Time Travel

I've just finished a rather good book, Melodie Winawer's The Scribe of Siena. It checks off almost all my boxes (female protagonist, set mostly in the Middle Ages, mystery, fair amount of reference to monastic life) and after a slightly slow start, it really engaged me. The hook of this novel is actually that the heroine is a contemporary New York neurosurgeon who, through inheriting her brother's Italian home, becomes immersed in his historical research and eventually travels back in time. Sometimes time travel books are a little awkward and this one has its moments, but still, I believe.

In a sense, I suppose my whole experience with England has been a form of time travel, since my "vehicle" is usually a five hundred year old service sung in spaces that may be a thousand years old. I am so intrigued by our ability to step out of modern life -- be it in a historical setting, through music or art, or in nature -- and step into another era. Informally, I think most of us do this quite often; it's an open question as to whether we can literally move through time. Winawer's concept is that "the person is the portal, not the place..." (338) It may not be a case of standing near the right tree or on platform 9 3/4. It may simply be love, the longing to love. That word again.

Sometimes I actually have that feeling that I've time travelled back into the 21st century from some future date. I'll read or watch the news and think, goodness, don't tell me things are still so barbaric! It's like I know in my bones a far more advanced way of being, and am bewildered to find myself in the Dark Ages. However, if Winawer is right, then only one thing brought me back in time and keeps me here(!) Hmm...

Have a great weekend, whether you travel forward or back in time or space, or just read a good book...