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Toward the End of Time

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Toward the End of Time - Updike, John
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Ben Turnbull is a 66-year-old retired investment consultant living north of Boston in the year 2020. A recent war between the United States and China has thinned the population and brought social chaos. Nevertheless, Ben's life, traced by his journal entries over the course of the year, retains much of its accustomed comforts. Something of a science buff, he finds his personal history caught up in the disjunctions and vagaries of the 'many universes' theory; his identity branches into variants extending back through history ...

Toward the End of Time 2006, Penguin Classics, London

ISBN-13: 9780141188966

Paperback

Select 		Toward the End of Time 1999, Penguin Books Ltd, London

ISBN-13: 9780140271430

New edition

Mass-market paperback

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Toward the End of Time 1998, Random House Trade, New York, NY

ISBN-13: 9780449000410

Trade paperback

Select 		Toward the End of Time 1998, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London

ISBN-13: 9780241138625

Hardcover

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Toward the End of Time 1998, Crest Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780449003053

Mass-market paperback

Select 		Toward the End of Time 1997, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, NY

ISBN-13: 9780375400063

Hardcover

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All Editions of Toward the End of Time

Toward the End of Time

2006, Paperback

ISBN-13:

9780141188966

Toward the End of Time

1999, Mass-market paperback

ISBN-13:

9780140271430

Toward the End of Time

1998, Trade paperback

ISBN-13:

9780449000410

Toward the End of Time

1998, Hardcover

ISBN-13:

9780241138625

Toward the End of Time

1998, Mass-market paperback

ISBN-13:

9780449003053

Toward the End of Time

1997, Hardcover

ISBN-13:

9780375400063

Books by John Updike

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Customer Reviews

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dCarey

May 16, 2007

Updike's Dystopia

Updike's take on a sci-fi dystopian future is pretty much exactly what I expected of this novel. As we've come to expect from Updike, the prose is no less than superb and the narrator is a classic, self-absorbed Updikian misogynist, but there are some ridiculous holes in his sci-fi future that are hard to overlook.
For example: The book was published in 1997 and takes place in the not-so-distant future of 2020. Would it have been that difficult to imagine a future where computers are wireless and entertainment technology has moved beyond VHS tapes?
Regardless of its predictive shortcomings, this is a novel that deserves much more respect than it has received. The dystopian wreck of a future was the result of a Sino-American nuclear war, and anyone who is keeping tabs on foreign affairs and the rise of China should recognize just how frighteningly realistic Updike's prophecy looks ten years later. Also, while dystopian sci-fi is hardly a new genre, Updike managed to give the old species a literary bent nearly ten years before Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" ignited the current trend of apocalyptic literary fiction.
Bottom line: If you dig Updike, Sci-fi or just spending an afternoon thinking about how terribly wrong the future might end up, this book is probably worth your time.

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