Time Travel
I’ve just read HG Wells’ The Time Machine. To be honest, I found it a bit hard work, but stuck with it. I normally don’t do that. My rule of thumb is that if a book hasn’t grabbed me two chapters in, I move on. I’m not like my business partner who will force his way through every book he reads, even if that means he has to moan to me about the ones he’s struggling with. Not me. Life is too short in my opinion and I read for pleasure. There are many things I will put myself through pain for. To climb a mountain, a long distance walk, a cycle ride or a run, yes, but that, in my mind is different. A physical challenge suggests there might be some pain involved somewhere along the line, but reading? I read stuff at university that I had to read and rarely enjoyed the material I was reading. Now, my sole purpose is very selfish. I read for personal gain.
So why struggle through The Time Machine? To be honest, I’m not fully sure myself. I think the most likely explanation is it’s because as a child I was totally enthralled by the 1960 movie of the same name starring Rod Taylor. If it was on TV I watched it. The idea that we could navigate the passage of time just enthralled me. I grew up during ‘The Space Race’ which was another of the fascinations I had. Both time travel and space travel were back then, in my mind, part and parcel of the same thing. I had no idea about the science of it all but just dreamed of doing both. So, I guess I forced my way through the novel for nostalgic reasons.
I’m glad I did. I have always said that reading is the easiest way to travel to new places, and certainly a lot cheaper than a plane or train ticket. When I do my free author visits to schools and find myself in front of a hundred or so secondary students, I often tell them that in the past few months I have travelled the world before going on to list a whole manner of countries from the books I have read. This often draws a few blank looks. Explaining that I visited them in my mind, stimulated by the fantastic descriptions by the authors of the books I had read doesn’t always cut it with everyone, but by taking a step further often helps. Our brains, I explain, are the most powerful thing known to us in the universe. One tiny piece of brain, about the size of a grain of sand, can store enough data to hold every movie[1] that has ever been made! Our brains are equipped with the ability for us to imagine. And the awesome power that every brain has is to produce our own personal CGI. Much better than anything you could ever see on a screen. And the best part about it is that it is unique to you. It is your head’s movie production company and it will create images and sounds, smells and tastes that are yours and yours only. When you read, your brain takes the author’s words and translates them into wondrous things that cannot be bettered by a movie production team. And it is so easy to do.
But reading The Time Machine made me realise that there is so much more to it than that. This year when I travelled to Germany and Prague with Philip Kerr’s anti-hero Bernie Gunther in Prague Fatale, I not only visited the countries, enjoying the architecture, culture and people there, I also time travelled. It took me back to a different world, a scary, dark and worrying world. I travelled back in time and met some of the most evil people that have ever existed and witnessed some of the terrible crimes they committed. Similarly, I jumped into a rugby union world cup final with Francois Piennar and his autobiography Rainbow Warrior, experiencing the passion and glory in marvellous detail.
Books are magical. They take you to worlds you could never go to, to times you cannot return to and to places you could visit but you’d need an expensive ticket to pull it off. This year I have visited Argentina, I’ve stood on the surface of Pluto, I rocked the punk scene in 1970s Britain and cried as I walked into Auschwitz. I could never have done those things in such a unique and personal way outside the pages of a book.
The reason why I go to schools for free is with the aim to inspire kids to travel with me. To exercise their extraordinary brain power and go to incredible places, trough books. Reading is a door opener and the more we can persuade kids to read, the better their world and ours will be. Books might be just a combination of words, but they wield the most incredible power. The power to travel in time.
[1] The Body, Bill Gates