On the myclasses portal where this learning episode was found there were links for a movie and a short story. The following text with links was offered to the students, excluding images from the Timescape movie, due to copyright reasons.Citations for the texts are available in the Readings and Further Links and Resource List.
Students attending a face-to-face class for this study watched the DVD versions of Timescape using the class computer and overhead projector, while students studying as flexible learning were offered a copy of the film on CD-ROM, copied under the special provisions of local Copyright laws.
| Timescape and the 'Vintage Season' - changing fate for the family and for the community |
| Fate and destiny |
| Ursula Le Guin's 'Another Story' |
| Readings and links |
The points at the start of these notes are to be discussed in the Forum area. You are asked to jump to the Forum area, using the link here and making a comment in the appropriate Forum thread. Please remember, your participation in discussions is expected in this study, as part of your overall participation.
Forum topics for discussion: |
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| What is it that the time travellers in Timescape are seeking when they make their visits to the sites and times of catastrophes? | |
| What does Timescape teach the viewer about personal fate and destiny? | |
| How does 'Twohy's Timescape and Le Guin's 'Another Story' view the use of time travel to change personal destiny for the central characters of the narratives? |
Learning episode six is based in a short novel written by CL Moore, at the time writing as Lawrence O'Donnell in 1946. The short novel was called the Vintage Season, although it has also been called Grand Tour: Disaster in Time. This short novel has been republished several times since its first appearance in 1946, with a revival in 2000 amongst many others. The fate and predestination theme area looks at this text in a changed form called Timescape, a little-known film made by Twohy in 1999.
In the fate and predestination theme area we look at several texts that jump back and forwards in time. In these texts the time machine itself as introduced by HG Wells in his 1895 novel, is a major new idea, called a 'novum'.
The novum of the time machine allows all sorts of narrative possibilities and in learning episode four and five there were visits backwards to Roswell, to the Age of the Dinosaurs and forward hundreds of thousands of years to an underground civilisation that eats the idle rich.
In Timescape the focus of the narrative changes from the novum of the time machine to the group of strangers who visit the small, rural town. At the centre of the narrative is Ben Wilson, who is fixing up a hotel on the edge of town, overlooking the beautiful valley and the peaceful town at its heart.
Ben Wilson lost his wife in a strange accident during winter when a horse collided with the family car. His daughter, Hilary, survived and Ben is deeply unhappy, drinking and lamenting the death of his wife. When a group of travellers comes to stay in the hotel he is surprised, as the hotel is in a shambles, but Hilary persuades Ben to take them in.
Right from the start the visitors are very strange and there are certain events that lead Ben to think they are not real travellers but have some other, frightening motive for coming to stay.
In Timescape there are several dramas between different characters in the town, but the main problem is due to the death of Ben's wife in the car accident. Ben is blamed for her death even though it was shock that made him run away from the car in the wrong direction, not cowardice.
The various stories around Ben are all addressed by the reason for the visitors coming. They are time travellers, of course, though their time machine is nowhere to be seen. Instead, they stamp a passport and move in a stately procession between one time and another. They come for catastrophe and Ben's little town is due for two, major disasters, the second of which will kill Hilary.
With nothing left except for the certain knowledge that the time travellers have had their fun and will move on, Ben is confronted by the possibility of undoing the death of Hilary and of warning the town.
Unlike many other time travel narratives where there is a great deal of talk about avoiding major changes in the past, in Timescape all these rules and prohibitions are forgotten. Ben joins with a Ben from a different 'time line' to have his changes take effect and in the end of the narrative we see that Ben decides to do more, to undo the great tragedy of his past.
At the beginning of the narrative, Ben's wife is dead in a terrible accident. This has nothing to do with the time traveller and occurs before the visit of the time travellers. This seems to be a matter of Fate, that is, inevitable and unchangeable destiny where destiny is a fixed timeline of events. Until the time travellers come Ben has no notion that anything can be done about the death of his wife. He accepts his fate and laments it. He drinks heavily and his daughter Hilary tries to keep him on track with life.
When great tragedy also takes the town and his daughter, Ben decides to fight against Fate, undoing his and the town's Destiny. Ben uses the novum of time travel to change his destiny and that of his community. It is his personal loss that he fights against and conquers, but he also saves his town, converting his personal loss to a community benefit.
The changing of personal destiny, altering fate for Hilary, the community and then the vanished wife, leaves the viewer of Timescape wondering exactly what timeline Ben and his dead wife returns to. What do the townspeople think of the wife suddenly returned, or do they all live in a timeline now where she did not die in the car accident? If she is returned to an earlier time, does this mean that it is all before the catastrophes and they are all yet to come?
Here, in this narrative where time travel makes so much possible including the raising of the dead, there is seen the fundamental problem of these stores - the confusion of the reader and viewer and more questions asked than are answered.
This use of time travel to change fate and destiny is explored further in later learning episodes, looking in more detail at the religious ideas of Predestination and its history in Christianity.
The short story by Le Guin 'Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea' also looks at both the small community, the extended family and the personal chance to alter fate and destiny.
As seen in the links section at the bottom of this page, Ursula Le Guin is one of the most well-known SF writers of the twentieth century. Her novels changed modern SF and her short stories, such as 'Another Story', displayed a full, alternate world of characters living in drastically different societies than modern Australia.
'Another Story' is offered here in learning episode six and it will be familiar to those who have read other Le Guin writings. The first part of the story uses Le Guin's extended, alternate world and describes in some detail how the families work together, with children raised by a variety of adults in very different ways.
'Another Story' is quite a long story and it brings in the 'novum' of time travel quite slowly, but as in Timescape, the use of time travel offers hope to an isolated scientist who in success finds himself alienated from his community and his love. As with Timescape, time travel offers hope - hope to undo a personal tragedy.
Le Guin's 'Another Story' is complex and detailed and like Timescape, there is little interest in the time machine itself but instead there is a very strong interest in characterisation or the way the central characters are developed. With this characterisation is a strong interest in the functioning of alternate societies seen in the long description of the upbringing of children and family interaction. In this case, it might be argued that the novum of the time machine is much less important than a discussion of how characters make choices in this alternate society.
This story by Le Guin may be discussed in the in-class essay task in learning episode nine and it is one of five compulsory short stories for the fate and predestination theme area.
Le Guin, U. (2005). ‘Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea’. In Turtledove, H., & Greenberg, M. (Editors). (2005). The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century. Pages 390-425. New York: Ballantine Books.
Scheib, R. (1995). 'Timescape aka The Grand Tour:Disaster in Time'. Retrieved 16 September, 2006 from http://www.moria.co.nz/sf/timescape.htm
Twohy, D. (Director). (1999). Timescape. Overseas Filmgroup & Channel Communications. Wild Street Pictures. DVD Version, Wild Street Pictures, 2003.
Readings and links: |
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Ursula Le Guin's 'Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea' |
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Notes from Wikipedia on CL Moore, author of 'Vintage Season' |
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Notes on CL Moore, author of 'Vintage Season' on the Fantastic Fiction website |
Further readings and links: |
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'Time's Arrow' by Arthur C Clarke |
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'A Sound of Thunder', by Ray Bradbury |
| Complete text of 'All you zombies' by Robert Heinlein | |
| Complete text of 'By his bootstraps', by Robert Heinlein | |
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ends
| enemy within | brave new world | fate and predestination | the shape of things to come | ghost in the shell |
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