This book is a sort of misty science fiction thing about time travel from modern New York City to the same city of the previous century. The time travel itself, which in most books involves capsules or rocket ships or special beam-me-up rays invented for the purpose, is here accomplished by never quite describing it at all.
"From Time to Time" is a sequel to Mr. Finney's 1970 book, " Time and Again," just re-issued, a book that has sold a quarter of a million copies and has arrived at the status of cult classic by the word-of-mouth recommendation of people who are fairly easy to please. I'm afraid that you have to read the first book to $H understand what's going on in the sequel. Even then you may need a cultist to help you along. Mr. Finney has written about a dozen books, the most famous of which is the " Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
"From Time to Time" is, however, an endearing book, and the author is obviously much in love with New York and its history. The sequel, like its original, has illustrations - scenes of Central Park and Broadway and the Flatiron building. These photographs and engravings show up more as decorations and embroidery than as actual places referred to in the narrative. Which is fine, because it is pleasant to stop reading every so often and peer into the old city, from which the oddly dressed people peer back at you.
The story, what there is of it, involves a mysterious government project, intriguingly called the " Project," mounted to explore the relativity of time, something supposedly inspired by Albert Einstein when he wasn't working on explosives. If time is relative, and the past is concurrent, that is, on another plane with the present, or even if it isn't, we're not sure, then the idea is to find out if, indeed, history could be altered by having people pop back into the past, and so on and so forth. It's a good idea the first time you hear it, but I thought that everyone had heard it by now. So there's nothing new here particularly.
Even so, I must admit that by means of his relaxed, unhurried, almost nap-provoking pace, Mr. Finney does lull you into a stupefied interest. In this state you can believe that someone has gone back in time, by means of a transmutation that you missed, but aren't really worried about.
In the first book, Si Morley, an advertising illustrator picked to take part in the " Project," actually goes back to the 1880s, by means of some magic involving the Dakota apartment building. He there has some adventures and meets a lovely woman and decides to stay in the past, for reasons of love and nostalgia. His motivations are, again never explained, since I would think that nothing could counter nostalgia like seeing the past close up.
In the sequel he decides to return to the present, again for reasons that are no business of the readers. Present day New York is an unbelievably pleasant place, and I stress the unbelievable part, where he finds that the " Project" is in jeopardy, and is to lose its government funding. (Gingrich!) It's been having trouble explaining, or maybe covering up, time aberrations that are becoming more frequent.
But this requires another trip back to the past. There Mr. Morley goes on balloon rides and sees all the things that were considered the marvels of the age. Mr. Finney is good at this, setting up the historical arrangements, almost as interchapters. There's a small mystery, nothing to bother yourself about, and an alteration of the history of the Titanic, which proves some philosophical point about the interrelationship of time and stuff.
The problem with the book is that most of the science fiction facets the author feels compelled to include are unnecessary. Mysteries in Old New York are fine all by themselves, as many recent successes prove, " The Alienist," " Waterworks," etc. The time-travel blather only provokes long conversations the jist of which we already know. Mr. Finney's success results from the charming pictures and his practice of demanding very little of his readers. The happy ones return the compliment.
Jeff Danziger, editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor, is the author of the novel " Rising Like the Tucson." He notes that, in " Time and Again" and " From Time to Time," the genius behind the " Project" is a retired professor of physics from Harvard named Dr. Danziger.
From Time to Time," by Jack Finney. 303 pages. New York: Simon and Schuster. $23