Here’s a mainstream novel with speculative fiction elements rather than a science-fiction novel for a change. It’s the newest book by Emily St. John Mandel who was already a bestselling writer but received a massive boost in popularity recently for obvious reasons as her 2014 novel was set during a pandemic. I chose to read this one first as I was more intrigued by its multiple timelines and thought it would appeal to my science-fiction preferences more. In the end I found this to be an exceedingly pleasant book to read but most of all, it reminds me of the essential differences between mainstream literature and science-fiction. The book is full of time travel but as an author Mandel has no interest in the concept of time travelling at all. She uses it as a narrative device to offer some humanistic insights that are admittedly interesting but also reinforce the universal and unchanging nature of humanity even as time passes and science advances.

In 1912 an English gentleman who has no hope of inheriting the family fortune travels to America. He ends up idling listlessly for a while until he wanders into a forest in Canada and is subjected to an inexplicable sensation of being transported somewhere else. In 1994, a young girl is walking through the same stretch of woods while recording it on video and it includes a strange glitch that her composer brother includes as part of a presentation. In 2203, Olive Llewellyn, an author who lives on the Moon is visiting Earth on a promotional tour of her successful book Marienbad. In it she describes a scene in which her main character is passing through an airship terminal and while hearing a violinist play experiences a hallucination of being in a forest. In 2401, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts lives on the Moon and his mother’s favorite novel is Marienbad. Not being a very studious person, he coasts along in life until he learns of these anomalies from his sister who works at the Time Institute which strictly regulates time travel technology. He insists on getting a job there and after being trained, is assigned to travel back in time to investigate this case.

There are quite a few characters in here and multiple timelines but there is no risk of confusion. Mandel keeps her prose light and the text is broken up into very small sections, making it exceptionally easy to digest. Each character’s story is also effectively separate and the points of intersection are very minute. I understand that many of the characters used here also appeared in some of the author’s previous books, which would make situating themselves for old fans even easier. Partly due to this, there is a sense that the book offers pieces of the stories of the minor characters rather than a complete picture but I think there is enough there to be satisfying. It does provide definitive closure to the stories of the main characters, deliberately so as a response to critics it seems, as the author has Llewellyn being flummoxed when asked why her book just stops at some point instead of cleanly ending. I enjoyed this small window into the lives of pretty much all of the characters except for Gaspery himself who seems very bland and I found his motivations for making such big and sudden changes to his life unconvincing. I suspect that Mandel herself identified most of all with Llewellyn as it is her musings and insights that the most original and interesting part of the book.

This brings me to one of the structural flaws of the book. Gaspery’s travels through time drives the plot and the anomaly is the mystery box that readers are curious to uncover. Yet it is Llewellyn that the author really cares about and who is the novel’s emotional center. The book is at its strongest and most empathetic as we follow Llewellyn on her tour on Earth, suffering from imposter syndrome, missing her family on the Moon and being lost in the seemingly endless succession of identikit hotel rooms and cafeterias. Yet all this turns around when she is trapped in a pandemic lockdown and her entire world shrinks to the confines of her home. With almost the entire world sharing a similar experience during the covid-19 pandemic, it’s easy to see why we can readily identify with her situation and her feelings. By contrast, the character of Gaspery feels like a plot device created by the necessity of the time loop. I don’t want to give away the plot here but it is a really predictable one to those have read enough science-fiction. He knows that Marienbad is his mother’s favorite book and never reads it until he has to and doesn’t like it anyway. He knows that his sister works at the Time Institute but is incurious about it until he learns of the anomaly. Then all of a sudden he decides that investigating the anomaly is his true purpose in life and leaves behind everything else for it. The twists that lie along his journey are entirely expected and entirely unsatisfactory. I’m not sure that Mandel even likes Gaspery much as a character but she clearly expects readers to be riveted.

Finally I’m irritated that Mandel has no interest in worldbuilding at all and no curiosity about the technology of time travel, and I’m not just talking about the technical details of how it works. Whether in 1912 or 2401, humans in her imagination are much the same, psychologically or culturally. Llewellyn and Gaspery may live on the Moon but it’s just a different kind of city with exotic scenery, located somewhere else. The society in which they live, their living arrangements and social dynamics, are all the same. Time travel technology is real and we’re told that the government restricts its use, but for most people in the era it may as well not exist as it doesn’t affect their lives at all. It is infuriating to me that the prospect of the universe being some kind of simulation, again an idea that is not particularly new, is supposed to evoke existential angst but the known existence of time travel and all that it implies for causation and how the ripple effects of changes in the timeline might wipe someone from existence, is accorded no narrative weight at all.

As I noted, for all that science-fiction concepts sometimes pop up in mainstream books, science-fiction writers and mainstream fiction writers just don’t think alike. In mainstream books, science-fiction and fantasy elements may affect the main characters, but aren’t allowed to reshape society as a whole. It’s inherently conservative, preserving humanity and society in a kind of steady state that current readers can recognize and identify with. By contrast, in science-fiction, the world itself is the main character and the entire point is to see how the world changes in response to magic or technology. That’s why almost every time a mainstream writer makes use of science-fiction elements, I feel frustrated by how limited a difference it makes. Ironically, I do like Mandel’s writing enough that I feel I may enjoy her breakout Station Eleven a lot more than this one. I really should have started with that instead.