Destiny or fortune: fatalistic motives in making history by Stephen Fry

How can one make history? This reasonable question comes to the mind when one first sees the title. Stephen Fry is eager to share his ideas with the reader. As a writer he is known for his variety in choosing genres to work with. Making History is his third novel and it can be classified as a blend of historical philosophical novel and a piece of science fiction with social problem background as well. If a human being has an opportunity to change something in the past in order to fix the future, to bend history, one is sure to take the advantage. Of course, everybody thinks that the “new tomorrow” will be better and Making History’s characters aren’t an exception:

‘If it were possible, then at some time in the future someone would have gone back and stopped things like the holocaust from happening, wouldn’t they? They would have told Archduke Ferdinand to cancel his visit to Sarajevo, advised Kennedy to travel in a closed car, suggested to Martin Luther King that he stayed home that day. Don't you think?’

Though the beginning of the story seems trivial, Fry manages to create an unexpected plot twist and shows to the reader that the perfect can be the enemy of the good.

The novel, where the chain of present time events is broken by a few flashbacks devoted to authentic historical facts, the alternative ways of the formation of National Socialism in Germany and the alternative future, is entirely based on the so called butterfly effect. It refers to the determinacy of events of a global scale, to relativity on historical facts. Many different storylines are combined in the text so artfully that it’s quite easy for the reader to perceive them as a whole in understanding the main message of the author: nothing is done in vain and nothing happens without any reason. The motive of fate or destiny runs like a golden thread through the whole novel.

In the first part of the book we find ourselves in Britain, Cambridge, 1996. The protagonist, Michael Young (who is a young history student) is ready to complete his doctoral thesis - «Meisterwerk» - on the childhood and youth of Adolf Hitler. A chain of accidents leads Michael to meeting Leo Zuckerman, Professor of physics, who, in spite of being a scientist, takes an interest in the history of National Socialism. He calls their meeting and further friendship “feeling”: When I asked you yesterday, when I said, 'Why me?' you remember how you replied? ‘A feeling’ - you said. Remember that? A feeling’.

This feeling pushes Professor Zuckerman to open his secret invention to Michael - a machine, which is able to reproduce “temporal images” from the past. This key moment reflects the main theme of the writing: what if there’s an opportunity to change the past? Michael and Leo are full of inspiration by the idea they could prevent the birth of the source of evil in Braunau, Austria with the help of Leo’s invention (which means affecting the past) and act immediately: ‘But that's the point! Everything will be better. We're going to make a better world.’

The second part of the book shows us Michael, who wakes up in someone else’s bed, in someone else’s room, not in England and not the person who he used to be. He finds out that he is in the USA, Princeton, where nobody heard about Hitler. The condition of our protagonist can be described as jubilation and triumph: ‘My God, I was a greater man than Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer rolled into one’. However, there is another plot twist: not a day goes by and it becomes clear that NSDAP or Nazi Party existed, and outcomes of its existence are much more terrifying in this alternative reality, than in the “original” history. The fate motive moves here to the forefront: what’s supposed to happen will happen anyway: T thought if Hitler wasn't born the century would have less to be ashamed of. I suppose I should have known better’.

Fry represents the characters’ lines of fortune in such a way that their primary mission stays determined in the alternative reality. It also gives us a hint to think about fatalistic motives in the story. That’s why the only eventual way out in Michael’s opinion is to find Leo Zuckerman, who has to be an inventor of a similar machine in this world too and to affect the past again and come to terminus a quo in order to remove changes in the march of history. For the purpose Michael just imitates the same “script” of their meeting and experiment from the “real world”. The ending of the story presents the “happy” one, returning event horizon to the zero point, ‘ THE BEGINNING

The post-effect after reading can leave the reader puzzled and confused, and it’s the advantage of this novel. It makes us think, reflect and analyze. Many science fiction moments in the book, diversified entwinement of story lines, collapse of ideas and beliefs don’t hinder the reader from speculating about the meaning of the past in the life of every person and mankind in general. “It’s all to the good.” - may be such an unsophisticated message is the main idea for the author to explore. The first-person narration reduces the distance, so the reader can identify himself with the happening events or at least feel deep empathy to the characters. To personalize the protagonist Fry uses many German words. It creates a certain atmosphere and makes the reader believe the character’s enthusiasm and passion about his ideas and thoughts. In general the book doesn’t demand comprehensive science knowledge, but the reader should possess the historical background.

We can’t evaluate the plot of the story like a brand new one, but a creatively different plot twist and a great amount of intriguing details, surprising events and unexpected points of view on the problem hold us in suspense to the very end.