It was more or less by chance -- browsing through the latest Lit Hub email on a slow pandemic morning -- that I read "Timeline" via a link to "OprahMag." There it was identified as a new short story by award-winning author Lilly King and as "the perfect romantic drama." On the that score, readers can decide for themselves, but I hope not.
The story mainly got me thinking about why one reads fiction. Well, most fiction is written for entertainment and in the interest of providing a living for the author. Some books eventually fall into what is known as "the canon" and one then reads them in the interest of "becoming cultured." This notion actually plays a role in "Timeline."
But over the years, the reason I personally have read fiction is to get a better understanding of social values, both here in the U.S. and in other countries. When I worked in Japan for five years, for instance, I mainly read Japanese novels in translation. And when I worked in England for eight years, I mainly read English literature. In most cases these were, at least loosely, novels of manners, which is to say books about how people interact with each other in normal, ordinary society.
"Timeline" is a short story of manners, and in that vein, serves to illuminate the nature of present day American life. It's not definitive of our current culture, of course, and I'm sure Ms King would be the first to say so. But it may well be all too representative of certain currents now running within it. As such, it is worth a read.
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