Nineteenth Century Individualism And Twentieth Century Organization

One aspect of HG Wells' The Time Machine is unlike anything in Poul Anderson's works. Whereas the Time Traveler himself is a nineteenth century individual inventor like Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Moreau and the Invisible Man, Anderson's twentieth century characters do not invent their own time machines but are contacted by time traveling organizations from the further future. In There Will Be Time, Robert Anderson speculates that the time travel gene was seeded in the past from the remote future.

"'But is it not some hoax?' I said. 'Do you really travel through time?'

"'Really and truly I do.' And he looked frankly into my ideas. He hesitated. His eyes wandered about the room. 'I only want half an hour,' he said. 'I know why you came, and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines here. If you'll stop to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimens and all. If you'll forgive me leaving you now?'"

-HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973), 16, p. 100.

 

In this passage, the Time Traveler, doing everything himself and offering proof before lunch, is the antithesis of Manse Everard joining the Time Patrol, Malcolm Lockridge drawn into the time war between Wardens and Rangers or Duncan Reid swept back to the age of Atlantis by a malfunctioning anakro. Wells' Time Traveler is the literary precursor of the BBC Doctor Who and I imagine him in this scene as played by the fourth TV Doctor, Tom Baker, although without Baker's wide-eyed look.

 

In There Will Be Time, Jack Havig's time travel group comes into conflict with Caleb Wallis's Eyrie. Havig was born in 1933 whereas Wallis had been born in 1853. Robert Anderson points out that Wallis is a nineteenth century individualist whom Havig can outmaneuver with a twentieth century organizational, operations analysis approach.

 

"'...Caleb Wallis...was born more than a hundred years ago.'

"'What's his birth got to do with the matter?' Havig demanded.

"'Quite a bit,' I said."

-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), XIV, p. 152.

 

"Dr Dimble looked out the window. 'There is my dullest pupil just ringing the bell,' he said. 'I must go to the study, and listen to an essay on Swift beginning, 'Swift was born.'"

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 1, p. 377.

 

Years ago, I attended a talk by Duncan Hallas beginning, "Marx was born...," although, of course, Duncan went on to state where and when Marx had been born. Afterwards, I told him that he had effectively quoted a CS Lewis novel. Duncan insisted that his point had been that place and time matter as, of course, they do. Marx, Wallis and Havig represent real, then fictional, history. History is going somewhere. We might not like where.

 

For more on the implications of the Time Traveler as an individual inventor, see Whatever Happened To The Time Traveller?