The illustrated novel “Time and Again” by Jack Finney was published for the first time in 1970.

Simon “Si” Morley is a graphic designer who lives a quiet life with no problems but at the same time not particularly exciting. He has a relationship with Kate but again it’s more a friendship that at some point reached another level than a passionate story.

One day, Simon is approached by the representative of a secret U.S.A. government project whose purpose is to travel in time. After a period of intense training, Simon is among the first candidates able to travel into the past. At that point, he asks to go to New York in 1882 to solve a mystery related to his girlfriend’s family.

The heads of the project decide to allow Simon to perform the requested journey but in 1882 there are a number of risks, not only for himself. His meeting with Julia and his involvement in some events of New York history could change future history in unexpected ways.

The theme of time travel existed before science fiction so the use of scientific and technological concepts to perform time travel is relatively modern. In “Time and Again” there are references to the theory of relativity but overall the scientific part is vague. Jack Finney wasn’t interested in writing a hard science fiction novel so the scientific concept on which its time travel is based is only an instrument.

“Time and Again” isn’t simply the tale of a journey into the past, it’s an immersion into the past. Travelers don’t use a machine to go to the past but use a combination of self-hypnosis and reconstructions of the environments in which they want to go. As in a movie, set are created in which would-be travelers start living as if they were actually at that time until they get convinced they’re really in the past. At that point, they’re supposed to be able to travel in time.

Ideally, readers takes a trip similar to the protagonist through the detailed descriptions they can find in “Time and Again” but also the many photographs and drawings of the time. In the novel, they’re shown as photographs taken by Simon Morley and drawings made by him, actually it’s material found in various historical archives.

In this way, readers can experience an immersion in the past that can’t be physical like the traveler’s but it’s certainly much more intense than a normal novel of this genre.

Simon Morley isn’t involved in important historical events nor meets particularly important historical people. Jack Finney took inspiration from some real historical events such as a corruption case and a fire at an important building. “Time and Again” includes some real people who, together with the ones invented by the author, participate in events connected in a way that comes from Finney’s imagination.

The travelers’ involvement includes the risk of inadvertently changing history. They’re trained to act with the utmost caution but any action taken in the past may have consequences so when they come back to the present they provide a long list of information that are checked to see if there has been any change.

During his journey in 1882, Simon Morley starts getting involved in a series of events far more than anticipated. Despite this, only in the second part of “Time and Again” there’s real action as the first part essentially describes the protagonist’s immersion in the past and his journey’s success.

When Simon Morley finally arrives in the past, despite his training he meets some difficulties. Studying the past but also living in a small set turns out to be quite different from physically being there. Due to the nature of his training, the aspiring traveler spends long periods alone but when he really goes into the past he has to interact with real people who have behaviors typical of their time.

The lengthy descriptions of the past Jack Finney gives us clearly show a nostalgia for the “good old days”. The life of the past is perceived as more simple and innocent despite the fact that people were living in filthy and unhealthy cities in which children often had to work to survive and were at risk of contracting diseases that could be fatal or at least disabling. Probably, the situation was even worse than Finney described.

This nostalgia is a plus and a minus at the same time. It allows the author to provide more intense descriptions of New York in 1882 and its inhabitants. Inevitably, however, those descriptions tend to highlight the merits of that time turning a blind eye on its faults and sometimes it shows.

Despite these flaws, “Time and Again” is one of the most fascinating novels about time travel and in fact it’s become a classic. For readers who like action stories it can be boring, for the others instead it will certainly be exciting and for this reason I recommend reading it.