The first person narrator of the Foreword is Poul Anderson.
The first person narrator of the novel is Robert Anderson.
The hero of the novel is Jack Havig, time traveler.
In The Time Machine, the inner narrator is the hero/Time Traveler but Anderson adds a third narrative layer, thus further refining the literary tradition summarized in Narratives And Explanations. Do we readers believe what Poul Anderson tells us Robert Anderson told him Jack Havig told him, especially when we are to understand that the account has been fictionalized in any case?
Poul Anderson directly addresses the reader:
"Oh, we could get together, you and I, and ransack official files, old newspapers, yearbooks, journals, and so on forever." (p. 5)
Thus, we are directly drawn into the narrative which has the author on this side and a time traveler on the other side, just out of reach. Havig's home town of "Senlac" (fictionalized name) is concretely realized (see here), especially the detail of Morgan Woods.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That confoundedly convincing foreword to THERE WILL BE TIME certainly shook me! For years I was watching anxiously to see if the future leading to the War of Judgment was coming true. A writer can have no greater compliment than that, people thinking what he wrote about was real.
Ad astra! Sean
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