Replay by Ken Grimwood

[james_davis_nicoll]

Replay by Ken Grimwood




Replay by Ken Grimwood

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I read this shortly after it came out, when 43 seemed impossibly old. Loved it. It's surprisingly hard to find - there's an audiobook version, but no electronic version (that I could find a few months ago anyway).

[viktor_haag]

For some reason, I can't read that book cover without immediately thinking of
.

[(Anonymous)]

I think this may have been the first time loop story I ever read.

-Awesome Aud

[jbwoodford]

In his looping, did he ever die before 1988?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think so. But he never really tried to die before then, as I recall (he did some stupid stuff that could have led to his death, but nothing deliberate)

[chrysostom]

No, he always dies at exactly the same time.

[narmitaj]

Ages since I read it, but I remember one episode sticking in my mind (though the details I may get wrong). The hero had been happily married (at least at the start) in his original life, and he had originally met his wife in some normal, affable, organic way.

In his first replay he therefore already "knew" that they were "destined" to be together, so he comes on too strong when he first meets her (this time knowing he is going to meet her, and already rich from his betting and investments based on knowing what was about to happen).

She, of course having no idea that in some other lifetimeline she had-would eventually got-get married to this guy, just thought him an arrogant pushy creep and reacted badly and I think her brothers threatened to beat him up. Any amount of him insisting "we're meant to be together" obviously made him sound more dangerously stalkery and in this lifetime they never get together.

I took from that an illustration of the fact people aren't soulmates, the Ones, destined to be together whatever happens: get off on the wrong foot and it may all go Pete Tong and never happen.

[james_davis_nicoll]

There was also a cycle when he sought out Pamela (the other replayer) right away, even though she was only 14. To make it worse, their replay cycles are out of synch and the Pam he finds is not old Pam in young Pam's body but young Pam.

[narmitaj]

Yes... either in that cycle or another one isn't he actually kissing the un-Replayed Pamela on a bridge when the Replay Pamela wakes up (though not, I think, when she is 14). He has essentially been having an affair with a different version of her, one without all the collective replayed memories (and who is now wiped, that personality killed). Replay Pamela takes a dim view of that, as I recall, thinking it creepy.

Something similar happens in the recent Wonder Woman film, where WW's resurrected love interest takes over some other person's body without permission, temporarily obliterating him. And Source Code, where Jake Gyllenhaal's character takes over someone else's body, suppressing his life utterly.

[(Anonymous)]

>Replay Pamela takes a dim view of that, as I recall, thinking it creepy.

Yeah. That happens on one of the last few replays (maybe the last one?), when they are waking up as adults - but him earlier than her. He's used his knowledge of her to lure unawaken her from her family, which she does not appreciate.