Turning The Clock

          A book has to be unendurable for me not to read every page, but I am thinking of recalibrating my tolerance level, after having just spent too much time doggedly ‘getting through’ the last two sci-fi novels I chose. Time is short and, notwithstanding that I have recently managed to reclaim a little more of it, the sense of obligation to use my gain productively remains.

          Two questions arise from this revelation: how did I reclaim time and why do I bother reading sci-fi?

          Come to think of it, the ability to reclaim time does sound a bit sci-fi in itself. It might be better to employ the phrase “turned back the clock”. What’s happened is that I have broken the habit of drinking alcohol after dinner (mostly). It’s a behaviour I fell into when I no longer had to turn up for work in the mornings. But that was a very long time ago and the alcohol-based celebration of that release from responsibility should have ceased before now. Anyway, finally un-befuddled by booze, I feel more alert, not only in the mornings but also in the evenings – sufficiently compos mentis, at least, to read books rather than stare at the telly. It feels like rejuvenation.

          As to why I don’t give up on sci-fi, the accelerating development of tech makes me curious about what the future might look like, but with this proviso: that the humans in it be portrayed not as caricatures or extras on a hi-tech movie set, such as populate the books I have just read, but as convincingly drawn characters, people I can relate to – but who also wear their jetpacks with purpose and panache.

          Back on Earth, the rain held off for a day last week, so I took a walk through a wooded hillside that has lately been adopted by a Community Interest Company (CIC) established for the purpose of restoring the land. Their work involves removing invasive foreign species – mainly rhododendron bushes – so that the native plants can reclaim the territory. It’s a hard, physical task, digging out long-established roots on a steep and often muddy hillside, but the people I came across waved cheerfully and seemed happy in their labours.

           Later, it occurred to me that they were also ‘turning back the clock’, by seeking to reverse a process and reestablish a status ante for which they, presumably, have a preference. (It further occurred to me that there is a socio-political parallel to their agricultural mission: the language of rooting out foreign invaders and returning the land to native species is evocative of certain political dogma. Perhaps the next time I’m passing, I might put it to them – if I’m feeling up for an argument, that is.)

          Furthermore, where does restoration of the land end? If the purpose is to restore to a particular point in time, fair enough – as long as it is acknowledged not necessarily to be the ideal or ultimate state of being, just the preferred one. But it’s as well to remember, when you’re intent on recreating a situation, to be careful what you wish for. In our horticultural example – restoring the land prior to the arrival of aliens – would we uproot the potatoes that invaded the British Isles around 1580? And will the reintroduction of beavers, otters and their ilk lead inevitably to the return of scary bears in our CIC’s cherished woods?

          Having gained an hour or two of reading time in the evenings, the question now is which book to pick up (and which to put down). In taking a break from sci-fi and turning instead to history, it seems to me that a constant thread runs through the past, present and, predictably, the future: the consequences of human behaviour, regardless of whatever tech is to hand at any given time.