2004)Google Scholar

Clarke, Arthur C., 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968; New American Library, 1999), 185

Kern, Gary, ‘News vs. fiction: reflections on prognostication’, in Slusser, George E. et al., eds., Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Faces the Future (Southern Illinois, 1987), 211–31 at 229

Dudai, Yadin, ‘To forget or not to forget’, New Scientist, 24 Oct. 2009: 48–9

Bell, Gordon and Gemmell, Jim, Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything (Boston: Dutton, 2009Google Scholar

de Quincey, Thomas, Suspira de Profundis (1845–54; Constable, 1927), 246–7

Hazlitt, William, ‘Why distant objects please’ (1821), in CW (Dent, 1930–4), 8: 255–64 at 257

Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London, 1858), 1: 239–40Google Scholar

Gissing, George, By the Ionian Sea (1901; London: Richards, 1956), 82–4Google Scholar

Poulet, Georges, ‘Timelessness and romanticism’, JHI 15 (1954): 3–22

Freud, Sigmund, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901; Benn, 1966), 275Google Scholar

Freud, Sigmund, ‘Remembering, repeating and working-through’ (1914), in CPW (Hogarth Press, 1966–74), 12: 148Google Scholar

Bergson, Henri, La Pensée et le mouvant (1907), in Oeuvres, 3rd edn (Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), 1316Google Scholar

Kis, Danilo, Encyclopedia of the Dead (1983; Faber & Faber, 1989), 56–7Google Scholar

Penfield, Wilder, ‘Some mechanisms of consciousness discovered during electrical stimulation of the brain’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 44:2 (15 Feb. 1958): 51–66 at 65CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Penfield, Wilder, ‘The permanent record of the stream of consciousness’, Acta Psychologica 11 (1955): 47–69 at 67, 69

Winter, Alison, Memory: Fragments of a Modern History (Chicago, 2012), 75–102

, Elizabeth F. and Loftus, Geoffrey R., ‘On the permanence of stored information in the human brain’, American Psychologist 35 (1980): 409–20 at 410CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo (1913), in CPW, 13: 1–161Google Scholar

Haldane, J. B. S., The Man with Two Memories (London: Merlin, 1976), 137–9Google Scholar

Long, Amelia R., ‘Reverse phylogeny’ (1937), in Conklin, Groff, ed., Science Fiction Adventures in Dimension (London, 1955), 31–43 at 33

du Maurier, Daphne, The House on the Strand (1969; London: Pan, 1979), 196

Yu, Charles, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Pantheon, 2010), 149Google Scholar

McNally, Richard J., ‘Explaining “memories” of space alien abduction and past lives’, Journal of Experimental Psychopathology 3:1 (2012): 2–16

Head, Joseph and Cranston, S. L., eds., Reincarnation (1968; New York: Aeon, 1999), 102Google Scholar

Wren, Christopher S., ‘The double life of Om Seti’, IHT, 26 Apr. 1979: 14

Lancina, Lawrence, ‘Watch on the Nile’, IHT, 5–6 May 1979: 4

Hansen, Nicole B., ed., Omm Sety’s Living Egypt (Chicago: Glyphdoctors, 2008)Google Scholar

Wambach, Helen, Reliving Past Lives, (Bantam, 1979)Google Scholar

Bernstein, Morey, Search for Bridey Murphy (1956; Doubleday, 1989)Google Scholar

Iverson, Jeffrey, More Lives Than One? (Warner, 1977)Google Scholar

Stevenson, Ian, Children Who Remember Previous Lives, rev. edn (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 2002)Google Scholar

Stevenson, Ian, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect (Praeger, 1997)Google Scholar

Wilson, Ian, Reincarnation? The Claims Investigated (Penguin, 1983), 233–43Google Scholar

Edwards, Paul, Reincarnation (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1996)Google Scholar

Spanos, Nicholas P., Multiple Identities and False Memories (American Psychological Association, 1996), 135–40Google Scholar

Johnson, Marcia K. et al., ‘The cognitive neuroscience of true and false memories’, in Belli, Robert F., ed., True and False Recovered Memories (Springer, 2012), 15–52 at 24

Nicholls, Peter’s Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (Granada, 1979; rev. edn with John Clute, Orbit, 1993)

Holt, Jim, ‘Time bandits: what were Einstein and Gödel talking about?’ in Goldsmith, Donald and Bartusiac, Marcia, eds., E = Einstein (New York: Sterling, 2006), 250Google Scholar

Roberts, Adam, The History of Science Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 195–218

Harris-Fain, Darren, Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction (South Carolina, 2005), 109

Rich, Lawrence, ‘Ten thousand children in need of a sponsor’, National Trust Magazine, no. 35 (1981): 8–9

Lumley, Robert, ed., Museum Time-Machine (Routledge, 1988), 6, 17, 143

Wells, H. G., The Dream (Collins, 1929), 236

Rabelais, François, The Five Books of Gargantua and Pantagruel (1535; Modern Library, 1944), bk IV, ch. 56 (649–51)Google Scholar

K. von Munchhausen, F. H., Travels and Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785; London, 1941), 36–7Google Scholar

Hesse, Hermann, The Glass Bead Game (1943; Penguin, 1972), 28Google Scholar

Hardy, Thomas, ‘In a museum’, in Collected Poems (Macmillan, 1948), 404

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, Isis Unveiled (New York, 1877), 1: 114Google Scholar

Ballard, J. G., ‘The sound-sweep’ (1960), in The Complete Stories (Norton, 2009), 106–36Google Scholar

Shaw, Bob, Other Eyes, Other Days (Gollancz, 1972), 48Google Scholar

Uttley, Alison, A Traveller in Time (1939; Puffin, 1978), 106

Finney, Jack, Time and Again (Simon & Schuster, 1970), 52, 63

Nahin, Paul J., Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction, 2nd edn (Springer, 1999), 110–23

Thorne, Kip, Black Holes and Time Warps (Norton, 1994)

Ashton, Francis, The Breaking of the Seals (London, 1946), 26Google Scholar

Levin, Betty, The Sword of Culann (Macmillan, 1973)Google Scholar

Lively, Penelope, The House in Norham Gardens (Pan, 1977)Google Scholar

Monbiot, George, Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life (Penguin, 2013), 33–34, 207

Carr, John Dickson, The Devil in Velvet (Penguin, 1957), 9

Hunt, Peter, The Maps of Time (London: MacRae, 1983), 91, 123

Harwood-Smith, Jennifer and Ludlow, Francis, ‘“Doing it in style”: the narrative rules of the Back to the Future trilogy’, in Fhlainn, Sorcha Ní, ed., Worlds of Back to the Future (London: McFarland, 2010), 232–54

Sherred, Thomas L., ‘E for effort’, Astounding Science Fiction, 39:3 (1947): 119–62 at 123Google Scholar

Laumer, Keith, The Great Time Machine Hoax (Grosset & Dunlap, 1963), 35

Benford, Gregory, ‘Doing Lennon’ (1975), in Hartwell, David G. and Wolf, Milton T., eds., Visions of Wonder (New York: Tor, 1996), 253–62 at 255

Aldiss, Brian W., An Age (Faber & Faber, 1967), 18

Tillinghast, Pardon E., The Specious Past: Historians and Others (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1972), 171

Wells, H. G., The Time Machine (1895; Signet, 2002), 6

Clarke, Arthur C., ‘Time’s arrow’ (1950), in Reach for Tomorrow (Corgi, 1976), 132–48 at 139

Tucker, Wilson, The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970; Boston: Gregg, 1979), 107

Farmer, Philip José, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971; Boston: Gregg, 1980), 44

Tucker, Wilson, The Lincoln Hunters (Hodder & Stoughton, 1979), 112

Hoyle, Fred, October the First Is Too Late (Penguin, 1968), 96

Asimov, Isaac, ‘The dead past’ (1956), in Earth is Room Enough (Doubleday, 1957), 9–50 at 25Google Scholar

Seabury, Paul, ‘Histronaut’, Columbia University Forum 4:3 (1961): 4–8

Lafferty, R. A., Nine Hundred Grandmothers (New York: Ace, 1970), 7–19 at 10

Simak, Clifford D., Catface (1973; Methuen, 1978), 163

Moore, Ward, Bring the Jubilee (1955; London, 1976), 164

Shail, Andrew and Stoate, Robin, Back to the Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 85–7

Morris, William, The Earthly Paradise (London, 1868), 3

Bester, Alfred, ‘Hobson’s choice’ (1952), in Starburst (New York: Signet, 1958), 133–48 at 147–8

Tucker, Wilson, The Lincoln Hunters (Hodder & Stoughton, 1979)

Farmer, Philip José, Time’s Last Gift (Ballantine, 1972), 79, 137

McKenna, Terence, The Archaic Revival (Harper & Row, 1992)

Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior (New York: Harmony Books, 1991), 63

Lee, Martha Frances, Earth First! Environmental Apocalypse (Syracuse, 1995), 84

McCarthy, Mary, The Oasis (Random House, 1949), 42–3Google Scholar

Gerrold, David, The Man Who Folded Himself (Random House, 1973), 122Google Scholar

Gordon, Andrew, ‘Back to the Future: Oedipus as time traveller’ (1987), in Ní Fhlainn, ed., Worlds of Back to the Future, 29–48 at 34, 30

King, Stephen, 11.22.63: A Novel (Scribner, 2011), 247, 368

Hunt, Peter, Maps of Time (1983), 58, 123

Balderston, John L. with Squire, J. C., Berkeley Square (Longmans, Green, 1929), 37–8

Carson, Robin, Pawn of Time (Holt, 1957), 437

Anderson, Poul, Guardians of Time (Pan, 1977), 68

Merwin, Jr. Sam, Three Faces of Time (New York: Ace, 1955), 33

Morris, William, ‘Hopes of civilisation’ (1885), in CW (Longmans, Green, 1910–15), 23: 59–80 at 62Google Scholar

Ford, Ford Madox, Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (Constable, 1911), 96, 150, 107Google Scholar

Spender, Stephen, Love-Hate Relations: A Study of Anglo-American Sensibilities (Hamish Hamilton, 1974), 191

Coupland, Douglas, ‘Convergences’, NYT Book Review, 11 Mar. 2012: 10

Twain, Mark, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889; California, 1983), 17, 62–3

Reed, Robert, ‘Two Sams’, Asimov’s SF, May 2000

Niven, Larry, ‘The theory and practice of time travel’, in All the Myriad Ways (Ballantine, 1971), 123

Baker, Russell, ‘Time-warped power’, IHT, 30 Oct. 1981: 16

Haggard, H. Rider, Allan and the Ice-Gods (London, 1927)

Wellman, Manly Wade, Twice in Time (New York: Galaxy, 1958)

Golding, William, ‘Envoy extraordinary’ (1956), in The Scorpion God (Faber & Faber, 1971), 115–78

Sprague de Camp, L., Lest Darkness Fall (1939; London: Sphere, 1979)

Watson, Ian, ‘Ghost lecturer’ (1984), in Dozois, Gardner R., ed., Time Travelers (New York: Ace, 1989), 155–74Google Scholar

Hubbard, L. Ron, Typewriter in the Sky (1940; London: Fantasy, 1952)

Reynolds, Mack, ‘Compounded interest’ (1956), in Merril, Judith, ed., SF: The Best of the Best (New York: Dell, 1967), 199–213Google Scholar

Harrison, Henry, A Rebel in Time (New York: Tor, 1983)

Sherred, Thomas L., ‘E for effort’, Astounding Science Fiction, 39:3 (1947): 119–62Google Scholar

Fry, Stephen, Making History (Hutchinson, 1996)

Edmondson, G. C., ‘The misfit’ (1959), in Stranger Than You Think (New York: Ace, 1965)Google Scholar

Hanke, Robert, ‘Quantum Leap: the postmodern challenge of television as history’, in Edgerton, Gary R, and Rollins, P. C., eds., Television Histories (Kentucky, 2001), 59–78 at 65–72

Moorcock, Michael, Behold the Man (Fontana/Collins, 1980), 37

Sontag, Susan, ‘Unguided tour’, New Yorker, 31 Oct. 1977: 40–5 at 40

Gross, Marion, ‘The good provider’ (1952), in Conklin, Groff, ed., Science Fiction Adventures in Dimension (London, 1955), 167–71 at 170

Shepard, Richard F., ‘About New York: old neighborhoods visited mainly in memory’, NYT, 18 Aug. 1977: B15

Anderson, Jay, Time Machines: The World of Living History (AASLH, 1984), 52

Willis, Connie, Doomsday Book (Bantam, 1992), 10Google Scholar

Jenner, Mark, ‘Following your nose?’ AHR 116 (2011): 339–40Google Scholar

Westall, Robert, The Devil on the Road (Macmillan, 1978), 156

Lafferty, R. A., ‘Through other eyes’ (1960), in Nine Hundred Grandmothers, 282–96 at 282–4

Carson, Robin, Pawn of Time (Holt, 1957), 57

James, Henry, The Sense of the Past (Scribners, 1917), 337–8

Coupland, Douglas, Generation X (St Martin’s, 1991), 11

Willis, Connie, Fire Watch (Bantam, 1985), 198Google Scholar

Lowry, Lois, The Giver (1993; HarperCollins, 2003), 99, 131

Anderson, Poul, ‘The man who came early’ (1956), in The Horn of Time (Boston: Gregg, 1968), 68–90Google Scholar

Cowper, Richard, ‘Hertford manuscript’, Fantasy and SF 51:4 (1976): 6–37Google Scholar

Foote, Bud, The Connecticut Yankee in the Twentieth Century: Travel to the Past in Science Fiction (Greenwood, 1991)

Roth, Stacy F., Past into Present: Effective Techniques for First-Person Historical Interpretation (North Carolina, 1998), 67

Laumer, Keith, Dinosaur Beach (New York: Daw, 1971), 100

Frolick, Billy, ‘1992 house’, New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2005: 49

Anderson, Poul, There Will Be Time (Sphere, 1979), 46Google Scholar

Righter, William, American Memory in Henry James (Ashgate, 2004), 201–5Google Scholar

Laski, Marghanita, The Victorian Chaise-longue (Ballantine, 1953)Google Scholar

Curtis, Richard and Elton, Ben, Blackadder: Back & Forth (Penguin, 2000)Google Scholar

Coupland, Douglas, ‘Convergences’, NYT Book Review, 11 Mar. 2012: 10

Allen, Woody, ‘The Kugelmass episode’ (1978), in Side Effects (Random House, 1980), 59–78Google Scholar

Eades, Alwyn, ‘Dream On’, New Scientist, 22 Sept. 2007: 25

Gansovsky, Sever, ‘Vincent Van Gogh’ (1970), in Boris, and Strugatsky, Arkady, eds., Aliens, Travelers, and Strangers: The Best of Soviet SF (Macmillan, 1984), 51–118 at 100–1Google Scholar

Finney, Jack, ‘Such interesting neighbors’ (1951), in The Clock of Time (London: Panther, 1961), 5–20 at 16–18

Descartes, René, Discours de la méthode (1637; Paris, 1947), 5–6

Grafton, Anthony T., Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Harvard, 2001), 194

Leiber, Fritz, The Big Time (1957; New York: Ace, 1961), 57

Bradbury, Ray, ‘A sound of thunder’ (1952), in R Is for Rocket (Pan, 1972), 73–86 at 77

Hilborn, Robert C., ‘Sea gulls, butterflies, and grasshoppers’, American Journal of Physics 72:3 (Apr. 2004): 425–7)CrossRef Google Scholar

Pohl, Frederik, ‘The deadly mission of Phineas Snodgrass’ (1962), in The Gold at the Starbow’s End (Ballantine, 1972)Google Scholar

Sprague de Camp, L., ‘Gun for dinosaur’, in Best of L. Sprague de Camp (Ballantine, 1978), 272–302

Bester, Alfred, ‘The men who murdered Mohammed’ (1958), in The Light Fantastic (Gollancz, 1977), 113–29Google Scholar

Dummett, Michael, ‘Bringing about the past’, Philosophical Review 73 (1964): 338–59 at 341CrossRef Google Scholar

Danto, Arthur C., ‘Narrative sentences’, History and Theory 2 (1962–3): 146–79 at 160CrossRef Google Scholar

Smith, Nicholas J. J., ‘Bananas enough for time travel?’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (1997): 363–89 at 374CrossRef Google Scholar

Bellringer, Allan W., ‘Henry James’s The Sense of the Past’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 17 (1981): 201–16 at 210CrossRef Google Scholar

Miller, J. Hillis, ‘The “Quasi-Turn-of-Screw effect” … : The Sense of the Past’, in Literature as Conduct: Speech Acts in Henry James (Fordham, 2005), 291–326CrossRef Google Scholar

Coulton, George Gordon, Friar’s Lantern (1906; London, 1948), 227, 34Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.