Lost in Time - Hardcover

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805065717 ISBN 13: 9780805065718

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2000

Synopsis

In this innovative time-travel tale, Enzensberger treats history with the same wit, knowledge, adn charm that he broght to mathematics in The Number Devil.

When fourteen-year-old Robert blinks, he is pulled into the place and time of whatever he happens to be looking at. A television documentary leaves him shivering in Siberia in 1956, a movie drops him into the opal mines of post-war Australia, a photo on a mantle zips him off to impoverished Weimar Germany. And that's only the beginning. Hans Magnus Enzensberger takes us through seven countries and historical periods, recreating in each place the mood and temper of the time. But how can Robert return to his own home and kitchen? Landing in seventeenth-century Holland as apprentice to a great painter, Robert comes upon a solution -- but only if he can recall the future, perfectly.

Readers will be swept along by Enzensberger's fast-paced plot, keen eye for detail, fine sense of romance and intrigue, and clever techniques for propelling Robert along his journey. An enchanting introduction to world history, Lost in Time is an engaging novel for readers of all ages.

About this title

About the Author

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is the author of many highly lauded books, including The Consciousness Industry and The Number Devil, an international best seller much loved by readers of all ages. He lives in Munich.

Reviews

Grade 6-9-Robert, the 13-year-old protagonist in this time-travel odyssey, has always known there was something unusual about his eyes. He sees flickering lights and odd pictures, but these sights are his secret. Then one afternoon, the German teen is suddenly transported through time to Siberia and then takes a train to Moscow. The year there is 1956 and Cold War paranoia is in full bloom. After numerous difficulties, he escapes to a theater. Frightened and homesick, he rubs his eyes and abruptly finds himself in the middle of the movie, which is now very real. Thus the pattern for the rest of the book is set. By looking at various pictures, Robert is telescoped back in time through seven different escapades, each one taking him further and further from the present. The book is basically a magical history tour, where Robert comes face to face with the flesh-and-blood people who lived during the various times he visits. In one episode, he meets his great grandmother in pre-World War II Germany. In another, he becomes involved with a band of highway robbers during the Thirty Years' War in Europe. In all of his journeys, Robert is taken in and accepted without question by at least one person. This and some of the other plot devices are weak, but each adventure introduces readers to fascinating historical details. Robert's return to the present is cleverly executed. While this book will not have wide appeal, it will attract students who are curious about the past in a way that goes beyond the superficial treatment found in textbooks.
Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A 13-year-old travels deeper and deeper into the past in this clever if not entirely satisfying tale by the author of The Number Devil. Robert seems ordinary enough, except for his photographic memory and "something funny about his eyes." Watching television one evening, he finds himself inexplicably transported to the scene on the screen: Siberia in the 1950s. He is to have six other time adventures, all achieved by "entering" pictures of different sorts. Among his destinations: his German hometown in 1930, Norway in 1860 and the Alsace during the Thirty Years War. Robert manages to get by on his own cunning and with the simplest of tools; after all, "Robert had once been camping somewhere in the mountains, with no TV and no bathroom, so he knew that you could get by somehow if you must." Little connects one journey to the next, and although rich in historical details, the episodes themselves may sometimes seem randomAat least they may to American readers, who will have less familiarity with European history than Enzensberger's original German audience. At one point Robert muses that "human beings were capable of anything, the worst of evils and the greatest of wonders," but this theme is never followed through and no overarching motif rises to give purpose to the episodes. However, Enzensberger's humorously deadpan narrative voice, his taste for witty ironies and Robert's sheer moxie offer a surfeit of pleasures in and of themselves. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 9-12. First published in German in 1998 with a more evocative title (translated as Where Were You, Robert?), this extremely odd time-travel story may have a hard time finding its audience. Fifteen-year-old Robert disappears from his kitchen into a scene from his television, ending up in 1956 Russia. Other adventures, each related to a picture of some kind, follow: a scene from a movie takes Robert to 1946 Australia; a photograph takes him back to 1930 to the home of his own great-grandmother. He even falls in with robbers in 1638 Strasbourg and is shocked to realize that the leader of the group is the image of his best friend back home. He gets home at last by painting himself into an image of his own kitchen. It's all pretty strange, with a strong European sensibility. But Robert's disaffected, ironic voice, combined with his strange adventures, may catch readers who have a taste for offbeat fantasy. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805065717
• ISBN 13: 9780805065718
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352