Replay, science fiction in a retro landscape
My boyfriend wanted to give me a book, and he had one in mind. It wasn't Replay. We walked into a Renaissance bookstore, and he searched the shelves for the author he was looking for. He didn't find it. We were about to leave when this novel by Ken Grimwood attracted his attention. He laughed, "That's really interesting! Do you want it?" Of course. And I got hooked.
Starting with the first sentence:
Jeff Winston was on the phone with his wife when he died.
This Jeff was forty years old when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1988 in his office in New York. 25 years earlier, he woke up in his college room in Atlanta. He was 18 years old.
He begins one of the many "replays" that make him relive the same years of his life, until he dies, again and again, always on the same date. The first time, it's exhilarating: he makes a huge fortune betting on horse races and investing in small promising companies (like Apple). Another time, he lives a life of debauchery and drugs. Another time, he isolates himself on a farm and reconnects with nature. But after losing his daughter and failing to charm his former wife again, he despairs. What is the point of going back if everything he does has to be done over again, if he loses every relationship?
Then he meets Pamela, a woman like him, who has already lived her life a dozen times. Together, they will try to change the world and understand the mystery that surrounds them, until they realize that everything, even them, has an end...
You don't read this book for the writing, but for the powerful concept. I must admit that I had tears in my eyes at least twice... At one point, I was even so moved that I ran out of my house to my boyfriend's house, struck by the feeling that nothing should be taken for granted, that time was passing without ever coming back and that we should enjoy what we have.
Yes, it is a case of morality above all. But with such a nice excuse, we accept it.
—
Ken Grimwood
Seuil
2,77 $
