Time is one of the main themes of Bharati Mukherjee’s Holder of the World. The ping-pong/meshing of two different times in the novel, one in the early 1990s and the other in late 1600s-early 1700s is something that I find very arresting and makes for a more compelling read. Time and history is Beigh Masters’ life work, and she is connected to Hannah Easton, Salem Bibi, even though they live(d) in completely separate times. But are their times really that separate? It relates back to what Venn is trying to achieve with his machine: “he won’t call it time-travel. Neither we, nor time, will have traveled an inch.” It seems as though Mukherjee is demystifying the idea that time is a continuous line, with its events separate--they happen and are done. We are affected and influenced by history and, in turn, affect and influence history ourselves. It pertains to the trippy idea that time is really not a constant line but that it is all at once. I guess this would relate to spaces that we talked about as well. Mukherjee is not the first author I have read to bring up aspects of time like this. As an example, one of my all-time favorite books (a series actually) is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I should mention, this is not the Outlander that was apparently a viking vs. aliens movie, which I was informed of awhile ago.
These books are honestly spellbinding—mix of history, romance, adventure, time travel—they are great. So, if you’re looking for summer reading…and a 7th one is coming out this Sept. I heard. But anyways! If you plan to read any of the books just take my word for it that it is relevant to what I was talking about before with history/time, and don’t read the next part of my blog because I am going to spoil a few things.
Super long story short: Claire is a nurse after WWII, just got married and is in Scotland where she goes through standing stones which send her back in time to the 1700s where she falls in love with and marries Jamie Fraser, a big rugged highlander. Trust me, it’s completely believable in the book! She knows about rebellions and Stuart's war that are going to happen and tries to change history and all that but then….she finds out she is pregnant with Jamie’s baby and goes back to the 20th century and has the baby there, where time passed normally as it did in the past (3 years I think). Throughout the books, she and her daughter travel back in time multiple times, once ending up in the present earlier than when they had left. Especially great part: the creepy lady who is getting hung for being a witch tells Claire a number (1-9-6-3) and shows Claire a small pox vaccination scar on her arm right before she dies.
These ideas of history and time bring up an awareness of how we all have the power to influence each others’ spaces in both positive and negative ways. I feel like this is an important thing that I have gotten from the class.