Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
By: Gabrielle Zevin
[Winner for ‘Best Fiction’ for the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge]
“This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time.”
I’m not sure if I was excited to read this book— I think I was more curious. For some reason I was thinking it would be more sci-fi-ish like Ready Player One since it had to do with video game creation. It is definitely plain old fiction.
I didn’t hate it but it didn’t do much for me. It felt too slow-paced and a bit ‘extra.’ Zevin shoved every major or controversial topic possible into this book instead of just focusing on one or two.
The characters were meant to be flawed but it felt like their flaws overshadowed their strengths and did more to define and drive them. This made them somewhat unlikable and their growth was harder to detect.
The primary story line follows three friends over many years and places (Boston to LA to Tokyo) as they play video games together and then create them. The two main characters— Sam and Sadie— have a volatile friendship— cyclical love/hate relationship. The third character— Marx— acts as the neutralizer and stabilizer. We know personally how messy and complicated relationships are. But we also know that relationships are a mess worth making. It takes a lot for Sam and Sadie to become convinced of that, and there’s part of me that wonders if they ever got there in an altruistic way or not.
For example: Sadie has a perpetual chip on her shoulder and fluctuates between insecurity with her abilities, standing up for herself in work but not in her personal life. Sam is overly ambitious which blinds him to others’ needs and feelings. Marx is thoughtful and managerial but sexually promiscuous and you’re not really sure what he actually cares about.
I didn’t really like how Marx became a ‘glorified’ ‘saint-ed’ character by the end.
The secondary story line (at least in my opinion) was the relationship of the characters to the worlds they create. Gaming as a way of escaping the difficulties of life. Virtual worlds that help them grieve and deal with the brokenness of the real world. The ability to be different people with different skills. The opportunity to ‘start over’ or ‘re-do’ things until they get them right. As one of their games is titled ‘Our Infinite Lives’ or as the book is aptly titled- tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. We can live again better.
“He wanted to be Ichigo… He wanted to die a million deaths like Ichigo, and no matter what damage was inflicted on his body during the day, he’d wake up tomorrow, new and whole. He wanted Ichigo’s life, a lifetime of endless, immaculate tomorrows, free of mistakes and the evidence of having lived.”
But unfortunately, the worlds they create are not real. The characters do not exist. They must still live from day to day.
“In the end, all we can ever know is the game that was played, and in the only world that we know.”
As I said before, there is a hodge-podge of topics crammed into the lives of three people. Over the course of the book they experience/discuss: disability, depression, appropriation, racism, sexism, abortion, amputation, physical abuse, gay marriage and sexuality, death, friendship, grief, murder, gun violence, suicide, and probably something else I missed.
The characters are variations of Jewish, Korean, and Japanese and much of the race and appropriation revolve around these cultures.
I think the concoction of topics takes away from the readers’ relationship to the characters because it feels like each new issue is just another buzzword.
I think it would have been more effective to focus on friendship, forgiveness, and Sam’s disability in relationship to the virtual games. Maybe, too, the loss of a friend, but the more you add in the less important everything seems.
I thought it was interesting how they recognized their desire for an ‘other-world’ where everything is as it should be. People are whole. The earth is beautiful and free of violence (well… their games weren’t void of this) and hatred. They were searching for meaning, legacy, and an escape from a broken world.
I think I have the answer for them. The current death rate is 100%. There is no second chance or infinite life. But there is an afterlife. And it can be the perfection they seek. I think they are looking for the ultimate ‘save point.’ And that is Heaven. It’s real. And for all who trust in Jesus, it is what comes next. And it will be better than an video game world that can be created.
Zevin touches on the realities and results of sin (in not so specific terms). We can all relate to so many of the hardships and heartaches the characters face. We know that yearning for something more, something bigger, something outside of this earth. That is because God put eternity into our hearts. We know in our core, that this world is not our home. Maybe this book can be a catalyst for readers to acknowledge that desire and to seek real answers for it. Not in video games. But in the Bible and the person of Jesus who is in the business of redemption, forgiveness, and restoration.
Along the lines of the ‘escapist’ story line. I found myself pondering this outside of the spiritual realm I just mentioned. Just in terms of health, mental or physical, is it a good coping mechanism to escape into fantasy worlds? Both Sadie and Sam found it comforting in their various griefs. I understand the need and benefit of distractions every once and a while, but from what I know of gaming, it’s pretty addictive. It doesn’t seem healthy to always seek to escape from their problems instead of confronting them or working through them.
Isolation, as we see with Sadie, is not usually a beneficial choice. There is an element of community in virtual worlds but more and more studies are showing that it’s not a good replacement for face-to-face physical connection. We were made to connect with people. Experience the world together, physically, as ourselves. Empathy is often lost online and is an essential component to a healthy society.
Distractions help us grieve or deal with stress, but I think there have to be boundaries for it to be helpful and not harmful.
Another aspect of the gaming side of things is the idea of success. Sadie and Sam had differing views on what a successful game looked like:
“To oversimplify: For Sam greatness meant popular. For Sadie, art.”
I was realizing how much I don’t know about video games, especially PC games. I didn’t realize they incorporated such complex stories or that there was a way to dialogue within them. Reading this game made me have so many questions about how it works to code something that is so graphics and art-heavy. A complete video game really is a work of art.
I went on YouTube and watched a few videos of people playing popular games. I don’t think it’s a hobby I want to get into because I can see how it takes up so much of your time, but it was good to see for myself a piece of what this book was about and be able to appreciate the skill and talent and time that goes into something like that.
The Oregon Trail is a nostalgic piece of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I definitely remember the game and remember the dysentery! I couldn’t relate to a lot of the gaming aspects, but I played Oregon Trail, and mostly Super Nintendo games like Super Mario world, Donkey Kong Country, Top Gear, and PlayStation games like 2Xtreme & Crash Bandicoot Racing.
I really like that Zevin incorporated this because Sadie and Sam are pioneers themselves. They are creating new paths to unknown worlds. They are experiencing the ups and downs of the human experience and of going somewhere new and have to figure out how to survive and allow others to follow them.
Some reviewers talked about the pretentious vocabulary in this book. In some ways I would agree with them. I have a pretty big vocabulary and there were lots of words I didn’t know. I agree that I’m not sure it helped the book at all and didn’t necessarily fit the characters’ personalities, but I enjoy learning new words so it didn’t really bother me. In fact, here are some that I looked up:
Grokking: understanding thoroughly
Ouroboros: a snake or dragon eating its own tail
Bloviating: to speak pompously
Palimpsest: something that has a new layer, aspect, or appearance that builds on its past and allows us to see or perceive parts of this past
Turpitude: vile or depraved act
Jejune: immature and childish
First side note: I thought it was funny that the very first line of the acknowledgements says that there are no secret highways in LA which was going to be the very first thing I googled when I shut the book. So thank you Zevin, for answering that for me, even though I wish it weren’t true.
Second side note: If you’re interested in trying out the Magic Eye stuff, here’s a link to a Magic Eye book on Amazon!
Third side note: This is the second book I’ve read recently that referenced Necco Wafers. Is this something I should have known about slash eating??
Recommendation
This is a hard one to recommend. I don’t read a lot of straight fiction so the fact that this won best fiction is probably par for the course and I’m just not used to that style of writing and story-telling.
But because of the language, drug use, sexual content, the hot-topic potpourri, the length and slow-pace, and the unlikability of the characters, this book didn’t do much for me and I’m not sure it will for you either.
However, many people do love this book. I wonder if they’re gamers and the nostalgia and game content interests them.
I think people who like ‘sagas’ that explore a decades-long span of life for characters won’t be turned off by the length or pacing.
I guess I would read some other reviews if you’re still unsure if this one is for you. Personally, I feel like there are better books out there to spend your time on.
A couple other books that somewhat fit the idea of this book that I would recommend over this one would be:
Infinite by Brian Freeman
Play Dead by Ted Dekker
[Content Advisory: a lot of swearing; a paragraph on the c-word; a lot of drug use; some sexual content; a whole host of trigger issues as discussed in the review]
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