Thursday morning I stayed in bed reading All Clear until I was done. I'm still unsure what I feel about it. Definitely had a decent ending, but there were few surprises throughout. I kind of guessed Mary before the reveal, definitely guessed Ernest before, and I kind of think I had an idea about him earlier, but I might be making that up, it's been a while. I knew they hadn't lost the war and that the continuum wasn't necessarily trying to kill them and everyone they know. I felt like Polly's epiphany was very close to Ned's at the end of To Say Nothing of the Dog. Really, the whole thing felt a bit like a rehash of old ground. The pacing, with all the running around and getting blocked and finding another way and all that did have a plot reason, but it didn't seem to have a thematic one. Maybe it didn't in TSNOTD either, but it was an effective way to do the comedy, the farce, of that book. It perfectly suited the character's confusion and the tangled mess of Victorian manners and English mysteries and all of it. And that kind of deal done for tragedy worked incredibly well for Passage, where it did tie directly into the theme and the imagery at work in that book. So much so that it's stuck with me for years in a very profound way.
I don't want to feel that that profundity has been dented by her using the same device again to a lesser purpose. It makes it feel as if she's just good at writing that kind of plot and so will continue to do so, even when the reasons for it are not as well thought out or something. I mean, it was part of figuring out the mystery, but it was basically the same conclusion that Ned had with the same reasoning of the same type of coincidences and near misses. Just this time the historians were there to take action whereas before they were there to stay out of the way -- that's not even true. In TSNOTD, they were put in places to do what needed to be done to make history stay on course, they just sat out the last bit to let everything fall into place. So Polly's big moment of understanding that turned around their attitudes felt like old news, so the fact that Dunworthy was so convinced he had ruined the world seemed like a false issue. Of course, IDK if this happened before the events of that book, maybe that's why it wasn't mentioned at all, so maybe he hadn't had the experience of learning that. That would make me feel better about the whole thing, actually.
The Blitz part was great; I learned a ton. And I liked the characters, I liked Eileen staying, although I wasn't surprised. I accepted Colin and Polly and was impressed with Michael actually dying, and quite sad. I think it did go on too long. And there were just too many issues with the trying to do something, being thwarted, trying to go around, blocked again, rinse, repeat. It didn't even match the feelings of the Blitz, which was more of a seige, getting by, doing your part kind of message, not a message of trying to do this, being thwarted, going around etc. kind of thing. And the characters seemed servants to the plot too often, not communicating things for really stupid reasons, needless deceptions, and an overall lack of professionalism. I mean, for time traveling historians, they don't seem to have a great grasp of what they're doing. It's as if Oxford is allowing them to go through the net, but not teaching them about how it works. Like they're truly just historical experts of certain time periods -- they have that knowledge -- but they're not historical scientists, they have no idea how the whole system they're utilizing works. That just seems a bad idea to me. I mean, maybe part of the point is that the historians as a whole don't really know what they're doing. After all, Dunworthy himself is ready to throw away all his old opinions on how it works to believe they've destroyed the world.
I guess the chaos theory part worked for me in the other book, but not this as much. IDK. And I probably need to refer to Doomsday Book again to see how it was handled there, since I never remember that as well. Maybe the idea of this self-correcting continuum just works better in a comedy and ill fits a darker story. I mean, Polly ends up calling it a comedy and not a tragedy, but the book itself was pretty dark. Even the end victory didn't seem that triumphant once you got there.
Still, I liked the idea that the historians from the future had always been a part of winning World War II. It's hard to wrap your head around, but it gives you a nice koan-type thing to ponder, so that was good. I think I'll just have to reread them both sometime and see if it settles in nicer the second time through. Still well worth the read, just not the masterpiece I kind of wanted it to be. But having one author be the creator of two of my favorite books of all time is really good enough I should think.
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