It will not surprise you that I love reading book reviews, perhaps as much as I love reading books themselves. Every Sunday, I work my way through the New York Times’ Review of Books, taking note of books I’d like to read as well as those I firmly will avoid. I’d already noted Emma Straub’s latest, This Time Tomorrow, thanks to Lisa’s DIK review. The NYT’s review, also rather glowing, begins with a question I am fascinated by: If you could travel back to 1996 for 24 hours, how would you spend that time? To be more accurate, I think often about this question: If I could relive one day of my life, which would it be?
It’s an impossible query, of course. It’s like asking if you could only take one book to a desert island, what would it be? There are too many answers and one’s choice depends on one’s current mood and context. Still, it’s intriguing to consider.
I’m leery of days I’d pick to change the world. I love time travel fiction and the moral of many of those stories–perhaps most brilliantly evinced by Stephen King’s 11/22/1963 –is that to mess with history is to, in ways one can’t predict, change history. It’s too risky and I don’t want to be the person that inadvertently killed Lincoln’s mom. So, I’m not going back to ensure that the phaeton that hit Stalin when he was 12 caused his death rather than just injuring his left arm or making sure Gavrilo Princip‘s parents never met.
I don’t wish to relive any of days of my own life. One revised memory might change everything again in ways I can’t comprehend. So, unlike the lead of Straub’s book, I won’t be heading back to see my 35 year old self–that’s my 1996–a time in which I’d either be pregnant with twins or the overwhelmed mother of four under five. That said, if forced to relive a day of my life, I’d relive yesterday. It would cause the least possible harm and I’d have had coffee beans on hand this morning rather than an empty can.
I’d pick a day I’m interested to experience and promise myself to leave only footprints. If I could have been invisible–there are SO many aspects of time travel–I’d love to have been in the room where it happens, to quote Mr. Miranda. Seeing As You Like It performed in the Globe Theater in 1599 would be fascinating–though it would be hard to not seek out William and ask him what the secret to his greatest truly was. My husband would travel to know the answers to questions we ponder. Who really killed Kennedy? Was there a Camelot? Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart?
How about you? What day in time would you relive? Why? What are your thoughts on time travel? And if you’re looking for time-travel stories, we, of course have a tag. #time travel romance
Bearing in mind the fantasy of it….
If I could only choose a fun/carefree reason, I’d like to go back and be able to simply walk around and see and worship the books in the library of Alexandria.
If my motivation were more serious related to my life, knowing what I know now, I’d go back to the day somewhere in 2001 or 2002 while I was a teenager and decided I wanted some attention. It wasn’t something harmful nor huge, but it would not only change the rest of my high school days, making my life certainly a lot easier then, it would also help me now to not look back with sorrow because I can’t change how it still makes me feel.
That sounds like a novel to be written. I’ve been thinking lately about a line from Eric Church’s latest hit, Doing Life With Me.
I look back at my life and marvel at how differently my world would be if a few things that didn’t go horribly wrong could have and I am grateful the choices I made didn’t turn out ruinously.
I also hope my actions didn’t have an impact on anyone as I feel they had on my own mind. But that’s the price isn’t it? If one has a conscience….
Okay, personally, I’d go back to the day my father died.
I’d rather be a fly on the wall than a person. Watching the new PBS series on Anne Boleyn, I’d go to the reunion of Henry and Anne after she lost their baby son when he fell off his horse and she was given word he was killed.
I’m afraid that if I were a person, I couldn’t be quiet. I’d try my best to persuade Oscar Wilde not to press charges against his lover’s father, and barring that, add my voices to his friends’ who told him to go to Europe before the sentencing.
I’d also like to see, for 5 minutes, Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV in prison during the revolution and to witness their ride to the guillotine.
Would I try to avert Lincoln’s assassination? Yep, I’m afraid I would. As well as MLK’s.
I’d try to do something to avert Hitler’s rise to power.
As you can see by my answers, I would have grandiose plans, but by doing so, might cause even more tragedies.
In Ray Bradbury’s wonderful story “The Sound of Thunder” stepping on a butterfly in the time of the dinosaurs by people who go back causes irrepruable damage, so my being a fly on the wall carries risk.
But I’d probably do it anyway and risk it.
Stephen King’s 11/22/63 has the hero saving Kennedy and shows the surprising repercussions of that choice. It’s a great novel – I tend not to like horror so I don’t read him often but this book doesn’t contain any of his usual nightmarish trappings. Blythe did a review of it for our site which convinced me to pick it up. You can find it here.
Personally, I would love to go back and spend more time with my grandmother who I adored and never got to know as an adult. I’d also go whisper some sage advice into my young self’s ear about trusting my own judgement earlier.
Fun wise I’d adore being able to see a Shakespeare play during his time, find out where the Princes in the tower went (and when) and do completely frivolous things like attend them opening day at Disneyland and be a fly on the wall at my parent’s wedding, Lol.
Nice question, made me muse – thank you!
Just for curiosity & fun, like others below, I would have moments in history where I would like to be invisible “fly on the wall”.
I do not believe in being powerful and clever enough to divert Hitler or Stalin or … or…, so I have nothing to add-on that – I would be petrified to make things worse, somehow, by acting – though I like to read such books, and newly enjoy reading K-comics on tapas or webtoon where this seems a common trope – heroine reborn into a story she knew before, to redo her life, essentially, knowing what went wrong last time.
For real:
I would be most tempted to go back to some comment or reaction of mine that I still regret. I do not think they were as horrible to the other person as they loom in my memory, but some moments when I was mean or cruel (for any reason, often just overwhelmed) those I would wish to re-do.