The Little Book
$12.24
Edwards is obviously a talented writer with a knack for history, art, philosophy and even baseball - Time travel is a tricky theme for writers to tackle. It s difficult to make the events and reactions feel real and natural, and to tie up all the loose ends of the plot. It s even harder to do all this and still explore other ideas in the story, giving the fantastic aspects a foundation and relatability. First-time novelist Selden Edwards s tale, THE LITTLE BOOK, presents readers with the story of an amazing family, two members of whom have become dislodged from linear time.Beyond the incredible lives of three generations of the Burden family, Edwards paints a picture of Europe on the brink of a new age. In 1897 Vienna holds all the promise of a fully realized and splendid civilization. But, as history has shown, collapse and violence were on the horizon.Wheeler Burden --- famous American college baseballl player, rock star and author --- suddenly finds himself in Vienna. It is the end of the 19th century, and the city is full of artists, philosophers and musicians. It is the time of Mahler, Klimt and Freud, and the youth of the city are part of a social, artistic and intellectual revolution. Because of his prep school mentor, Arnauld Esterhazy (known as The Haze), whose memoir he edited and published, Wheeler knows all about Vienna. He steals some clothes and money and sets off to see the city. But that theft leads to an incredible chain of events that plays out over almost the next 100 years and then circles in on itself starting all over again.In Vienna, Wheeler comes to meet his war-hero father who died when he was just a small boy. The two, Wheeler and Dilly Burden, agree not to interfere in history (as Dilly has time traveled to Vienna as well), but Wheeler falls in love with the beautiful Bostonian writer Eleanor Putnam. The biggest problem with their affair is that she is his own grandmother.This incest, though explained away by Edwards, is problematic. Wheeler and Eleanor are supposed to be having a monumental love affair, but the duality of their relationship is hard to get past. This is not the only flaw in Edwards s book. Full of big ideas and interesting characters, a blend of fantasy and historical fiction, THE LITTLE BOOK is often a victim of its own devices. The loops of time are occasionally confusing (which relationship came first: Wheeler and Eleanor as lovers, or as family?), the characters are more heroic and perfect than is realistic and their motivations are sometimes unclear. Whole sections of narration read like Freudian therapy sessions, which isn t surprising since Freud (along with Mahler, Hitler and other famous Austrians) is an important figure in the story. Edwards owes just as much to Joseph Campbell and his theories on the hero s journey as he does to Freud in telling this ambitious tale.In the end, while much of what Edwards attempts in THE LITTLE BOOK is compelling, the main characters, especially Wheeler, seem to lack any real humanity: they are beautiful and talented, brilliant and influential, and, for some reason, stuck in a time warp moving from California in 1988 to Vienna in 1897, all using a set of books (who wrote what first and inspired by whom? It gets lost in the narrative shuffle) to navigate their way around.Edwards is obviously a talented writer with a knack for history, art, philosophy and even baseball. Here he tackles not only time travel but also cultural change, anti-Semitism, the birth of psychoanalysis, modern European history, the perfect baseball pitch, the emergence of contemporary feminism and much more. Here s hoping that his next book will be published with a firm editorial hand. --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Instant classic - This being Selden Edwards first book there isn t much to fall back on, but don t let that sway your decision to read this instant literary classic. I wouldn t say that about just any book and The Little Book is certainly a strange tale for that title, but a truly Wonkaesque story it is. Strange and unbelievable were the first words that came to mind. The protagonist is Frank Standish Burden III (Wheeler), a self-proclaimed every s man who manages to travel back in time using a Delor....I mean....(a little joke)....and meets some very interesting people who are not yet at the pinnacle of their careers. Starting with the still relatively unknown Sigmund Freud who dismisses Wheeler s time-traveling tale as a delusional episode. But that isn t the only celebrated historian to come across the path of this rock legend. We meet Winston Churchill, a young Hitler, Mark Twain, and Egon Wickstein a philosopher reminiscent of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Curiosity strikes this wonder man as to how he slipped through the streams of time. But the tale gets even stranger when Wheeler bumps into his deceased father, Dilly. Reality is getting stranger and stranger as the tale moves forward. Wheeler isn t sure how he got here and isn t sure how long he ll stay. The book shares characteristics with Forrest Gump (the cultural miss mashing) and The Twilight Zone, but manages to be completely original. If I was going to knock the book, it could only be that the format doesn t move you like Forrest Gump did. Or shock and awe you the way Twilight Zone did, but that is minor and I had to stretch to find those flaws. This is going to become an instant literary classic and one you don t want to miss.
The circle of life - I love time travel books, so I ordered this one right away. After I finished it I went to Amazon to see what other people thought. It is a very different time travel book, an odd romance, and a nice history lesson. Judging by readers ratings, people are all over the map in their opinions. And, so am I. I have so many questions about what happened, but with time travel stories you have to accept that it might be confusing. After reading the author s afterwords and acknowledgments, I have decided that he is a total egomaniac. And.....actually so are Wheeler and Dilly...
Eine kleine mess! - I am a historical novel junkie, especially ones that include time travel (see Allen Appel, Jack Finney, etc.). I have visited Vienna, my grandfather was Austrian, and I dig Secessionism and anything having to do with fin de siecle Europe. That said, I was very disappointed with this book, especially when reading how it took 35 years to write. Oh, what a tangled, stilted, unintentionally funny story! The characters are wooden at best, they bob along like the marionettes at Schönbrunn Palace from one chapter to another. Despite all the Freudian discussions (yawn) of the Oedipus complex and sex, which provides the outline of the story, the actual intimate encounters are only coyly suggested by sudden releases and much clothing adjustment, as if the author was afraid his grandmother might pick up the book and read it. The narrative is confusing, ostensibly it is done by Wheeler s mother, but it contains many conversations, thoughts and details that no one, not even Proust, would have included in a journal. Edwards encyclopedic (or shall we say Wikipedic?) references to 1897 Vienna are dropped in like sticky notes, and rarely fit the context of the story. And for Pete s sake, what s with the Frisbee??? Frisbees were the darling of postwar, flying saucer hyped America when baby boomers and play time were in great abundance. What happens when Wheeler discovers the grieving Empress in the Imperial Art Museum? He mumbles apologies about the death of her son and then solemnly gives her his wooden Frisbee! Why? So she can kick back, forget her troubles, grab a bottle of Boone s Farm and throw a few to old Franz Joseph in the Wienerwald? The Wham-O corporation should thank Edwards for the endorsement. Later, she appears while Wheeler and his dad are playing with yet another Frisbee, and solemnly hands him her son s ring wrapped in a handkerchief. Why? Maybe he didn t have enough bling for the fin de siecle. The twists and turns of the murky plot, the encounters with famous people and the hopelessly bland characters just went stale midway through the book, and I had to force myself to finish it. Too bad. Good thing it was a library book!
Have you ever walked down the street, lost in thought? - ...and then looked around wondering how you got there? That is what happened to Wheeler Burden on afternoon, only instead of being somewhere in San Francisco he realizes that he is in Vienna and that the year is 1897, not the 1988 he had woken up in that morning. Even though Wheeler had never been to Vienna before the city was not unfamiliar, it had figured in his life and that of his family for years - his favorite prep school teacher and mentor had been born there and spoke of it often, his father had traveled there as a young man, as had his father before him. Wheeler was able to cope with his new environment but each time he begins to adjust to his new circumstances something else happens to further alter his reality.The story shifts through time and location, from turn of the century Vienna to California in the 1950 s, London during WWII, Boston in the 1960 s and others as the story grows to include that of Wheeler, his parents, grandparents and others (Freud and Hitler). The various plot lines twist and intertwine making this reader at least unable to put down the book until the final page.There are books that are read, enjoyed and forgotten and then there are books that stay with the reader long after the back cover is closed. These are the stories that come drifting into the reader s brain at odd moments with nagging little thoughts or bits of scenes causing the reader to once again revisit the tale. Other reviewers have compared this to TIME AND AGAIN and other time travel tales, this reader was reminded of Heinlein s JOB or DOOR INTO SUMMER. In any case this is a memorable book, one that probably should be purchased rather than borrowed because it is one that should be read multiple times.