Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney by Jack Seabrook

Author:Jack Seabrook
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History and Criticism, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Finney, General, Science Fiction, American, Literary Criticism, American - History and Criticism, Jack - Criticism and Interpretation
ISBN: 9780786424375
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2006-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

She looked slowly around at the worn empty benches; at the long row of ticket windows nearly all permanently hoarded over with raw plywood; at the dusty-windowed restaurant in a corner of the waiting room, the big handles of its entrance doors chained together and padlocked; at the great overhead blackboard labeled ARRIVALS DEPARTURES, its green-ruled spaces empty; at the dismantled lunch counter, its row of metal stool supports still bolted to the floor, the stool tops gone [78 79].

Long-time readers of Jack Finney might compare this railroad station to the Grand Central Station of "The Third Level": in the 1950 story, a visitor to the still busy station could use it as a gateway to the past. By 1973, Finney seems to say, even this method of time travel has been closed off, and Marion Marsh can only recall the distant past through memory.

Further disappointment awaits Marion when she and Nick drive to the site of the old Alcazar Theater, which is now an ugly motel. '"It's a different world, Marion,"' Nick tells her. "'The Alcazar's gone. So is the Lark. So will the SP station before long. And the world is filling up with motels. Flaming Flappers was long, long ago. And I'm not my father'" (81).

Marion decides that she is tired and gives up on recovering the past. She claims she is leaving forever, and Jan awakens, in control of her body again. She sees the chaos that Marion's visit has left in their house and deduces that she has been possessed by the flapper's ghost. The knowledge that Nick made love to her knowing that Marion was in control angers her, and she tears Marion's dress to shreds, a sign that Nick's marriage is in trouble.

In chapter five, Nick and Jan's relationship grows as she forgives him and admits that being possessed was both "'frightening'" and "'interesting'" (89). Nick discusses the 1920s with his father, who recalls them in a way that is consistent with similar passages in so much of Jack Finney's fiction. While Nick Sr. admits that '"we tend to remember what was good in the past and forget what was bad,'" he insists that '"It was just a grand and glorious time to be alive and young in'" (91). '"The people were different... nicer.... I don't remember the hatred there is now.... It was just a better time'" (91).

Nick Jr. and Jan then go to bed together, after an awkward passage in which Nick uses the word "'fuck'" and then explains how he had to train his proper wife to use '"bad words'" (92). This passage (and similar ones in Finney's next novel, The Night People) show the author trying to be modern but sounding like an aging writer (Finney turned 62 in 1973, the year that Marion's Wall was published) trying to keep up with the times. Jack Finney's fiction is most enjoyable when he and his characters are longing for the past.

At the end of this chapter, Marion Marsh returns to

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