Ms. Hen reviews Hazards of Time Travel

Hazards of Time Travel

Joyce Carol Oates

The Ontario Review

2018

This book had been on Ms. Hen’s library list for quite some time, and she finally got around to reading it. She had never read a book by Ms. Oates before, but she did read her famous short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” when she was a hen in college. Ms. Oates has published a mountain of books, more than Ms. Hen can imagine. This novel is a departure for her, since she does not usually write science fiction.

HAZARDS OF TIME TRAVEL is about a teenage girl, Adriane Stohl, in a futuristic United States that takes place after 9/11. The country has become a state under surveillance, and everyone is watched, and people have to do what the government says. Adriane’s father was penalized for having radical ideas, and he is not allowed to practice medicine, though he went to medical school, and is qualified to work as a physician. In school, Adriane and her classmates are not encouraged to do well, because that could be considered dangerous. Girls and boys are not supposed to be friends with each other, and the system tells everyone that boys are naturally smarter than girls.

When Adriane is about to graduate from high school, she discovers she is the valedictorian. She gets a “Patriot Scholarship,” and is supposed to give a speech at graduation. She writes a speech of questions, but is not allowed to read it, because it is considered subversive. She is arrested, whisked away to the police station, and is told she is in trouble. She gets banished to Zone Nine, which is 1959 in Wisconsin at Wainscotia College where she is a freshman in the scholarship girls' dorm. She is traumatized by what has happened, and misses her family, and she doesn’t know if they are aware of what has happened to her. She eventually makes friends with and falls in love with an assistant psychology professor, Ira Wolfman, who is also from the future and has been banished.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is similar to other novels she has read, but the difference is that this one directly addresses the possibilities of a transformed world after 9/11. It’s comparable to 1984 in the way that it’s about a world where nobody has any privacy, and everyone is watched but it’s different because this novel was written during the age of the Internet, so the author and the reader know what has actually already happened.

Ms. Hen liked being in the world of 1959, and enjoyed how messed up it was. Adriane is from the future, and is appalled by the way the people live in 1959. She faints the first time she sees a typewriter, and she is terrified when she tries to use one because it is so difficult to press down on the keys, unlike the computers in the future. She also gets disgusted by the food the people eat, and is confused over the clothes the young women wear. Wainscotia is known as “The Happy Place," but nobody is happy there, because they are so naïve, the people don’t understand what the meaning of intelligence and originality.

Ms. Hen thinks that the end of this novel is weak, and it could have been breathtaking. She doesn’t want to tell you what happened, but she thinks that a novel with this much tension should have ended on a more dramatic note. She read reviews of this novel, and some thought the writing was rushed, which Ms. Hen thinks is true. Ms. Oates produces an enormous amount of work, and maybe she doesn’t have time to edit them thoroughly, since she writes so much.

This is not the best novel that Ms. Hen has read, but it is not the worst. It’s worth reading, if you like science fiction, and like to explore the possibility that anything could happen. But don’t expect an avalanche of snow to fall on your head and wake you up from your dreamless slumber, because Ms. Hen doesn’t think will happen.