Subject: Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis

From: [email-masked] (Rich Horton)
Date: 17 May 1998 15:36:03 -0400

To Say Nothing of the Dog, By Connie Willis
	Bantam, 1998, $23.95 ISBN: 0553099957
	Review Copyright 1998 Rich Horton

_To Say Nothing of the Dog_ is one of Connie Willis' time travel stories,
sharing a milieu with her award-winning novelette "Fire Watch" and her
award-winning novel _Doomsday Book_. I'm very fond of both previous
stories.  _Doomsday Book_, however, was marred to some extent by a certain
mismatch of tone between the farcical events of the 21st century setting
from which her time travelers set out and the tragic events of the 14th
century into which her protagonist travels.  In addition, some major plot
points of _Doomsday Book_ were implausible in the extreme.  For me, the
emotional power of the 14th story, and the character of Father Roche, were
sufficient strong points to overcome my discomfort with some of the clunky
bits.

This current novel almost seems a response to some criticisms of _Doomsday
Book_.  If the former book was primarily a tragic story of the Plague,
this book is a screwball comedy set in the time of Jerome K. Jerome's
classic (and highly recommended) late Victorian comedy, _Three Men in a
Boat_.  Indeed, the title of this book is the subtitle of Jerome's.  This
is the second screwball comedy about time travel in two years, after John
Kessel's _Corrupting Dr. Nice_ (1997).  Willis seems to be saying, if this
is a screwball comedy, darn it, I can have implausible plot points, and
outrageous coincidences, and my tone can be as goofy as I want.  But a
funny thing (so to speak) happened on the way to Coventry, and this novel
turns out to have a serious and moving center to it after all, albeit in
the context of a generally very funny book.  What's more, Willis' point
derives nicely from her story's outrageous coincidences, almost too
overtly so, as if the book points at its faults and says "I meant it that
way".

Which brings me to my misgivings about a novel that I ended up liking
quite a bit.  The whole machinery of the plot is set in motion by some
generally unbelievable actions.  The protagonist and narrator, Ned Henry,
a 30ish "historian" in 2057, has been trying to get to Coventry Cathedral
just prior to the pivotal bombing in 1940, which destroyed the Cathedral
but which may have indirectly turned the Battle of Britain against Hitler.
He wants to rescue the Bishop's Bird Stump, a hideous item which the
historians (read time travelers) need to help convincingly furnish a
rebuilt Cathedral.  For plot purposes Willis invents a syndrome she calls
"time lag," which happens when people time travel too often, and results
in confusion, difficulty hearing, excess emotionalism, and such like.  The
only cure is rest, and Henry's superior, Mr. Dunworthy of _Doomsday Book_,
decides the only place he can rest is in the past, out of reach of the
fearsome Lady Schrapnell.  Unfortunately, Dunworthy decides to have Ned
complete one little tiny task for him in the past, returning an
anachronistic item from 1888 to it's proper time, before resting.  But Ned
is so time-lagged he doesn't quite realize what it is he needs to return,
and there isn't enough time to properly brief him.

All these machinations strain credibility, really even beyond the rather
loose requirements of a screwball comedy.  Moreover, the whole plot
centers about the tendency of the structure of Time to resist alteration,
which necessarily requires the reader to think about the mechanics of
Willis' time travel setup.  Unfortunately, in my opinion this setup
doesn't really stand up well to being thought about too carefully.  At
least for the first few chapters, I was simultaneously entertained by the
comic goings on, which are prime Connie Willis in her madcap mode, and
irritated by the blatant plot manipulation.  However, after a bit I calmed
down and accepted the premise as given, and I quite enjoyed the story.

I won't detail the rest of the plot, which is quite complicated, though in
the end nothing much is really accomplished, which becomes part of the
point.  We are treated to a brief river journey, an homage to the trip
which makes up the action of Jerome's novel.  Indeed Willis cannot resist
having her characters encounter Jerome and his friends Harris and George,
to say nothing of their dog, Montmorency, which I found a bit
over-indulgent of her.  We are also treated to a thematically central and
also quite funny ongoing rant by an Oxford Don on the subject of the Great
Man theory of History vs. his opponent's belief in Natural Forces, to the
origination of the jumble sale, several nice love stories, and lots more.

As I've said, though I have reservations, I ended up really enjoying this
book.  At the surface level there is the shall I say typical good fun of
Connie Willis in her screwball mode.  Beyond this, the book engages in
some Sfnal dialogue with earlier SF such as Asimov's _The End of
Eternity_.  And, finally, it all comes together to mean something, and I
was quite moved by the final metaphors, which touch on the importance of
details to history, and on the worth of grand indulgences like cathedrals.

%A Connie Willis
%T To Say Nothing of the Dog
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D January 1998
%P 434 pp (SFBC ed.)
%G 0-553-09996-7
%O HC, US $23.95
-- 
Rich Horton
Homepage: www.sff.net/people/richard.horton