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Voices in Time
A distinguished Canadian novelist blends past and future in a tale imaginatively exploring the individual's responsibility to himself and to society
313 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
3 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Hugh MacLennan
47 books73 followersJohn Hugh MacLennan was born to Dr.Samuel MacLennan, a physician, and Katherine MacQuarrie in Glace Bay; he had an older sister named Frances. His father was a stern Calvinist; his mother, creative, warm and dreamy. Hugh inherited traits from both. In 1913 they went to London where Samuel took courses for a medical specialty. When they returned to Canada, they settled briefly in Sydney, before moving permanently to Halifax where they experienced the Explosion in Dec. 1917, which Hugh later wrote about in his first published novel, Barometer Rising. He became good at sports, winning the men's N.S. double tennis championship in 1927. Both Frances and Hugh were pushed hard in their schooling by their father, especially in the Classics. Frances had no interest in these subjects, but Hugh did well in them, first at Dalhousie University, winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. He worked incredibly hard there but only reached second-class. In his 4th year, he spent more and more time on tennis and writing poetry, which was not accepted by the publishers to whom he sent it.
While in Europe he traveled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. While sailing home in 1932, he met his future wife, Dorothy Duncan. His father was not pleased with her American background and insisted that he not marry before becoming independent. Since he was refused a job at two Canadian universities and had a scholarship for Princeton University, he completed his Ph.D.Oxyrhynchus:An Economic and Social Study, about the decline of a Roman colony in Egypt.
He wrote two novels during those years, one set in Europe, the other in the USA. but they were never published. It was his wife, whom he married in 1936, who persuaded him to set his work in Canada, the country he knew best. He had begun teaching at Lower Canada College in Montreal. She told him, "Nobody's going to understand Canada until she evolves a literature of her own, and you're the fellow to start bringing Canadian novels up to date." Until then there had been no real tradition of Canadian literature, and MacLennan set out to define Canada for Canadians through a national novel.Barometer Rising, his novel about the social class structure of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, was published in 1941.
While in Europe he traveled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. While sailing home in 1932, he met his future wife, Dorothy Duncan. His father was not pleased with her American background and insisted that he not marry before becoming independent. Since he was refused a job at two Canadian universities and had a scholarship for Princeton University, he completed his Ph.D.Oxyrhynchus:An Economic and Social Study, about the decline of a Roman colony in Egypt.
He wrote two novels during those years, one set in Europe, the other in the USA. but they were never published. It was his wife, whom he married in 1936, who persuaded him to set his work in Canada, the country he knew best. He had begun teaching at Lower Canada College in Montreal. She told him, "Nobody's going to understand Canada until she evolves a literature of her own, and you're the fellow to start bringing Canadian novels up to date." Until then there had been no real tradition of Canadian literature, and MacLennan set out to define Canada for Canadians through a national novel.Barometer Rising, his novel about the social class structure of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, was published in 1941.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 18, 2012
I feel terrible about not liking Voices in Time. Seriously. I do like Hugh MacLennan -- he wrote one of my favourite books of all time (Barometer Rising). But I did not get along with this one at all, and that distresses me greatly.
When I started out, I read the back cover, which seemed promising. The story was to feature a "good German" in WW2 Germany and a Canadian celebrity who comes to prominence during the FLQ crisis of 1970, and of course the connections between their stories would be explored. "Two societies perched on the brink of destruction. Two men linked in time by fate." I love this stuff, especially the WW2 these days, and the FLQ crisis is one of those events I am always struck by when it comes up in fiction.
Then I started reading. Apparently the whole "two men linked in time by fate" thing, instead of being presented in the conventional manner of alternating chunks of narration, had a frame story of an elderly man named John Wellfleet, who is related to both of these men, going through their papers. Now this would not normally be a problem, except in this case John Wellfleet lived in some bizarre dystopia that was not adequately fleshed out at the beginning. I had way too many questions about it. Apparently Montreal was destroyed, and these papers were found in the ruins of a downtown building? What is this Destruction that allegedly took place? How about the Great Fear? A Bureaucracy somehow managed to rise from the ruins and rebuild society (three of them, actually)? How are the younger members of this rebuilding society able to pull together and start trying to harness hydroelectric energy, but they need the concept of television explained to them? They can use a telephone but have never heard of encyclopedias?
Theoretically, all of these questions would be answered in due course, and of course this was written in 1980 and may not have predicted the advent of personal computers, but the technological aspects really bugged me and I was not getting answers fast enough.
In addition, the writing style was difficult for me to get on with. Because the papers that Wellfleet is going through are not really well organized (as he says), the narrative is a mixture of summarizing by Wellfleet and direct quoting from the papers. The mishmash of voices was a bit too chaotic for me and may have worked better if the summarizing and direct quoting had been separated with white space and/or section breaks. The writing itself also tended to overwriting in places, with some of the dialogue sounding unnatural and the descriptions irritating me as description sometimes does. Also I personally do not need graphic descriptions of rape, especially when the victim is retelling the incident in first person.
After I decided to abandon this book I looked it up elsewhere online and found a page that summarized it as "dense and experimental." Had I known from the outset that it was experimental, would I have stuck with it longer? Perhaps, perhaps not. But I must confess I am extremely reluctant to try again.
When I started out, I read the back cover, which seemed promising. The story was to feature a "good German" in WW2 Germany and a Canadian celebrity who comes to prominence during the FLQ crisis of 1970, and of course the connections between their stories would be explored. "Two societies perched on the brink of destruction. Two men linked in time by fate." I love this stuff, especially the WW2 these days, and the FLQ crisis is one of those events I am always struck by when it comes up in fiction.
Then I started reading. Apparently the whole "two men linked in time by fate" thing, instead of being presented in the conventional manner of alternating chunks of narration, had a frame story of an elderly man named John Wellfleet, who is related to both of these men, going through their papers. Now this would not normally be a problem, except in this case John Wellfleet lived in some bizarre dystopia that was not adequately fleshed out at the beginning. I had way too many questions about it. Apparently Montreal was destroyed, and these papers were found in the ruins of a downtown building? What is this Destruction that allegedly took place? How about the Great Fear? A Bureaucracy somehow managed to rise from the ruins and rebuild society (three of them, actually)? How are the younger members of this rebuilding society able to pull together and start trying to harness hydroelectric energy, but they need the concept of television explained to them? They can use a telephone but have never heard of encyclopedias?
Theoretically, all of these questions would be answered in due course, and of course this was written in 1980 and may not have predicted the advent of personal computers, but the technological aspects really bugged me and I was not getting answers fast enough.
In addition, the writing style was difficult for me to get on with. Because the papers that Wellfleet is going through are not really well organized (as he says), the narrative is a mixture of summarizing by Wellfleet and direct quoting from the papers. The mishmash of voices was a bit too chaotic for me and may have worked better if the summarizing and direct quoting had been separated with white space and/or section breaks. The writing itself also tended to overwriting in places, with some of the dialogue sounding unnatural and the descriptions irritating me as description sometimes does. Also I personally do not need graphic descriptions of rape, especially when the victim is retelling the incident in first person.
After I decided to abandon this book I looked it up elsewhere online and found a page that summarized it as "dense and experimental." Had I known from the outset that it was experimental, would I have stuck with it longer? Perhaps, perhaps not. But I must confess I am extremely reluctant to try again.
December 24, 2017
I last read this novel about 35 years ago, and I remembered it as being my favourite Maclennan novel. I felt let down starting it again as the Timothy Wellfleet section is disappointing. But once I got to the Conrad Dehmel section, I remembered again why I liked it so much. Reading it now is very different than the first time. I realized that John Wellfleet, who is 75 when the frame story begins, is about my age. Maclennan's future did not occur when he predicted that it would, but could still happen.
Read
January 5, 2022DNF
September 10, 2018
A weak start had Hugh MacLennan over-reacting to the turmoil of the times and prophesizing doom. Coming out after the October crisis here in Canada, Things must have seemed pretty grim for our future.
Very interesting use of flashbacks to tell a layered tale that got stronger as it went on. The story found its pace within the WW2 Germany setting, those characters and cities were strong.
The future HM predicted hasn’t come to pass, but reading about Hitler's climb to power has haunting parallels to politics today. Or maybe people are always afraid it could happen again? In any case, a very strong ending.
Very interesting use of flashbacks to tell a layered tale that got stronger as it went on. The story found its pace within the WW2 Germany setting, those characters and cities were strong.
The future HM predicted hasn’t come to pass, but reading about Hitler's climb to power has haunting parallels to politics today. Or maybe people are always afraid it could happen again? In any case, a very strong ending.
October 21, 2020
Nothing much is said about the dystopia of the present in the story. Mostly, this is a story of Nazi Germany through the eyes of one man and his family and friends, intertwined with 80s politics in Canada. I wanted to like this more than I did.
January 14, 2026
I am a big fan of Hugh MacLennan although his characters and plots are not always as convincing as they might be because they are subservient to his observations about history and society. In this novel, a survivor of a non-nuclear, but nonetheless apocalyptic war, tries to explain the first three-quarters of the twentieth century to a younger man who wants him to interpret documents that have been unearthed that were written by the older man's relatives. There are reflections on how the masses, particularly young people, are manipulated by politicians, how political power becomes irrelevant as power shifts to the wealthy, and how technology overwhelms society. MacLennan's lessons from history, as presented in fiction in 1980, are frighteningly relevant today: there are an amazing number of passages where the words MAGA and Trump could replace Nazi and Hitler and not seem the least bit out of place. The story-telling is not as compelling as in Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale but the fortune-telling is similarly frightening.
September 8, 2019
It got better as the book went on...it belies the power of the author to succinctly tap into (what I perceive to be) the zeitgeist of different cultural times and places within a single novel, but I also agree with the majority of historicists that such a thing is not objectively possible. That this is considered to be Maclennan's weakest novel is more a testimony to his earlier works, for I still found, after I got through the flat, initial soft science fiction opening, it to be a compelling read.
January 12, 2025
Wow. This book is a mixture of historical fiction with some dystopian futuristic parts, a mix I never thought could work but somehow it does. The stories happen mostly in the past with the “present” part being in an alternate future where there was some kind of political upheaval that changed everything. All the stories, or “voices” intertwine beautifully and, although none of them happen in our time, the topics could not be more relevant to today’s age where there is so much polarization in society and politics and there is so much social unrest. Really eye opening and though-inspiring.
April 14, 2018
I found this copy in an old bookstore and as I was reading it, it was falling apart. I will hold it together with an elastic band because I will not part with it. What an excellent read. It opened my eyes and considering it was written in 1980, it has foreshadowed a lot of what is happening today. Not sure that is a good thing considering what happens in the book.
This is my first time reading Hugh MacLennan. I will probably look for more of his stuff.
This is my first time reading Hugh MacLennan. I will probably look for more of his stuff.
July 24, 2020
Despite being written in 1980, the story here feels uncomfortably prescient and I might imagine myself as John - though, weirdly, my father and John would have been born within a couple years of each other in Montreal.
The Great Fear that proceeded the fall smacks of the current events, with bubbling discontent and calls for "Law and Order" feeling uncannily similar. The ignoble way that society stumbles into an apocalypse, ass backwards, distracted by media and high on prosperity, seems not so far off.
The writing here is superb and MacLennan weaves the three stories together to great effect. Timmy's erratic squandered potential, Conrad's stymied efforts as he drowns with eyes wide open, build a hopeless sense of inevitability that you can't look away from. The complex women in each story are strong in different ways, acting as best they can but ultimately trapped by circumstance - I haven't decided if I feel this is problematic or fairly progressive for 1980. Timmy, obviously, provides a much needed foil to Conrad's story, without which, those doomed noble souls would feel a bit maudlin rather than poignant.
I was worried that the early fetishization of jews and "lusty immigrants" would continue, but it seems to be Timmy rather than MacLennan who holds those views, thankfully.
The Great Fear that proceeded the fall smacks of the current events, with bubbling discontent and calls for "Law and Order" feeling uncannily similar. The ignoble way that society stumbles into an apocalypse, ass backwards, distracted by media and high on prosperity, seems not so far off.
The writing here is superb and MacLennan weaves the three stories together to great effect. Timmy's erratic squandered potential, Conrad's stymied efforts as he drowns with eyes wide open, build a hopeless sense of inevitability that you can't look away from. The complex women in each story are strong in different ways, acting as best they can but ultimately trapped by circumstance - I haven't decided if I feel this is problematic or fairly progressive for 1980. Timmy, obviously, provides a much needed foil to Conrad's story, without which, those doomed noble souls would feel a bit maudlin rather than poignant.
I was worried that the early fetishization of jews and "lusty immigrants" would continue, but it seems to be Timmy rather than MacLennan who holds those views, thankfully.
honorable-discharge
May 17, 2025Tragically, the audiobook is messed up (randomly repeated an earlier section), and I don't trust the remaining 10 hours to not be full of similar errors. Shame, since what I heard before then seemed interesting.
July 5, 2025
A lost Canadian classic. I was riveted through this novel and while in retrospect, the Quebec crisis doesn't reach the levels of Nazi Germany, the characters and plot move along in surprising and creative prose.
Read
November 7, 2020i hated it :D
do not recommend.
do not recommend.
September 22, 2023
I had been meaning to revisit this book for much of this year, having read it in my teens and re-read it about 20 years ago. Reading it in the 2000s left me disappointed with the book but there are many strong aspects of the book and there are times when MacLennan’s book is quite prescient. At times it seems that Voices in Time is just making the point that, yes, history repeats itself.
Some may find fault with the book because he doesn’t anticipate what has happened in the 2020s but beyond his forecast that modern fates would be the consequence of a computer cock-up causing a nuclear pummelling of the planet, there are underlying factors that he anticipated quite accurately. The last quarter of the book is chilling for its passages which describe our current situation. For example:
“Those unknown millions we had dismissed as red-necks felt against us a rage deeper than anything they had felt against [terrorists]. Furious voices spewed out hatred and loathing against my whole generation. We were the spoiled brats who had been responsible for all their woes. We were the ones who had destroyed their authority over their children and foisted our own laziness and sensuality onto everyone else. We were the ones who had insisted on abolishing capital punishment, had sneered at the police, had sympathized with the murderer and not with the victim, had pretended that crime is the fault of society as a whole and not of the criminal.
They turned with especial fury against our women and some of them bellowed from street corners that they were all whores. Their hatred was soul-shrivelling. These people who roared for law and order — and they craved order far more than they craved law — now took to bombs themselves.” (P. 244-5)
This reads much like a summation of the right wing fervour that has mobilized the hard right element in society currently. Later in the book is a passage stating, “The most violent screamers are really screaming for release from freedom’s discipline, which means they are screaming for somebody to return them to slavery.” (P. 295)
MacLennan has faded from the position in CanLit held throughout his life and there are signs throughout the book that he was dated in his style when compared with the contemporaries who have tried to sound similar warnings about our future. When he wrote about this novel he was unaware of the climate issues that emerged as a concern just a year or two after the publication of VIT and he may have been quite surprised to have lived to see the end of the Cold War. Still, there are profound warnings about the times we live in and for audiences living during the years he speculated about, navigating the space between the future he anticipated and the way people reacted to the changes they encountered makes this an intriguing read.
Some may find fault with the book because he doesn’t anticipate what has happened in the 2020s but beyond his forecast that modern fates would be the consequence of a computer cock-up causing a nuclear pummelling of the planet, there are underlying factors that he anticipated quite accurately. The last quarter of the book is chilling for its passages which describe our current situation. For example:
“Those unknown millions we had dismissed as red-necks felt against us a rage deeper than anything they had felt against [terrorists]. Furious voices spewed out hatred and loathing against my whole generation. We were the spoiled brats who had been responsible for all their woes. We were the ones who had destroyed their authority over their children and foisted our own laziness and sensuality onto everyone else. We were the ones who had insisted on abolishing capital punishment, had sneered at the police, had sympathized with the murderer and not with the victim, had pretended that crime is the fault of society as a whole and not of the criminal.
They turned with especial fury against our women and some of them bellowed from street corners that they were all whores. Their hatred was soul-shrivelling. These people who roared for law and order — and they craved order far more than they craved law — now took to bombs themselves.” (P. 244-5)
This reads much like a summation of the right wing fervour that has mobilized the hard right element in society currently. Later in the book is a passage stating, “The most violent screamers are really screaming for release from freedom’s discipline, which means they are screaming for somebody to return them to slavery.” (P. 295)
MacLennan has faded from the position in CanLit held throughout his life and there are signs throughout the book that he was dated in his style when compared with the contemporaries who have tried to sound similar warnings about our future. When he wrote about this novel he was unaware of the climate issues that emerged as a concern just a year or two after the publication of VIT and he may have been quite surprised to have lived to see the end of the Cold War. Still, there are profound warnings about the times we live in and for audiences living during the years he speculated about, navigating the space between the future he anticipated and the way people reacted to the changes they encountered makes this an intriguing read.
January 4, 2015
I didn't really enjoy "Voices in Time". I mean, it was ok, but it isn't what I like to read. But, definitely one to check out if you are a History Buff.
The ending was amazing. I mean, it wasn't really anything special or huge. It was actually quite simple. I don't know what it was, but it just gave me this sense of peace.
I really wish that we got to hear a little bit more of John Wellfleet's story. I feel like there are some questions that I have that weren't answered through out the novel and John's story would have answered them. I feel like we didn't get enough of his story to fully understand his story.
However, the other stories were sad. It wasn't a happy time in history and Conrad's and Timothy's stories really reflected that. I couldn't imagining being in Conrad's position. I don't know how he lived past what he had to go through. It is unimaginable and I am very thankful that I didn't have to live through any of what happened in World War 2 (or World War 1; they were both terrible).
Honour is a topic that is broached a lot in this novel. Honour and a sense of duty all mixed in with pride. I believe that honour is a mix of pride and duty and morality. At least for me, Honour is a hard to define. MacLennan's characters have to decide what honour is for themselves.
Definitely a book that history buffs should check out. This is one of the first books I've read that really deal with Canadian history and it wasn't a bad novel. My English teacher picked a pretty good book for our novel study.
The ending was amazing. I mean, it wasn't really anything special or huge. It was actually quite simple. I don't know what it was, but it just gave me this sense of peace.
I really wish that we got to hear a little bit more of John Wellfleet's story. I feel like there are some questions that I have that weren't answered through out the novel and John's story would have answered them. I feel like we didn't get enough of his story to fully understand his story.
However, the other stories were sad. It wasn't a happy time in history and Conrad's and Timothy's stories really reflected that. I couldn't imagining being in Conrad's position. I don't know how he lived past what he had to go through. It is unimaginable and I am very thankful that I didn't have to live through any of what happened in World War 2 (or World War 1; they were both terrible).
Honour is a topic that is broached a lot in this novel. Honour and a sense of duty all mixed in with pride. I believe that honour is a mix of pride and duty and morality. At least for me, Honour is a hard to define. MacLennan's characters have to decide what honour is for themselves.
Definitely a book that history buffs should check out. This is one of the first books I've read that really deal with Canadian history and it wasn't a bad novel. My English teacher picked a pretty good book for our novel study.
May 18, 2021
In a time when dystopian fiction is rampant and run of the mill, this forty year old novel stands apart from others because of its rootedness in 20th century history.
In 2030, an old man named John Wellfleet lives alone and forgotten among a community of seniors. Nuclear warfare destroyed modern civilization in his lifetime, and the governments that picked up the pieces had attempted to erase the history of civilization’s collapse.
Wellfleet is contacted by a young man who uncovered two trunks filled with letters and archival materials belonging to his relatives. As he goes through the material, he pieces together some of his family history as well as the censored, broader history of the former world.
It is an imaginative work of MacLennan’s, his final novel. It benefits from his insightful reflections on the history of the western world, offering an illuminating explanation for the madness of Adolph Hitler. It also offers commentary on the troubled times that led to the world destruction that still seem relevant to our present troubles.
However, I don’t think that Voices in Time is as satisfying a novel as earlier works of MacLennan‘s, especially The Watch That Ends the Night. It seems short and disjointed by comparison.
In 2030, an old man named John Wellfleet lives alone and forgotten among a community of seniors. Nuclear warfare destroyed modern civilization in his lifetime, and the governments that picked up the pieces had attempted to erase the history of civilization’s collapse.
Wellfleet is contacted by a young man who uncovered two trunks filled with letters and archival materials belonging to his relatives. As he goes through the material, he pieces together some of his family history as well as the censored, broader history of the former world.
It is an imaginative work of MacLennan’s, his final novel. It benefits from his insightful reflections on the history of the western world, offering an illuminating explanation for the madness of Adolph Hitler. It also offers commentary on the troubled times that led to the world destruction that still seem relevant to our present troubles.
However, I don’t think that Voices in Time is as satisfying a novel as earlier works of MacLennan‘s, especially The Watch That Ends the Night. It seems short and disjointed by comparison.
July 27, 2011
"Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a tool-making animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal." An old man reconstructs the past with documents written by relatives prior to a nuclear war and the resulting totalitarian state. The two main themes in the novel are Germany during both World Wars and the heightened civil unrest in French Canada during the sixties and seventies. Once again MacLennan's subject matter is not exactly enticing but the writing itself is incredible and you become very involved as the stories intertwine. Much of the novel is bleak and full of despair but there is also an abundance of hope and, (of course)a love story.
March 11, 2016
Having to read it in the context of English class = not an enjoyable experience
It was written in the late 1970s and Maclennan tells the story of a worldwide nuclear holocaust that occurs in 1980 that destroys almost all of civilization (all major cities, at least). Its setting shifts mainly between mid 20th century Montreal and Nazi Germany (and compares the Holocaust/WW2 to the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s).
If you're looking for a happy story, don't look here my friend.
It was written in the late 1970s and Maclennan tells the story of a worldwide nuclear holocaust that occurs in 1980 that destroys almost all of civilization (all major cities, at least). Its setting shifts mainly between mid 20th century Montreal and Nazi Germany (and compares the Holocaust/WW2 to the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s).
If you're looking for a happy story, don't look here my friend.
January 22, 2012
I read this book years ago, so it seems silly to post anything here. However, it affected me so deeply, I have added it to my list as a reminder to myself to read it again. Once re-read, I will write a proper review.
delete
delete
March 31, 2016
Interesting writing style and I also really loved the comparison and contrast between the generational gap. It's heavy with information but considering the time change that MacLennan lived through, it felt like an essential part of the book. Overall, well written and a good read
August 20, 2012
Wonderful writing. Good story.
April 21, 2017
So Good. Slow- but so good.
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