I’ve spent my whole life fascinated by the Pre-War War Post-War periods, and often wondered this exact thing. I think Wouk is able to capture the otherness of that era well and translate it somehow to us, since he was a contemporary of that era and ours. The 30s-50s always shocks me as strangely modern when you time travel back in fiction or primary sources. You expect this totally foreign past, and then something from a photo leaps out at you as almost anachronistic. Look, their taxis are almost like ours! Look at that factory floor or that hotel lobby! They are just like me, for real!
Not doing a good job of conveying my meaning here, but endlessly fascinated with how simultaneously hard and easy it is to Go Back.
There's a casual line toward the end of the novel, about having "another war" soon, and it is reminder of how tricky it is to inhabit a different period. I'm aware of what's coming next, but it is so easy to forget that they don't yet know.
And I've had the same interest in the larger period—although I wonder how much the development of the novel, and the types of stories that we prefer, overlap with such a ripe time to tell stories. Thank you for the thoughts and the comment, Zack.
I’ve spent my whole life fascinated by the Pre-War War Post-War periods, and often wondered this exact thing. I think Wouk is able to capture the otherness of that era well and translate it somehow to us, since he was a contemporary of that era and ours. The 30s-50s always shocks me as strangely modern when you time travel back in fiction or primary sources. You expect this totally foreign past, and then something from a photo leaps out at you as almost anachronistic. Look, their taxis are almost like ours! Look at that factory floor or that hotel lobby! They are just like me, for real!
Not doing a good job of conveying my meaning here, but endlessly fascinated with how simultaneously hard and easy it is to Go Back.
There's a casual line toward the end of the novel, about having "another war" soon, and it is reminder of how tricky it is to inhabit a different period. I'm aware of what's coming next, but it is so easy to forget that they don't yet know.
And I've had the same interest in the larger period—although I wonder how much the development of the novel, and the types of stories that we prefer, overlap with such a ripe time to tell stories. Thank you for the thoughts and the comment, Zack.
It truly does seem like an epochal period even now, written and filmed and discussed to no end. Thanks for your essay.