Reviewed by Ron Charles
What if you could travel back in time, strangle 8-year-old Hitler and avert the Holocaust?
What if you could travel back in time and bring your grandmother to her first orgasm?
Kind of makes you think, doesn't it? These are the bizarre questions Selden Edwards explores in his novel about a family caught in a history loop. When California rock legend Wheeler Burden wakes up in 1897 Vienna -- 50 years before his own birth -- he has no idea how he got there or how he'll get back, but he recognizes the city from the stories told by his favorite prep school teacher. Conspicuous in his 1980s garb, he quickly steals some clothes from an American businessman who turns out to be his future grandfather. Big mistake: Grandpa's not the kind of guy you want for an enemy. But then Wheeler spots another time-traveler: His young father has just popped in from World War II, equally confused about how he arrived. Dad insists that they do nothing to disrupt the future, but he's dying to visit the Hitler family. Meanwhile, Wheeler can't resist the beauty of a young tourist from Boston who will someday become his grandmother. (Even when we learn they may not be genetically related, that doesn't lessen the ick factor much.)
What's weirdest about this weird story is how straight-faced Edwards plays it. As The Little Book jumps back and forth in time, everything here signals the wackiness of John Irving or John Barth, but Edwards moves through his chronology-scrambled fantasy with such earnestness and nostalgia that he smothers its potential comedy.
That problem is particularly egregious in the chapters at the St. Gregory's School in Boston, where Wheeler spends his teen years. There we meet his prep school mentor, Arnauld Esterhazy, nicknamed "the Venerable Haze," who's taught history for more than 40 years. Edwards, who went to a Boston prep school himself and later worked for several private schools, suggests in an author's note that these scenes stem from beloved memories, but that lack of emotional distance leaves no room for irony. The narrator lavishes all kinds of apparently sincere praise upon the Venerable Haze, but to me he sounds like Miss Jean Brodie in drag. Haze refers to his student devotees as his "Jung Wien." When he first meets Wheeler, he says, "We have much to learn from you, Herr Burden, as we begin writing on your tabula rasa." He prattles on about Vienna during its "time of delusive splendor." He frequently reads passages about the city "with great reverence" from "his prized source, the 'Little Book,' " and then asks the kids, "Isn't that writing absolutely exquisite?" This sounds satirical, but it's not meant to be. Edwards claims that "over the years his Jung Wien, sophisticated private school boys who could be cynical about so much in their lives, rarely directed any of their derision at the 'Little Book.' " We never hear anything from this book ourselves, but we're told again and again how great it is.
In fact, Edwards makes so many hyperbolic claims that The Little Book begins to sound rather flat, like a tall tale told without a wink. Edwards can't stop petting Wheeler and reminding us how wonderful he is. Of course, he's incredibly good looking and sexually athletic, but he also writes a foundational work of 20th-century philosophy and inspires "the beginning of the American feminist movement." (You didn't think women could do that on their own, did you?) And he throws the fastest pitch in college baseball (at Harvard, naturally). Then he writes "the most famous song of the 1970s" and becomes "one of People magazine's Most Recognizable." Then he publishes a bestselling book in the 1980s. The whole narrative is soggy with hero-worship, like the fantasy of a skinny teenage boy staring into a mirror.
Edwards does far better describing the coffeehaus culture of prewar Vienna in all its beauty, political agitation and rising anti-Semitism. Some of the historical figures here during the fin de siècle make nice cameos, too, such as Gustav Mahler and Mark Twain. After Wheeler pops into the late 19th century, he supports himself in Vienna by telling the story of his life to a young doctor named Sigmund Freud, who's convinced this strange man is seriously delusional. Their discussions provide an interesting snapshot of Freud's work in progress, but, unfortunately, the doctor never springs to life, largely because Edwards won't allow anyone to upstage Wheeler. Even the founder of modern psychology must take pointers from this brilliant rock-star time-traveler.
In the end we learn that Wheeler's family is responsible for just about every major event in the 20th century. Including the Frisbee. But we never know why or why their "lives weave together in a fatal and continuous and repeating loop." Since most readers will suspect from the outset that Wheeler and his father won't be able to avert the Holocaust, their dilatory adventure doesn't generate much suspense. Instead, the story evolves into a peculiar romance as Wheeler woos his future grandmother and helps her overcome her Victorian inhibitions using Dr. Freud's new talking cure. Their love may be doomed, but who can resist the thrill of watching the two of them "riding the wave of mutual passion to the crest"? Go, Grams!
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
The subtitle of Edwards's Twain-indebted debut, written over the course of 30 years, might be "A California Yankee in Doctor Freud's Court." Following a physical assault, Stan "Wheeler" Burden is precipitated into the past-1897 Vienna, to be exact-from 1988 San Francisco. Wheeler has been a teenage baseball star and famed rock 'n' roller, but he's dreamed of Vienna since his prep school days, where his teacher, Arnauld Esterhazy, instilled a love of the city's gilded paradoxes. Vienna of 1897 is indeed hopping: Freud is discovering the Oedipus complex, Mahler is conducting his symphonies, and the mayor, Karl Lueger, is inventing modern, populist anti-Semitism-which the young Hitler will soon internalize. Making this a true oedipal drama, Wheeler's father and grandparents come to town, too, all at different ages, and with very different agendas. Edwards has great fun with time travel paradoxes and anachronisms, but the real romance in this book is with the period, topped by nostalgia for the old-school American elite, as represented by the we-all-went-to-the-same-prep-school Burdens. This novel ends up a sweet, wistful elegy to the fantastic promise and failed hopes of the 20th century.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Wheeler Burden one day finds himself mysteriously transported from 1988 San Francisco to the Ringstrasse of 1897 Vienna. This strange occurrence begins a tale that sprawls over 91 years, two continents, two world wars, and a century of intense intellectual, cultural, and political change. Readers also get a great saga about Boston Brahmins, wealthy yet with a morass of tacky little secrets. The author adds to this tasty little ragout cameo appearances by Freud, Mahler, Schoenberg, Wickstein, Mark Twain, Buddy Holly, and Winston Churchill. A leisurely tale, the plot unfolds slowly through a complex structure of multiple viewpoints and narrators. It’s very talky, but the dialogue usually drives the plot forward and is often leavened by touches of ironic humor. Readers may find the overabundance of coincidences maddening, but that won’t keep them from reading on to the shocking climax and the thoroughly satisfying and elegant resolution. Myriad readers will enjoy this book—especially historical-fiction buffs and family-saga devotees—so stock up. --Ellen Loughran
