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Bionic Jean's Reviews > How to Stop Time
How to Stop Time
by
by
“You see, I have a condition. I am old – old in the way that a tree, or a quahog clam, or a Renaissance painting is old. I was born well over four hundred years ago, on the third of March 1581 …”
We only read a few sentences of How to Stop Time, before we learn this central conceit. Tom Hazard, who narrates the novel, is almost immortal. He looks in his late thirties – maybe forty – but ages very, very slowly, and has actually been alive for centuries. Tom suffers from a condition which used to be called “anageria”. He is over 400 years old; a French Huguenot who, as puberty began, realised that he aged at a different rate to everyone around him. For every thirteen or fourteen years of human ageing, he ages just one year.
It is both a dream and a curse. A dream or fantasy we can barely imagine, but when we do, we see the drawbacks. And many novelists before have explored and mused over the possibilities.
Matt Haig, the author of the 2017 novel How To Stop Time, often writes speculative fiction for both adults and children, and this is a familiar premise. Authors as diverse as Scott Fitzgerald and Martin Amis have postulated a life lived backwards, in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Time’s Arrow” respectively. Audrey Niffenegger’s protagonist in “The Tine Traveller’s Wife” had a genetic condition which made him spontaneously move through time. Virginia Woolf’s character “Orlando” did all this – and changed gender spontaneously too. H.G. Wells, Mark Twain and Stephen King have all dabbled with the concept. There is nothing new about Matt Haig’s idea, but he does write an engaging novel on the subject.
Put yourself in Tom’s position. What would you want out of life? The traditional, home and family? How long could you sustain this? Forget that then, and just live in the moment, for pleasure? How long would it be before the attraction wears off, and it begins to feel shallow and repetitive. Live for good works, and friends? Again, the suspicions would soon start. Whichever way you look at this it is a lonely sort of life, to see everyone around you age and die.
We see Tom in Elizabethan England, as a young boy. He appears the same as other young boys, perhaps a little smaller. From a poor family, he is quickly set to work as a labourer, but after a few years the whispering starts.
Around the time of puberty, Tom seems to stop ageing. He is perfectly healthy, and feels older inside, but he still looks as young as he did a few years ago. This is a time of superstitions and witchcraft. It is fairly obvious the sort of danger Tom and his family are in.
Hence the first rule is learned. Do not stay in the same place for too long. Otherwise you, or your loved ones may suffer terrible consequences. Especially in Elizabethan England, where punishment for being suspected a witch was a brutal and agonising death.(view spoiler)
Rule number two had to be learned quite early too. Do not care too much about anyone, because you will have to leave them. Most certainly, do not fall in love. Tricky, this one. Tom seems to have to learn both these by experience, and it is to the author’s credit that he makes this believable, and makes us care about the protagonist.
We meet the lovely Rose, who sells apples in the market, and indulge in a little romantic fiction:
“We kissed and I closed my eyes and inhaled lavender and her, and I felt so terrified and so in love that I realised they – the terror, the love – were one in the same thing.”
“She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.”
(Actually, call me a softie, but I do quite like this latter one.)
What else do we need, to make us want to carry on reading? Ah yes, conflict, or a threat. Tom could carry on perfectly well in his near-immortality, as long as he changed his location every few years, and didn’t draw too much notice to himself. And tried not to fall in love again. What we need then, is a good old baddie. And we get it. Not only that, but we get an entire conspiracy subplot.
A mafia-like bully called Hendrich, who is even older than Tom at 900, (give or take a year) takes Tom under his wing, accurately describing Tom’s condition, and explaining that he is not the only one in existence. There are many like him, dotted around the world and so Hendrick has established a society to protect them. He argues that if “mays” or mayflies, (people with a normal lifespan) find their existence out, they would probably all be shut away, or experimented upon, or simply killed. In the 21st century, the “Albatross Society” claims to be protecting the “albas” from biotechnology entrepreneurs, who want their stem cells for research. In return for this protection, they have to … but that would be telling.
“Yesterday’s witchfinders are todays’s scientists.”
It’s quite neat, as a device for explaining Tom’s presence in the modern day. What often lets time travel books down, is that the solution somehow lies in the present day, or using present day thinking, (although admittedly it would be hard to do otherwise).
“I have been so many different people, played so many different roles in my life. I am not a person. I am a crowd in one body. I was people I hated and people I admired. I was exciting and boring and happy and infinitely sad.”
Matt Haig presents Tim quite convincingly, as a man in various centuries. He has to be well acquainted with what he can and cannot do, what he does and does not know, all the conventions of the time - and the details are present in the story quite naturally, without ever feeling laboured or heavy handed. Quite often they are slipped in as jokes.
Here’s a wry quip from Shakespeare’s time:
“It was clear the masses wanted far more than justice. They wanted entertainment”.
Or our contemporary world:
“there isn’t the option of putting 1581 [on Facebook] for your birthdate, anyway.”
“I drink some water and eat some cereal and then I take Abraham for a walk. He had spent the night eating the arm of the sofa but I don’t want to judge him. He has enough issues already”.
And this one is timeless:
“For decades and decades and decades I have bemoaned people who say they feel old, but I now realise it is perfectly possible for anyone to feel old. All they need to do is become a teacher”.
We skip between the different eras. From Elizabethan England to present day New York, from Jazz-Age Paris to the South Seas. Tom has had a varied life so far, and through his eyes we meet many famous figures from the past. When you live many lives, you become adept at many special skills. Tom’s lute playing is so impressive that William Shakespeare hires him to play at the original production of “As You Like It”. (Why do they always meet Shakespeare? Why when someone is regressed into their past lives, are they always Napoleon, or Cleopatra?)
He witnesses the Great Fire of London first hand, (which is of great assistance when trying to convey this to bored 21st century teenagers). He sails to Tahiti with Captain Cook. He meets Samuel Johnson, and due to his exceptional piano playing skills, meets Charlie Chaplin, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their entourage, and Gertrude Lawrence in a 1920s restaurant. All these episodes are drawn in a very lively way, and these scenes are very entertaining.
We are familiar with the idea of a character who lives for centuries, conveniently finding himself in the right place at the right time to meet and even interact with significant historical figures. Of course we always have to “go with” the story, rather than question why it is that our hero always seems to meet the most famous figures of the day.
In classic or literary authors, the conceit may be used to to examine the notion of time itself, and our relationship to it. Concepts such as the fear of ageing and death, or even the problems associated with not dying at all may be explored. But Matt Haig has a consistently light touch when reflecting on the larger issues. He does not get bogged down in period detail, nor in philosophical conundrums. He presents these encounters in an entertaining, slightly world-weary way. After all, Tom has seen it all before, many times.
“That’s the thing with time, isn’t it? It’s not all the same. Some days - some years - some decades - are empty. There is nothing to them. It’s just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing”.
An important part of the plot concerns a Pacific islander “Omai”, who was famously painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds:
He too is also an “alba” who, making the most of his still-athletic body, works as a professional surfer in Australia.
What about the love interest? Hardboiled cynics we may be, but that is what drives many novels. What would “The Time Traveller’s Wife” be without the love interest?
What we have here is a thread which will run right through the novel. As a young man Tom fell in love with Rose. These parts become a little sentimental:
“And she placed the lute beside her on the bed and kissed me and I closed my eyes and the rest of the world faded. There was nothing else. Nothing but her. She was the stars and the heavens and the oceans”
Tom realises too late there are inevitably going to be drawbacks:
“I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It’s a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.”
“It made me lonely. And when I say lonely, I mean the kind of loneliness that howls through you like a desert wind. It wasn’t just the loss of people I had known but also the loss of myself. The loss of who I had been when I had been with them.”
but we always have the ironic comments, of our jaded protagonist (this time with another young lady, in a different time and place):
“I want to kiss her. I don’t know how to make that happen. I have been single for four centuries and have absolutely no idea of the etiquette”
A consequence of all this, is (view spoiler)
The ending is a bit of cod philosophy I could have done without. There is a bit of musing over “mays”, and the perceptual differences of the centuries-old “albas” secretly living amongst us. But the feeling is that the author is groping around for some great truth to impart, and all he can come up with is quips:
“How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live?”
“Why worry about the future? It always happens. That’s the thing about the future.”
It’s smart. It’s hokum. It’s farfetched. But it is a tale told convincingly with consummate ease, and passes an entertaining hour or two.
Oh, one little quibble. Matt Haig was born in Sheffield. So was I. Tom Hazard works in a school in Tower Hamlets, East London. So did I. What made me shout in disbelief was not any scientific speculation, but that he apparently got a job there in a private school! What were the odds, in this inner-city borough, with a mostly Sylheti community? I had never come across one, save for Faith schools. Intrigued, I googled, to find that yes, indeed, now there are just two. OK, I’ll have to let that pass then. But for authenticity, I feel he could have chosen some other London borough in which to set this “private” secondary school.
Another tidbit? Benedict Cumberbatch has been lined up to star in an upcoming film adaptation.
Much in How to Stop Time is pseudo-profound, as if it attempts to impart a great truth, but just misses the mark. The ending is a bit of esoteric pyschobabble, which to me feels like rather a damp squib:
“There is only the present. Just as every object on earth contains similar and interchanging atoms, so every fragment of time contains aspects of every other.
In those moments that burst alive the present lasts for ever, and I know there are many more presents to live. I understand you can be free. I understand that the way you stop time is by stopping being ruled by it. I am no longer drowning in my past, or fearful of my future. How can I be?
The future is you.”
My rating of this book is just touching 3 stars. I’ll end with a couple of lines I do like:
“To talk about memories is to live them a little.”
“Whenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I don’t expect, I feel civilisation has become a little safer.”
We only read a few sentences of How to Stop Time, before we learn this central conceit. Tom Hazard, who narrates the novel, is almost immortal. He looks in his late thirties – maybe forty – but ages very, very slowly, and has actually been alive for centuries. Tom suffers from a condition which used to be called “anageria”. He is over 400 years old; a French Huguenot who, as puberty began, realised that he aged at a different rate to everyone around him. For every thirteen or fourteen years of human ageing, he ages just one year.
It is both a dream and a curse. A dream or fantasy we can barely imagine, but when we do, we see the drawbacks. And many novelists before have explored and mused over the possibilities.
Matt Haig, the author of the 2017 novel How To Stop Time, often writes speculative fiction for both adults and children, and this is a familiar premise. Authors as diverse as Scott Fitzgerald and Martin Amis have postulated a life lived backwards, in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Time’s Arrow” respectively. Audrey Niffenegger’s protagonist in “The Tine Traveller’s Wife” had a genetic condition which made him spontaneously move through time. Virginia Woolf’s character “Orlando” did all this – and changed gender spontaneously too. H.G. Wells, Mark Twain and Stephen King have all dabbled with the concept. There is nothing new about Matt Haig’s idea, but he does write an engaging novel on the subject.
Put yourself in Tom’s position. What would you want out of life? The traditional, home and family? How long could you sustain this? Forget that then, and just live in the moment, for pleasure? How long would it be before the attraction wears off, and it begins to feel shallow and repetitive. Live for good works, and friends? Again, the suspicions would soon start. Whichever way you look at this it is a lonely sort of life, to see everyone around you age and die.
We see Tom in Elizabethan England, as a young boy. He appears the same as other young boys, perhaps a little smaller. From a poor family, he is quickly set to work as a labourer, but after a few years the whispering starts.
Around the time of puberty, Tom seems to stop ageing. He is perfectly healthy, and feels older inside, but he still looks as young as he did a few years ago. This is a time of superstitions and witchcraft. It is fairly obvious the sort of danger Tom and his family are in.
Hence the first rule is learned. Do not stay in the same place for too long. Otherwise you, or your loved ones may suffer terrible consequences. Especially in Elizabethan England, where punishment for being suspected a witch was a brutal and agonising death.(view spoiler)
Rule number two had to be learned quite early too. Do not care too much about anyone, because you will have to leave them. Most certainly, do not fall in love. Tricky, this one. Tom seems to have to learn both these by experience, and it is to the author’s credit that he makes this believable, and makes us care about the protagonist.
We meet the lovely Rose, who sells apples in the market, and indulge in a little romantic fiction:
“We kissed and I closed my eyes and inhaled lavender and her, and I felt so terrified and so in love that I realised they – the terror, the love – were one in the same thing.”
“She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.”
(Actually, call me a softie, but I do quite like this latter one.)
What else do we need, to make us want to carry on reading? Ah yes, conflict, or a threat. Tom could carry on perfectly well in his near-immortality, as long as he changed his location every few years, and didn’t draw too much notice to himself. And tried not to fall in love again. What we need then, is a good old baddie. And we get it. Not only that, but we get an entire conspiracy subplot.
A mafia-like bully called Hendrich, who is even older than Tom at 900, (give or take a year) takes Tom under his wing, accurately describing Tom’s condition, and explaining that he is not the only one in existence. There are many like him, dotted around the world and so Hendrick has established a society to protect them. He argues that if “mays” or mayflies, (people with a normal lifespan) find their existence out, they would probably all be shut away, or experimented upon, or simply killed. In the 21st century, the “Albatross Society” claims to be protecting the “albas” from biotechnology entrepreneurs, who want their stem cells for research. In return for this protection, they have to … but that would be telling.
“Yesterday’s witchfinders are todays’s scientists.”
It’s quite neat, as a device for explaining Tom’s presence in the modern day. What often lets time travel books down, is that the solution somehow lies in the present day, or using present day thinking, (although admittedly it would be hard to do otherwise).
“I have been so many different people, played so many different roles in my life. I am not a person. I am a crowd in one body. I was people I hated and people I admired. I was exciting and boring and happy and infinitely sad.”
Matt Haig presents Tim quite convincingly, as a man in various centuries. He has to be well acquainted with what he can and cannot do, what he does and does not know, all the conventions of the time - and the details are present in the story quite naturally, without ever feeling laboured or heavy handed. Quite often they are slipped in as jokes.
Here’s a wry quip from Shakespeare’s time:
“It was clear the masses wanted far more than justice. They wanted entertainment”.
Or our contemporary world:
“there isn’t the option of putting 1581 [on Facebook] for your birthdate, anyway.”
“I drink some water and eat some cereal and then I take Abraham for a walk. He had spent the night eating the arm of the sofa but I don’t want to judge him. He has enough issues already”.
And this one is timeless:
“For decades and decades and decades I have bemoaned people who say they feel old, but I now realise it is perfectly possible for anyone to feel old. All they need to do is become a teacher”.
We skip between the different eras. From Elizabethan England to present day New York, from Jazz-Age Paris to the South Seas. Tom has had a varied life so far, and through his eyes we meet many famous figures from the past. When you live many lives, you become adept at many special skills. Tom’s lute playing is so impressive that William Shakespeare hires him to play at the original production of “As You Like It”. (Why do they always meet Shakespeare? Why when someone is regressed into their past lives, are they always Napoleon, or Cleopatra?)
He witnesses the Great Fire of London first hand, (which is of great assistance when trying to convey this to bored 21st century teenagers). He sails to Tahiti with Captain Cook. He meets Samuel Johnson, and due to his exceptional piano playing skills, meets Charlie Chaplin, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their entourage, and Gertrude Lawrence in a 1920s restaurant. All these episodes are drawn in a very lively way, and these scenes are very entertaining.
We are familiar with the idea of a character who lives for centuries, conveniently finding himself in the right place at the right time to meet and even interact with significant historical figures. Of course we always have to “go with” the story, rather than question why it is that our hero always seems to meet the most famous figures of the day.
In classic or literary authors, the conceit may be used to to examine the notion of time itself, and our relationship to it. Concepts such as the fear of ageing and death, or even the problems associated with not dying at all may be explored. But Matt Haig has a consistently light touch when reflecting on the larger issues. He does not get bogged down in period detail, nor in philosophical conundrums. He presents these encounters in an entertaining, slightly world-weary way. After all, Tom has seen it all before, many times.
“That’s the thing with time, isn’t it? It’s not all the same. Some days - some years - some decades - are empty. There is nothing to them. It’s just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing”.
An important part of the plot concerns a Pacific islander “Omai”, who was famously painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds:
He too is also an “alba” who, making the most of his still-athletic body, works as a professional surfer in Australia.
What about the love interest? Hardboiled cynics we may be, but that is what drives many novels. What would “The Time Traveller’s Wife” be without the love interest?
What we have here is a thread which will run right through the novel. As a young man Tom fell in love with Rose. These parts become a little sentimental:
“And she placed the lute beside her on the bed and kissed me and I closed my eyes and the rest of the world faded. There was nothing else. Nothing but her. She was the stars and the heavens and the oceans”
Tom realises too late there are inevitably going to be drawbacks:
“I have been in love only once in my life. I suppose that makes me a romantic, in a sense. The idea that you have one true love, that no one else will compare after they have gone. It’s a sweet idea, but the reality is terror itself. To be faced with all those lonely years after. To exist when the point of you has gone.”
“It made me lonely. And when I say lonely, I mean the kind of loneliness that howls through you like a desert wind. It wasn’t just the loss of people I had known but also the loss of myself. The loss of who I had been when I had been with them.”
but we always have the ironic comments, of our jaded protagonist (this time with another young lady, in a different time and place):
“I want to kiss her. I don’t know how to make that happen. I have been single for four centuries and have absolutely no idea of the etiquette”
A consequence of all this, is (view spoiler)
The ending is a bit of cod philosophy I could have done without. There is a bit of musing over “mays”, and the perceptual differences of the centuries-old “albas” secretly living amongst us. But the feeling is that the author is groping around for some great truth to impart, and all he can come up with is quips:
“How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live?”
“Why worry about the future? It always happens. That’s the thing about the future.”
It’s smart. It’s hokum. It’s farfetched. But it is a tale told convincingly with consummate ease, and passes an entertaining hour or two.
Oh, one little quibble. Matt Haig was born in Sheffield. So was I. Tom Hazard works in a school in Tower Hamlets, East London. So did I. What made me shout in disbelief was not any scientific speculation, but that he apparently got a job there in a private school! What were the odds, in this inner-city borough, with a mostly Sylheti community? I had never come across one, save for Faith schools. Intrigued, I googled, to find that yes, indeed, now there are just two. OK, I’ll have to let that pass then. But for authenticity, I feel he could have chosen some other London borough in which to set this “private” secondary school.
Another tidbit? Benedict Cumberbatch has been lined up to star in an upcoming film adaptation.
Much in How to Stop Time is pseudo-profound, as if it attempts to impart a great truth, but just misses the mark. The ending is a bit of esoteric pyschobabble, which to me feels like rather a damp squib:
“There is only the present. Just as every object on earth contains similar and interchanging atoms, so every fragment of time contains aspects of every other.
In those moments that burst alive the present lasts for ever, and I know there are many more presents to live. I understand you can be free. I understand that the way you stop time is by stopping being ruled by it. I am no longer drowning in my past, or fearful of my future. How can I be?
The future is you.”
My rating of this book is just touching 3 stars. I’ll end with a couple of lines I do like:
“To talk about memories is to live them a little.”
“Whenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I don’t expect, I feel civilisation has become a little safer.”
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Reading Progress
January 20, 2018
–
Started Reading
January 20, 2018
– Shelved
January 27, 2018
–
46.15%
"Marion preferred music made with breath to music made with the fingers."
"To talk about memories is to live them a little.""
page
150
"To talk about memories is to live them a little.""
January 28, 2018
–
53.85%
"We spend so much time waiting for something to happen, that when it does we cannot absorb it."
page
175
January 31, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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Jan 28, 2018 09:16AM
Jean, loved his book "The Humans" and I hope you are enjoying this one!
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I didn't know this author! Must search that one out, thanks Terri. Yes, I am :)
It was one of my favorite books of 2013! Enjoy!
Fantastic review, Jean.
Thank you very much, Diane :)
Fabulous review Jean. I adored this book, it put forward a lot of questions about the quality of life.
Nat wrote: "Fabulous review Jean. I adored this book, it put forward a lot of questions about the quality of life."Thank you very much Nat.
Thank you Crumb :)
An excellent, detailed, thoughtful review - I was so pleased to see the picture of Omai too, thank you. And I agree with your conclusion. Somehow you’d expect someone who’s lived for 500 years to be able to say something a bit more, well, original, perceptive or thoughtful about our human condition. But in the end he sounded pretty much like any other forty year old male with a mid-life crisis and commitment issues.
Julie wrote: "An excellent, detailed, thoughtful review - I was so pleased to see the picture of Omai too, thank you. And I agree with your conclusion. Somehow you’d expect someone who’s lived for 500 years to b..."Thank you very much Julie :)
I do like your thoughtful review but I loved the book. It didnt pretend to br high philosophy but its exuberence and charm worked on me!
Magdelanye wrote: "I do like your thoughtful review but I loved the book. It didnt pretend to br high philosophy but its exuberence and charm worked on me!"Great! It's always good to hear when someone enjoys a book so much :) Thanks for your comment, Magdelanye.
Not sure how I missed this review when it was written, but delighted it resurfaced. Have added this to my TBR. I remember being smitten by the movie Highlander when it was released. (remember I was pretty young at the time myself). The fascinating element of that movie was the one you have addressed here...who wants to live forever if others do not, how much love and loss can a human being bear?
Sara wrote: "Not sure how I missed this review when it was written, but delighted it resurfaced. Have added this to my TBR. I remember being smitten by the movie Highlander when it was released. (remember I was..."Thank you Sara! I hope you enjoy the read :)
Rita wrote: "Wonderful review! I'm looking forward to reading this."Thank you Rita :) I think you might enjoy it.
I'm not a fan of pretentious philosophising, but I am a fan of this kind of time-travel or anti-ageing dilemma. I'm not sure why it appeals to me, but it's kind of fun to think about. Great review, and I stand warned by your "pseudo-profound" comment, but I may still give it a go. :)
Good review Jean, so far I have read only one book by this author and I found him to be a “moaning Minnie”
PattyMacDotComma wrote: "I'm not a fan of pretentious philosophising, but I am a fan of this kind of time-travel or anti-ageing dilemma. I'm not sure why it appeals to me, but it's kind of fun to think about. Great review,..."I hope you enjoy it if you read it Patty, and will be interested in your thoughts :)
G.J. wrote: "Good review Jean, so far I have read only one book by this author and I found him to be a “moaning Minnie”"Oh dear! Maybe I won't read another for a while ... and thank you G.J. :)
Sorry you didn't enjoy this more Jean. It was my first Matt Haig book and I absolutely loved it!!!
Teresa wrote: "Sorry you didn't enjoy this more Jean. It was my first Matt Haig book and I absolutely loved it!!!"A 3 star review from me is favourable - the GR rating is "liked it". But no, ultimately it was a "passes-the-time" book for me.
I'm pleased for you though, Teresa :)
I'm also thrilled with your info that it's going to be a film!! Hope they do it justice. I do like Cumberbatch.
I agree there Teresa; he seems to be good in everything he tackles!
Excellent review and commentary, as usual!
Chris wrote: "Excellent review and commentary, as usual!"Thank you so much Chris :)
Great review! I think the ultimate emptiness of the characters’ underlying belief systems comes through. In this book humans are the pinnacle of the universe, even Omai abandons his manna belief. Does Tom live for love? His embracing of the beauty of the present? As you pointed out the whole answer to What is the meaning of life , didn’t come through.
Jeanene wrote: "Great review! I think the ultimate emptiness of the characters’ underlying belief systems comes through. In this book humans are the pinnacle of the universe, even Omai abandons his manna belief. D..."Thank you so much, Jeanene 😊
