Ampersand Book Club discussion

The next book we will be discussing is Ken Grimwood's Replay.

Looking forward to it!

Nice! It will be interesting to see how this book and Life After Life handle similar concepts.

I am so behind, I haven't even gotten to And the Mountains Echoed yet! I think my crazy project is almost over though, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up soon!

No worries! I skipped one, myself. I'll have to do some catch up as well. Good luck with your project!

Finished this book today.

So about the inevitable comparison to our other time-shifting fiction Life After Life: I enjoyed this story so much more! In retrospect, Life After Life's main character felt so disconnected. I read about her many many lives, but she never felt very vivid or real to me. Even she seemed to feel like she was living someone else's life. The main characters in Replay, on the otherhand, really had a greater presence.

What I didn't expect was (view spoiler)[the love story, which turned out to be so very satisfying, because I feel like I've been disappointed time and again by the romances in the various books I've read these past few years. (Maybe because I usually read YA?) The relationship between Jeff and Pamela was poignant and beautiful. And I love how it ended -- sad but hopeful that someday they will be together. (hide spoiler)]

Over all, I thought it was a great story and teared up a few times, but on a nitty-gritty technical level (since this IS considered a 'science fiction' novel): (view spoiler)[

1. The reason the replays happen is never explained. I suppose this goes along with the Life After Life and Time Traveler's Wife tropes, of the unexplained time jumps. Somewhat annoying. However, I loved how they encountered at least one guy who tried to make sense of it in his own twisted way.

2. Inevitably, there are plot holes to time travel books, and the big one here is: can you change the major events of history or not? His failed attempt to prevent Kennedy's assassination suggests you can't, but their ability to turn the United States into a land of martial law in that disastrous lifetime where they get commandeered by the NSA (hah! such an inadvertently timely indictment of the lengths the US gov will go to in the name of "national security") suggests that it IS possible. Hmm... (hide spoiler)]

I hear that it might be taken up for a movie remake (possibly with Ben Affleck?) That would be really interesting! Especially if they choose to update it into modern times. I'd like to see what historic events they will choose to address. I'd love to see an contemporary version of this story!

Waiting on a copy from the library, then I'll be caught up, yay!

Decided to make my whole review a spoiler as I don't want to give anything away:

(view spoiler)[Because the protagonist of Replay is male as is the author (and the person who recommended the book to me), I expected it to be more of a thriller. So it was kind of a surprise when a romance was introduced into the story.

Despite the one-true-person aspect of Jeff's relationship with Pamela, I like that Jeff is able to find joy in different things. (Instead of completely wilting like Bella does when Edward leaves her in New Moon.) He and Judy have a wonderful marriage in his second replay (or third life). He is even able to enjoy his marriage to Linda, without the worry of money that nearly wrecked their marriage in his initial life. Although there's an element of fate to Jeff and Pamela's romance, Jeff is able to experience happiness in other ways.

What I really appreciate about this book are the things Jeff and Pamela do to make sense of their situation. One of the things that drives me crazy about so many horror movies is how the characters lack common sense: they act as if they've never watched a horror movie and so have no idea what to do when, for example, they encounter an undead. But Jeff thinks about the time travel stories that he's read. Jeff and Pamela place ads to see if they can locate other replayers. They even see if they can enlist the help of scientists to figure out what's going on.

I was also fascinated by the character of Stuart. I thought initially that he might be telling the truth, that the replays were the work of aliens. But when Jeff and Pamela react with revulsion, I realized Stuart only chose to interpret the replays differently, in a dangerously unstable way.

In some ways, this book can be summed up by this quote Pamela takes from the Bhagavad-Gita: "'You and I, Arjuna, have lived many lives. I remember them all. You do not remember.'" It's almost as if they go through the stages of grief, moving towards acceptance with each replay. Each of Jeff's lives seem different enough so that he—along with the reader—learns something new. Make money in one life; be a hedonist in another; try to change the world in the following. The timeline in which the U.S. becomes a fascism state presented a really interesting idea. I like the notion of trying to change history but not foreseeing how things might turn for the worst.

I did wonder how the story would wrap up. It didn't end the way I expected it to, but it was a very satisfying ending, one full of hope. (hide spoiler)]

So I can't say I loved it, but I didn't really hate it either. It reminded me too much of the movie Groundhog Day, which I hated, but I agree the character was a lot more relatable than in Life After Life. The storyline progression was also easier to follow. The book is really dated though :-)

Hm. Sorry you didn't like it. I loved it, myself. Still think it's one of the best time travel books I've read. And yes it's dated, but I don't think it takes away from the impact.

Oh I didn't think it did it all, I just find it funny to read about all these older events and household names becoming known for the first time. I did like the characters and found it interesting that all of the various replays were different. I may change my rating, I'm still undecided on how I feel about it. It's good for me to read books I wouldn't normally choose, gets me out of my genre rut :-)

Oh yeah, I hear you! The events they referred to were definitely of a different generation. So I think a modern movie version would be so interesting.

I like going out of my usual genre too, though my most recent foray into historic/biographical fiction didn't end well.