The Man Who Folded Himself

First all, I have to comment that reading this book while traveling from Boston to DC was about the first time I have experienced, or remembered what I was thinking when I came up with "hypertravel" all those years ago. I was so involved in this book that time (and space) literally flew by in an instant. Perhaps I should revisit this story/concept.

The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold is without a doubt the book Jim told Eileen and I about years and years ago about the man who, through time travel, was both his mom, dad, and child all at the same time. I have spent countless nights and years contemplating how that paradox is possible. It has always intrigued me from the moment he said it and I never forgot it. Well the book definitely lives up to my expectations. It was genius. It ask all the questions about time travel that I ever have imagined and more. Gerrold tackles whole time/space mythologies and conundrums in a paragraph or even a sentence. Daniels that go crazy, Daniels that are homosexual, free will, identity, everything. How would you define yourself if time and space were not part of the definition? What sort of existence would you have? In essence, what is at the core of our identities? The possibilities are endless and indeed, infinite. That is how Gerrold views time, as infinite. It isn't linear, but a million different strands that cross each other. I'm not quite sure how more than one Daniel can exist in each strand, but that seems to make sense in the universe he has created. It is his rationalization of the mother, father child paradox that is still impossible. He talks about changing the sex of the child at birth, but this could never happen if he wasn't a girl to begin with at one point, which of course could never happen because if he was a girl to begin with then he could not inseminate himself as a boy. Although once there was a boy and girl version of him he could go on folding himself forever, theoretically. The only way I imagined this happening is some sort of futuristic gene therapy sex change operation, which could work, but not at birth the way the book describes it. The book isn't really about the paradox, but what it means, psychologically, to be your own entire world.

I liked the Timestop and Timeskim features. Daniel breezes through thousands of years of history we all wish we could see, observing (but never participating in) countless event of humanity (50-54). He knows the truth and destiny of the human race. History is the ebb and flow of life, the study of humanity itself, the triumph of individuals that never quit. He is a temporal ping pong ball. He also realizes that he doesn't have to be subjected to his own mistakes anymore because he can just go back and change them. Well not for himself, but for a another Dan, and then when "excises" something he changes his world again, as he sees fit. So it truly is only his world and he is the god of it. It makes sense then that he would be his own father, mother and uncle. He can always go back and change things, until he cannot, and that is the tragedy of Diane and old Dan going back to meet her. He is all powerful, but he is alone and only has himself. His sexuality is something he does despite the warnings of other Dans and Dons. He sleeps with himself willingly and is happy about it, believing he has a choice in what he does. But is sexuality a choice? Dan believes he has free will, but then says that he is merely living one strand and that other Dans live all the other possible strands of time and so they ultimately have no choice because they are all each living one strand of infinite possibility. Dan believes that he is the cumulative effect of all the other Dans' changes, but all the Dans perceive themselves to be at the center in the same way. Really the whole story is about identity and choice vs. fate and what defines us with sexuality making up a small component of this discussion. It will be interesting to discus this book in the context of the class.