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Making History

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Suppose the opportunist Gloder had altogether avoided the Final Solution, and contented himself with some anti-Jewish rhetoric. While he did a great job illustrating, in a small way, how some small changes would result in a world that is more or less racist/bigoted or homophobic. The idea this book is based on is nothing new, people have discussed this many times, but this is the first time I have seen the idea written down.

I am aware that my extreme aversion to this literary device is subjective – probably connected to the fact that books are my first and major love, while films are okay, I suppose…. Students at Princeton are purely white and the only Black people on campus are manual workers; students feel free to harass them and use slurs. Michael and Leo try to fix the world by making it so that Hitler was never born, except the world that results is even worse. Having said that, up to the point it all went Courier I found the depiction of the alternate world engrossing and chilling in equal measure. I was also quite amused by the comparisons between "American" and English" expressions in the book, as a Canadian, is was 50/50 as to which one was more familiar to me.

They decide to send the pill back in time to the well in Braunau am Inn so that Hitler's father will drink from it and become infertile, with the result that Hitler will never be born. The story is told in first person by Michael "Puppy" Young, a young history student at Cambridge University on the verge of completing his doctoral thesis on the early life of Adolf Hitler and his mother. Together, with the help of some little orange male infertility pills and some high-tech gadgetry, they set out to alter history.

Michael Young is a brilliant young history student whose life is changed when he meets Leo Zuckerman, an ageing physicist with a theory that can change worlds. It really looked as if we were moving towards the millennium in a period of peace and prosperity, with huge, benevolent technological advances that seemed to have no downsides.

I think Fry was wanting a lighter tone to the novel (he achieved that), but I do not think it met my preference. The best part of the book was the alternate world that Fry imagined, with a very different outcome to the Second World War from the one we know. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times found the comic tone of the book "shockingly tasteless" and "deeply offensive" given the subject matter.

The heart-wrenching truth and circumstances surrounding the darkest period of human history and just the very idea of rewriting life as we know it, already gave a plethora of moments where I had to keep the book aside to digest the narrative.The ceaselessly expanding Christian Societies in the university would tell you that it was a sign that you needed room for Christ in your life. I remembering thinking it would be rather sort of cheating to say that I was Jewish, as if that gave me a special right – but of course, in a sense, it does. As to Leo Zuckerman, his guilt felt real, which really added to his motivation for doing what he did. and towards the end became rather sophomoric, as did Fry's completely unnecessary descent into an alternative love story way out of character for our young hero, even understanding that he too changed when the world changed. Young and Leo Zuckerman - the young British historian and the elderly German physicist at the centre of the story - are engaging, believable, and well-rounded characters, and the situations into which they are thrown are, as I said, thrilling and involving and page-turning stuff.

Probably my favorite fiction book by the wonderful Stephen Fry - when you have read his autobiography, my suggestion is to go for this one! The imagination is helped along at times by the clever use of almost a screenplay type script, very cleverly used to aid communication between author's minds and the readers.I found myself really enjoying Stephen Fry's delve into a different history and the effects on the present. Having said that though, I am not convinced that Young's comic actions and immaturity were necessarily the best means to relay such an interesting theory. The way that Fry balances the serious nature of the subject with his trademark wit is the most stunning aspect of Making History, and the most rewarding. This isn't the first time I have heard about Stephen Fry, but I was always reluctant to try his books.

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