markludmon 's review for:

Time's Arrow: or, The Nature of the Offence by Martin Amis

3.0

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In Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis attempts to tackle the horror of the Holocaust in a story told backwards. Opening with the death of an elderly doctor in the USA, it rewinds his life through relationships, his career and name changes before returning to the secrets of his past. It is narrated by an impotent detached soul-like consciousness that seems constantly baffled by the backwards-running world around it, never passing judgment on what it witnesses. This literary conceit goes some way to exposing the horrific absurdity of genocide but it ends up placing the reader too far removed from the reality, making it more of a clever narrative device to be deciphered and admired.