Focus on: openings and narrative voice
INFER …
What do you infer about the speaker in this opening section?
This is a first-person narrative: the narrator is a character. The narrator's
'voice' - comprising the tone, the choice of words, the register, the habits of
thought and expression - are therefore an integral part of the narrator's characterisation. How the
narrator speaks should be 'read' as attentively as what s/he says.
'Given my circumstances' (p. 12). What seem to be the narrator's
circumstances? What aspects are unexplained, contrary to expectations,
confusing?
ANALYSE THE LANGUAGE . . .
Look for words with associations of violence, death and
sickness; then trace words of healing, life and health. What do you conclude
about the way that these two word orders are combined in this opening?
SECTION 2 (pp. 14-24)
Focus on: setting
IDENTIFY AND ANALYSE ...
This section opens with a sketch of 'innocuous America' 114
(p. 14). Amis often uses a type of metaphor called 'synecdoche', whereby a part
of something stands for the whole. Identify examples of synecdoche on pp.
14-15, and analyse the impres-sions you form of Tod Friendly's environment from
these.
Focus on: reversal and dissociation
DISTINGUISH FRIENDLY'S REACTIONS ...
Friendly realises his life is running backwards. He feels
dissociated from his environment, and from his own thoughts, from himself. Find
the words and phrases that indicate his reactions to this bizarre state.
REFLECT AND DEFINE . . .
The novel starts from a daring premise: time runs backwards.
This reversal creates some amusing consequences. Consider eating a meal
backwards, or blowing one's nose, or other functions of the body. How does this
reversal make ordinary actions (like eating) revolting? Words take on their
opposite meanings: 'buying' means 'selling', 'getting up' means 'going to bed'.
What does 'friendly' become (though he seems friendly enough ...)? It also
throws our intuitions into disarray. How does memory work in reverse? Does
effect lead to cause, and if so, does the process of getting younger entail
becoming gradually more innocent - less knowing, and also less guilty? Does
free will disappear? If Friendly is experiencing his life backwards, what was
the oblivion out of which he emerged on p. 11? Who was the 'male shape, with an
entirely unman¬ageable aura' (p. 12)? This conceit also raises some practical
problems. How, for instance, is speech to be represented intelligibly?
Focus on: Tod Friendly and the narrative alter ego
EVALUATE ...
Evaluate Friendly's general knowledge (pp. 16-17) and the
level of his reading (pp. 19-20). What is his attitude to these? Does the
narrator share all of Friendly's opinions?
CONJECTURE AND DISCUSS ...
The final words of this chapter are 'exiled or demoted soul'
(p. 24). There are references earlier to Friendly's fear, to his shame, to
committing mutilation (e.g. p. 15), and to the nar¬rator's disapproval of
Friendly's behaviour. Discuss the possi¬bility that the narrator is Friendly's
soul, exiled by Friendly, and of which Friendly is unaware (p. 22).
Focus on: narrative strategy
REVIEW ...
Review the chapter headings on the Contents page. Now that
you know the basic conceit behind the narrative strategy, what new meanings do
these headings take on? And what of the novel's title, Time's Arrow?
Looking over Chapter 1
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What
impressions of Tod Friendly's social environment have you formed from Chapter
1?
2. Discuss
the theme of dissociation, as it is developed in Chapter 1.
3. ESSAY QUESTION – Discuss
the effectiveness of Amis’s use of temporal reversal, split narrative
perspective, and narrative mode (irony) in the opening Chapter of ‘Time’s Arrow.’
