Folding Time: History, Subjectivity, and Intimacy in Vonnegut

Abstract

Science fiction can have immense temporal range, giving it epic scale. One novel can deal with the whole of time; a time travel story can shift between many different time periods. These perspectives inevitably alter the way we see time and how it functions in relation to individuals, to nations, and to humanity. Science fiction’s epic temporal scale, like its potential spatial range (whole galaxies), means that it looks at things from a distance, an estranging distance. Estrangement is a key strategy of science fiction because, as any science fiction fan or scholar knows, it is not about aliens or other planets and not about the future. Putting distance (in time or space) between the reader and the events unfolded in its stories, science fiction comments on what is happening now, and how our past has brought us here. “Intelligent” science fiction can be deeply political, and it engages with history and the present in complex ways. Thus, Gene Rodenberry, creator of Star Trek, noted that during the 1960s, his show could “make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, unions, politics and intercontinental missiles,” and because it was science fiction, “they all got by the network” (Johnson-Smith 59). This is, perhaps, a problem inherent in using the fantastic to comment on the real: people are often distracted by the medium and do not perceive the message.