Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney

by Jack Seabrook

  In the novel's final chapter, Ben finds a Roosevelt dime and returns to his own world. He gives Custer the money, but Custer remains true to form and tries to go ahead with the wedding to Hetty anyway. He is stopped at the last minute by a lawman who arrests him for using counterfeit money: it seems the paper money from the alternate world has President George C. Coopernagel's picture on it.

  In the end, Ben and Hetty reconcile but, as in the short story, Ben concludes by telling the reader that he still switches worlds and wives whenever he gets bored.

  The Woodrow Wilson Dime was widely reviewed at the time of its publication. The Kirkus Service remarked that "Finney is a funny far-out man. The Dime is worth the price." Barbara Bannon, writing in Publishers Weekly, called it a "breezy, flippant novel" but complained that, by the end of the novel, "things start to go to pieces and the humor wears thin." Schuyler L. Mott wrote that it was "perhaps not the best-written fantasy, but it is a lot of fun," and Martin Levin of the New York Times added that "Mr. Finney's slick fantasy moves too swiftly to encourage examination."

  Since 1968, the novel has received slight critical attention. Michael Beard, in his 1981 survey of Jack Finney's work, compared The Woodrow Wilson Dime to "The Love Letter" but noted that, instead of an "erotic link" with the past, this novel achieves a similar link "not by going back in time but by shunting laterally from one possible world to another" (184-85). Beard continues by noting that, often in Finney's works, "the artifact of one setting draws humans to its source" (185) and commenting that "the construction of the alternate world is one of Finney's most innovative creations" (185). He concludes, however, that

  [t]he weakness of The Woodrow Wilson Dime emerges from the conflict between the strangeness of the alternate world and the gratuitous hallucinatory style with which the narrator comically describes both worlds.... Such a style may have seemed innovative in 1968, but the two kinds of strangeness — hallucinatory narrative style and alternate world — conflict with one another and ultimately blur the novel's effect [185].

  The novel was slightly updated and revised for publication in the 1987 compilation volume, Three by Finney; for the most part, the changes had to do with updating popular culture references to make them familiar to readers of the late 1980s.

  In 1996, Kim Newman wrote that Finney's "recurrent theme is of a lost past or alternate now where life and love are somehow better than in his tartly-characterized, body-snatched American present," and added that " Time and Again and The Woodrow Wilson Dime are vastly more complex versions of the theme" than were the author's earlier short stories (197).

  The Woodrow Wilson Dime was Jack Finney's first novel not to be made into a movie, but a copy of the book offered for sale in 2003 included a "letter from well known Hollywood production company to studio head" (Advertisement), so it is likely that Finney's agent tried to sell the film rights. Perhaps Hollywood in 1968 was no longer the place for this sort of slapstick. In any case, the novel was only reprinted in the three-novel collection Three By Finney, nineteen years later.

  In the meantime, Finney was working on his masterpiece, the novel that would develop a cult following after its publication in 1970, Time and Again.

  ELEVEN

  Time and Again

  In 1970, at almost exactly the midpoint of his career as a writer, Jack Finney published his masterpiece, Time and Again. An illustrated novel, it has developed a cult following in the three decades since it appeared, receiving more critical and popular attention than any of Finney's prior or subsequent works.

  The story is told in the first person by narrator Simon Morley, an artist in a New York City advertising agency. As the novel begins, Morley meets Ruben Prien, from the U.S. Army, who asks Si (as Morley is called) to join a secret government project. Si had been in the Army before but does not relish the idea of re-enlisting; he is twenty-eight years old and two years' divorced. Rube (Prien's nickname) knows many personal details about Si, including that he is "'bored and dissatisfied ... and time is passing'" (15). Like Hugh Brittain in Assault on a Queen, Si is open to the idea of adventure and excitement, and Rube capitalizes on this trait.

  Also like Brittain in the earlier novel, Si has a girlfriend, Kate. She owns an antique shop on New York's Third Avenue, where Si likes to poke around and look at stereoscopic views of times past.

  In discussing his relationship with Kate, Si tells the reader, "I don't like to and I could not reveal everything about myself.... So if now and then you think you can read between the lines, you may be right; or may not" (21). It is tempting to see a parallel with the author Jack Finney in these lines, since he shied away from publicity during his entire career.

  After a pleasant weekend with Kate, Si surprises himself by quitting his job on Monday and calling Rube Prien. Si is told to go to an address that Thursday, which he does, only to find a moving and storage warehouse. He fills out forms and undergoes some tests, meeting Dr. Oscar Rossoff, who hypnotizes him. Si then meets the director of the project, E.E. Danziger, an engaging 68-year-old man, and mentions that he enjoyed Huckleberry Finn, recalling the narrator of Finney's prior novel, The Woodrow Wilson Dime, who was elated when he discovered more books by Mark Twain in a parallel world.

  The nature of the project begins to be revealed in chapter three of the novel, as Si sees various rooms in the warehouse where people engage in acts from past eras: a U.S. soldier fights a World War One German soldier, a woman dances the Charleston, etc. From a vantage point above, Si sees a mockup of a street from a small town in the 1920s, where a man named MacNaughton sits on a porch, enjoying an uneventful afternoon.

  Professor Danziger begins to explain Einstein's theories of time to Si in chapter four. Danziger extends the idea of time being a river in his own way and tells Si '"that a man ought somehow to be able to step out of that boat onto the shore. And walk back to one of the bends behind us " (52). He argues that our knowledge of the present stems from an accumulation of many tiny details that tie us to it, an idea that Finney had explored before, as in the story "Second Chance," where the driver of an antique car moves into the past when the conditions are right.

  Danziger takes Si to the building's roof and they survey the Manhattan skyline; the professor reminds Si that there are fragments of earlier times scattered throughout the city. He and Si walk to the Dakota Building, which Danziger remarks '"is close to being a kind of miracle" (56). At this point, Time and Again becomes an illustrated novel, as Jack Finney adds photographs to illustrate the text. Chapter four features six photographs of the Dakota Building and its surrounding area, and they add a new dimension to the story. Finney had experimented with photographs in The Woodrow Wilson Dime, but in Time and Again they become central to the book's success.

  Back at Danziger's office, the professor explains to Si that there are rooms in the Dakota that have views of Manhattan that have remained unchanged since the 1800s. Danziger wants to experiment with time travel "'just for the hell of it"' (64), and explains that all of the scenes Si has observed at the warehouse are merely preparation for the real thing — each of the participants will go to the real places and try to travel back in time. Although Danziger asks Si to travel back to 1901 San Francisco, Si replies that he would prefer to go back to New York City in January 1882 to watch a man mail a letter.

  In chapter five, Si explains the reason for his strange request. His girlfriend Kate was adopted as a child by the Carmody family. Her stepfather Ira was the son of Andrew Carmody, a financier and advisor to President Grover Cleveland. Andrew Carmody killed himself, according to Si, after moving his family to Gillis, Montana, in 1898. After his death, his wife erected an odd gravestone with a nine-pointed star in a circle. Ira Carmody photographed the stone and Kate shows it to Si, along with a letter postmarked January 23, 1882.

  The letter sets up the central mystery of the novel. It appears to have been partially burned and missing words, but it refers to a meeting at the courthouse and the '"Destruction by Fire of the entire Wor
ld'" (73). The letter, the suicide, the gravestone — all fascinate Si, and he tells Danziger that he wants to be present when the letter is mailed so that he can try to unravel the mystery. In the tradition of all of the great time travel stories, Danziger warns Si that '"there cannot be the least intervention of any kind in events of the past'" (73), at which point the reader knows that Si will have to do exactly that before the book is through.

  Danziger also tells Si that his own parents met on February 6, 1882, at Wallack's theater and that he would love a sketch of their meeting. Finney has thus set up the story in the first five chapters of Time and Again; Si is another of the author's young, urban characters whose life is about to change because of an opportunity that arises at a time when he is dissatisfied with his life.

  In chapter six, the time travel experiment begins. Si meets everyone in the Project (as it is called) and immerses himself in the details of life in the 1880s. Kate is also introduced to the Project and helps Si, who moves into a room at the Dakota that is just as it would have been on January 5, 1882. In this chapter and the next, Jack Finney slowly adds details of the past to enrich Si's experience, such as having him read the New- York Evening Sun and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Si grows accustomed to looking down at Central Park and thinking it is the year 1882; he is gradually getting used to the idea, even though he knows he is still in the twentieth century. Another photograph is used here, of a snowy Central Park, and it is difficult to figure out if it is from 1882 or 1970.

  Si finds himself drifting mentally into 1882 when Dr. Rossoff arrives and hypnotizes him once again. Si goes outside for a walk in 1882 and sees a horse-drawn sleigh being pulled through the snow. In chapter eight, Si returns to the site of the Project and is probed to see if he really traveled back in time. One of his memories recalls an earlier Jack Finney novel: '"the Queen Mary— the ship, I mean — was sold to a town in southern California'" (105). Soon after, Kate joins Si and they both travel back to January 23, 1882, by means of self-hypnosis. In chapter nine, Finney begins to give the reader a tour of old New York, as Si and Kate board a bus that takes them down Fifth Avenue. An old photograph illustrates the scene outside the bus, while a sketch by Si himself shows what the people inside the bus looked like. The tour continues in chapter ten, as Si and Kate get off the bus and observe the mysterious letter being mailed at the post office. The mystery deepens as they follow the man who mailed the letter and see that his boot leaves an imprint in the snow that is the same design as that on Andrew Carmody's tombstone. After returning to the Dakota, they agree that they are back in 1970 and confirm it by looking out of a window at the modern world below.

  The narrative of Time and Again cleverly draws the reader into the past bit by bit. In the early chapters, we learn that Si is not happy with his life in the present. He is presented with an offer to return to the past and shown tantalizing glimpses of different times that have gone before. A method of time travel is suggested to him and he is put in a place where he can attempt to accomplish it. He at first travels back only briefly, then for a longer time in the company of Kate. The stage is now set, ten chapters into the novel, for Si to do something more, and in chapter eleven the people at the Project ask him to go back to 1882 and follow the man who mailed the letter to see what he can learn. This ends the first part of Time and Again; though the book is not formally broken into parts, Si's return in chapter twelve to 1882 New York begins a much more extensive visit to the past.

  In chapter twelve, Si begins to get involved in the lives of the people he meets. He is intrigued by Julia Charbonneau, who shows him to his room in a boardinghouse, and immediately dislikes her fiance, Jacob Pickering, who is also the man whom he had watched mail the letter during his last trip through time. Another important character introduced in this chapter is Felix Grier, a young man with a new camera. Though Grier has little to do with the story, his camera allows Jack Finney to include numerous photographs of characters in the book, including Julia, Pickering, and even Si Morley himself, groomed in a fashion to fit the times. In all, chapter twelve features two sketches and eight photographs, all of which add immeasurably to the reader's enjoyment of the tale.

  In chapter thirteen, Si and Julia get to know each other and tour New York City on foot. Later events in the novel are foreshadowed as the pair sees the arm of the Statue of Liberty, which had not yet been assembled. Finney also looks forward to the novel's sequel, From Time to Time (though he surely did not realize it), when Si remarks on the absence of "a still-nonexisting Flatiron Building" (176). This chapter features seven sketches, allegedly done by Si Morley, that depict various sights he sees on his way around the city.

  The mystery begins to be solved in chapter fourteen, as Si hides behind a statue in City Hall Park and listens in on a conversation between Pickering and Andrew Carmody where Pickering attempts to blackmail the wealthy man with knowledge of fraudulent business practices. Chapter fifteen finds Si trying unsuccessfully to break into Pickering's office. He tells Julia that he has been called away suddenly, and this trip to the past ends with Pickering bursting in to the boarding house to display his new tattoo — Julia's name is etched across his chest. This chapter features a full-page sketch by Si of Julia, looking remarkably like Katharine Hepburn.

  The story briefly returns to the present in chapter sixteen, as Si now begins to compare the world he knows with the world he has begun to explore. "Today's faces are different," he thinks, and adds that "there was also an excitement in the streets of New York in 1882 that is gone" (218).

  Back at the Project, Si learns that others have also succeeded in time travel, but that the world was slightly different upon their return — one man can no longer find any trace of an old college friend from "Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois" (222), Jack Finney's alma mater. There is a dispute about whether the experiments should continue, and Professor Danziger resigns from the Project when the others decide that the work will go on. Si readies himself to return to the past, which he does in chapter seventeen.

  A woodcut, a watercolor, and four photographs appear in this chapter, which mostly details Si's enjoyment of a snowfall in 1882 and his delight at the way the people of that time behave in the snow. Pickering reveals that he and Julia are engaged to be married, and Si decides to try to interfere, even though it may change the future. He rationalizes his decision by thinking that "there were always consequences to any future of every act in the past... the future which was my own time was going to have to take its chances" (255).

  In chapter eighteen, Si borrows housemate Felix's camera and walks all over Manhattan, taking pictures that are then reproduced in the book. Finney uses twelve photographs of old New York sights in this delightful section, in which plot takes a backseat to period detail. Si walks across a catwalk above the Brooklyn Bridge, anticipating a similar stunt that occurs in The Night People, and tells Julia that he is a private detective investigating her fiance. The novel's climax occurs in chapter nineteen, which runs for forty-five pages, over ten percent of the novel's length.

  Si and Julia break into Pickering's office, only to be forced to hide there when Pickering and Carmody arrive. From their hiding place, Si and Julia witness Carmody paying blackmail money to Pickering and then tying the man to a chair before searching his office. This continues all night and into the next morning, ending as Carmody sets fire to Pickering's papers. The fire quickly gets out of control in the old building, and Si and Julia must make a harrowing escape along the building's ledge (recalling Finney's earlier story of a man on a ledge, "Contents of the Dead Man's Pocket"). A huge fire ensues and Si heroically rescues a woman trapped on a high floor.

  Part of the mystery is solved when Si learns that the building that burned used to house the newspaper, the New York World. He finally understands Carmody's suicide note ("That the sending of this... should cause the Destruction by Fire of the entire World— 'Building' was the missing word" [317]). Si also comprehends that his actions did not cause the f
ire and did not change history. The rest of the mystery is solved when Si sees Carmody's boot print in the snow and realizes that it matches the figure on Carmody's tombstone.

  Besides being well written and very exciting to read, chapter nineteen of Time and Again features two pages of reproductions from the February 11, 1882 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, showing sketches of the fire and of Si's daring ladder rescue. Clearly, Jack Finney was intrigued by this event and by its coverage in the paper, and his novel was at least partially plotted around this real, historical event.

  Si and Julia are then taken to the police station, and from there to Carmody's mansion, where they meet Mrs. Carmody and a horribly burned Andrew Carmody, who identifies them as having started the fire. Finney's dislike of the police surfaces here, as it would again in The Night People, when Si wonders, "why, why do cops habitually and meaninglessly act nastily, as though it were a kind of instinct?" (332). The couple manage to escape and, after a chase through Manhattan, hide in the Statue of Liberty's arm, where Si reveals the truth of his background to Julia before willing them both back to the present. Two photographs are featured in this chapter, but they add little to the narrative.

  Back in Si's world, the tables are turned, as Julia is now the one to experience life in another time. Finney's words are enough to describe New York this time, and once again, Jack Finney has a character think about why the modern world is so bad:

  No, I won't let you stay here. Julia, we're a people who pollute the very air we breathe. And our rivers. We're destroying the Great Lakes; Erie is already gone, and now we've begun on the oceans. We filled our atmosphere with radioactive fallout that put poison into our children's bones, and we knew it. We've made bombs that can wipe out humanity in minutes, and they are aimed and ready to fire. We ended polio, and then the United States Army bred new strains of germs that can cause fatal, incurable disease. We had a chance to do justice to our Negroes, and when they asked it, we refused. In Asia we burned people alive, we really did. We allow children to grow up malnourished in the United States. We allow people to make money by using our television channels to persuade our own children to smoke, knowing what it is going to do to them. This is a time when it becomes harder and harder to continue telling yourself that we are still good people. We hate each other. And we're used to it [378-79].