Making History

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The book is an intriguing premise – two men decide, for very different reasons, to tamper with history by ensuring the one man responsible for the rise of Nazi Germany is never born. 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.

A great mixture of tragedy, humor, philosophy, history, and time travel is still not enough to describe what exactly this book represents. But it was always going to be difficult to display humor, humanity, romance, and imagination when the fate of the whole continent's Jewish population was at stake. This is far more than just another what-if story of counterfactual fiction: it moves both through pathos and humour. In one scene, Hitler tricks Gloder into a foolhardy heroic act and getting himself killed; but in the changed history, where Hitler was never born, it is Gloder who tricks another soldier into this act, and gets decorated for recovering his body.Stephen Fry's working is admittedly engaging and smart and, not least of all, funny, but somehow Fry's famous wit does not work in this work of fiction.

Fry explores a spectrum of potential realities: historical, political, scientific, cultural, and sexual, and his speculations smack of realism and often of frightening possibleness. Steve corrects Michael and reveals that, while never hearing of Hitler, he is all too aware of the Nazi Party. Fry successfully establishes Michael’s character as a wunderkind bedevilled with increasing insecurities as his peers are rapidly catching up, if not overhauling his precocious giftedness.Considering the number of lines to learn, Mike's part was delivered flawlessly, professionally and with tremendous enthusiasm.

Although this is the only novel of Fry's that I have read that uses extremely simplistic language (an unusual choice considering the characters are: a student writing his doctoral thesis in history, a professor of physics, and a student at Princeton), the premise keeps it in the realm one would expect from the genius Fry. Later on, the ruthless Gloder murders a fellow soldier who discovered his opportunist machinations, followed by the past-war scene where Gloder joins the budding Nazi Party in 1919 Munchen and becomes its star demagogue. He meets Professor Leo Zuckerman, a physicist who has a strong personal interest in Hitler, the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. Together, they hatch a plan to modify the machine such that it can be used to send something back into time.Fry's humour is very clever, but doesn't take away all the seriousness in the book; it is well-balanced.