Replay
by Ken Grimwood
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Description
A time-travel classic in the tradition of Jack Finney's Time and Again, Ken Grimwood's acclaimed novel Replay asks the provocative question: "What if you could live your life over again, knowing the mistakes you'd made before?"Forty-three-year-old Jeff Winston gets several chances to do just that. Trapped in a tepid marriage and a dead-end job, he dies in 1988 and wakes up to find himself in 1963, at the age of eighteen, staring at his dorm room walls at Emory University. It's all the show more same...but different: Jeff knows what the future holds. He knows who will win every World Series...every Kentucky Derby...even how to win on Wall Street. The one thing he doesn't know is: Why has he been chosen to replay his life? And how many times must he win---and lose---everything he loves?
Winner of the 1988 World Fantasy Award for best novel and published in eleven languages, Replay unravels the answers in a masterful skein that captivates our imagination.
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Member Recommendations
browner56 Both of these are well-written stories that deal with the concept of time travel in an interesting way.
Also recommended by Kichererbse, sturlington
120
dltj Shares a similar plot line that covers part of the same time period, and "Replay" even includes a story fragment about November 22, 1963.
110
BookshelfMonstrosity Life after Life and Replay feature characters who live multiple lives against their wills; the complications of dying and coming back to life form the core of each novel and create moving, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking situations.
30
amysisson Another, very different examination on where our choices take us in life.
11
PghDragonMan Reincarnation to learn a Life Lesson joins these works
Member Reviews
Grimwood's 'Replay' was surprising. I started expecting a little crunchier of a scifi book. It quickly became 'obvious' that I was instead reading a 90s/early aughts "Sliding Doors"-esque 'how would my life be different if I chose x instead of y' story. If Replay had followed that formula, it still would have been a fine novel, but it continued to evolve and change as I went, continuing to surprise me. Ultimately, its an introspective, thoughtful, and reflective character study that feels like its first person without being first person...a meditation on life and meaning both individually and collectively, framed within a vaguely science fiction narrative.
What if you died and awoke as your younger self, all of your memories intact but your accomplishments erased? What might you do differently in the replay of your life? And what if it kept happening?
This is exactly the scenario posited in Replay, in which Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack in 1988 and reawakens as his 18-year-old self in 1963, free of his troubled marriage and his dead-end job, his life a blank slate that he can remake any way he wants. Which he does. Armed with his foreknowledge of the outcomes of major sporting events and corporate successes, Jeff has no problems quickly making a fortune. Preventing societal tragedies, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, proves more elusive. But most challenging of all is show more building meaningful relationships — with a wife or children — and then dying and starting all over again, those relationships simply negated.
The author never poses an explanation for why this is happening to Jeff. He is more interested in the choices Jeff makes in each of his lives and how those choices affect the course his life will take. Jeff’s journey ultimately leads him to a deep understanding of how isolated each of us is as we navigate through our lives, and how fundamentally important our connections with others — no matter how impermanent — become. By allowing his character to relive his life over and over, Grimwood is cycling in on the fundamental meaning of life itself. As the story progresses, Jeff’s “replays” become shorter, forcing him also to face and accept his own mortality. This unique story will fire the reader’s imagination long after the book is closed. show less
This is exactly the scenario posited in Replay, in which Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack in 1988 and reawakens as his 18-year-old self in 1963, free of his troubled marriage and his dead-end job, his life a blank slate that he can remake any way he wants. Which he does. Armed with his foreknowledge of the outcomes of major sporting events and corporate successes, Jeff has no problems quickly making a fortune. Preventing societal tragedies, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, proves more elusive. But most challenging of all is show more building meaningful relationships — with a wife or children — and then dying and starting all over again, those relationships simply negated.
The author never poses an explanation for why this is happening to Jeff. He is more interested in the choices Jeff makes in each of his lives and how those choices affect the course his life will take. Jeff’s journey ultimately leads him to a deep understanding of how isolated each of us is as we navigate through our lives, and how fundamentally important our connections with others — no matter how impermanent — become. By allowing his character to relive his life over and over, Grimwood is cycling in on the fundamental meaning of life itself. As the story progresses, Jeff’s “replays” become shorter, forcing him also to face and accept his own mortality. This unique story will fire the reader’s imagination long after the book is closed. show less
I have just finished reading Ken Grimwood's "Replay". It's an oddly moving book, dealing with a man who, upon dying, is dragged twenty-five years back into his own past to inhabit his eighteen-year-old body with the burden or blessing of twenty five years' accumulated memories of the future, until at the age of forty-three the cycle repeats ("replays"), and so again and again. I was first drawn into it by the early-sixties American settings and atmosphere, which I love, but the real heart of the book is seeing how the protagonist deals with the slowly accumulating burden of memories and experiences, and meeting the women who, through their relationships with him in successive "replays" help (or not) to deal with his solitary existence. show more From the start of the book to the satisfying denouement I was gripped, and I thoroughly recommend it. show less
Despite being an early take on the now oversaturated reliving life genre, this was unexpectedly fresh. It doesn't make the mistake of getting bogged down in minutiae or trying to bullshit about the metaphysics of the scenario itself. In a Groundhog Day fashion that's not the point. Rather it's the meditation on the roads not travelled that shines; a plausible and very human set of reactions and counter reactions to having an opportunity to do it all again, starting with the usual responses to this hypothesis ("if I knew what was gonna happen I'd make millions on betting and the markets"), and letting that play out as the ultimately empty hedonistic fantasy it is. There's a lot of life philosophy at work behind the repeated lives, but show more not in a preachy way. show less
Replay greatly moved me. I've just recently started re-establishing my reading habits and this was one of the first books I picked up during that time. I used any small chance I could get to read on, as it builds on a simple, but ever-engaging premise.
"The unexamined life is not worth living" – this quote takes on a central role in Replay, as Jeff is forced to re-live and thus re-examine his life (or 25 years of it, for that matter) again and again. At the same time, I couldn't help but examine my own life and really ask myself the questions that Jeff is asking himself: Given the chance, what would I do differently? How would I make use of what I have learned so far? What is it that really brings me happiness and contentment? What is show more the "best" life that I can possibly live? And, most difficult of all, how would I deal with the inevitable loss, in each of these cycles? And why should I keep trying if all and everyone is to be lost again and again? Also, am I living this life, my real life, right now, to the fullest?
As Jeff's windows of opportunity keep shrinking, these questions grow ever more pressing. We all have to figure out our own anwers that suit our own lives, our own doubts and challenges, our mistakes and achievements. For me, some of the answers that the book points to are extremely life-affirming. The story and its conclusion really resonated with me and even set some stuck thoughts in a new kind of motion. It made me look at my wife and daughter with even more love and a grander kind of perspective.
Not every book has this kind of immediate impact.
_____
Writing this as a man myself, I should mention that there's a strong male gaze in the protagonist's perspective. Prepare for quite a few descriptions of breasts, hair and scent. It didn't get too obnoxious for me, but your mileage may vary. ;) show less
"The unexamined life is not worth living" – this quote takes on a central role in Replay, as Jeff is forced to re-live and thus re-examine his life (or 25 years of it, for that matter) again and again. At the same time, I couldn't help but examine my own life and really ask myself the questions that Jeff is asking himself: Given the chance, what would I do differently? How would I make use of what I have learned so far? What is it that really brings me happiness and contentment? What is show more the "best" life that I can possibly live? And, most difficult of all, how would I deal with the inevitable loss, in each of these cycles? And why should I keep trying if all and everyone is to be lost again and again? Also, am I living this life, my real life, right now, to the fullest?
As Jeff's windows of opportunity keep shrinking, these questions grow ever more pressing. We all have to figure out our own anwers that suit our own lives, our own doubts and challenges, our mistakes and achievements. For me, some of the answers that the book points to are extremely life-affirming. The story and its conclusion really resonated with me and even set some stuck thoughts in a new kind of motion. It made me look at my wife and daughter with even more love and a grander kind of perspective.
Not every book has this kind of immediate impact.
_____
Writing this as a man myself, I should mention that there's a strong male gaze in the protagonist's perspective. Prepare for quite a few descriptions of breasts, hair and scent. It didn't get too obnoxious for me, but your mileage may vary. ;) show less
¿Qué harías si pudieras vivir tu vida otra vez, recordando todo lo anterior, si pudieras arreglar los errores cometidos en el pasado? ¿Y si volvieras a repetirlo?
'Volver a empezar' es sin duda una de las mejores novelas de viajes en el tiempo que he leído. La premisa que nos propone Ken Grimwood es muy original. Este libro, escrito en 1988, y ganador del Premio Mundial de Fantasía, nos propone viajar al pasado como nunca se había hecho. Estamos acostumbrados a un traslado tipo 'Regreso al futuro', en el que puedes encontrarte contigo mismo, produciéndose las consabidas paradojas, y tus actos pueden afectar el continuo espacio-tiempo. Pues en 'Volver a empezar' lo que viaja es la mente.
Jeff Winston, de 43 años, lleva una vida show more aburrida y monótona, hasta que sufre un ataque al corazón. Es el año 1988. Despierta en 1963, con 18 años, en su joven cuerpo recordando toda su futura, o pasada, vida. Pero ahí no se acaba todo, porque Jeff sabe los resultados de carreras y competiciones deportivas, al igual que sabe qué empresas serán las importantes a la hora de invertir. Se da cuenta de que puede cambiar lo que fue su vida anterior. Pero hay más, mucho más, que no voy a desvelar porque es mejor ir leyéndolo uno mismo. Por ejemplo, ¿qué pasará cuando llegue de nuevo el año 1988, fecha en que "falleció"?
Este libro es apasionante, original y está muy bien escrita. Las vivencias de los personajes las haces tuyas, sientes con ellos. Porque, ¿quién no ha pensado alguna vez en lo que haría o dejaría de hacer si le diesen la oportunidad? Lo dicho, Imprescindible. show less
'Volver a empezar' es sin duda una de las mejores novelas de viajes en el tiempo que he leído. La premisa que nos propone Ken Grimwood es muy original. Este libro, escrito en 1988, y ganador del Premio Mundial de Fantasía, nos propone viajar al pasado como nunca se había hecho. Estamos acostumbrados a un traslado tipo 'Regreso al futuro', en el que puedes encontrarte contigo mismo, produciéndose las consabidas paradojas, y tus actos pueden afectar el continuo espacio-tiempo. Pues en 'Volver a empezar' lo que viaja es la mente.
Jeff Winston, de 43 años, lleva una vida show more aburrida y monótona, hasta que sufre un ataque al corazón. Es el año 1988. Despierta en 1963, con 18 años, en su joven cuerpo recordando toda su futura, o pasada, vida. Pero ahí no se acaba todo, porque Jeff sabe los resultados de carreras y competiciones deportivas, al igual que sabe qué empresas serán las importantes a la hora de invertir. Se da cuenta de que puede cambiar lo que fue su vida anterior. Pero hay más, mucho más, que no voy a desvelar porque es mejor ir leyéndolo uno mismo. Por ejemplo, ¿qué pasará cuando llegue de nuevo el año 1988, fecha en que "falleció"?
Este libro es apasionante, original y está muy bien escrita. Las vivencias de los personajes las haces tuyas, sientes con ellos. Porque, ¿quién no ha pensado alguna vez en lo que haría o dejaría de hacer si le diesen la oportunidad? Lo dicho, Imprescindible. show less
In 1988, a man in his forties has a heart attack and wakes up in his teenage body in early 1963, but with all his memories intact. He uses his knowledge of the future to navigate each of his 'replays', dying again every time in 1988. This book, as everyone points out, is a soulmate to the unimpeachable Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, only in Replay the protagonist is living his life over and over, as opposed to a single day. Like Murray in the film (which came years later, it should be said; Replay is not unoriginal), the protagonist alternates between hedonistic despair, isolation, altruism, revisionism and the 'good life' in each of his various replays, eventually reaching a fitting conclusion for both himself and the reader.
Now, show more you'll already know if this is your sort of thing; the only question if you're thinking of reading it is whether author Ken Grimwood pulls it off. Rest assured, he does. More bittersweet than comedic, Grimwood nevertheless touches upon the comedic, dramatic and thriller potential of his scenario, and I'd be very surprised if both Harold Ramis and Stephen King weren't aware of the book when creating Groundhog Day and 11/22/63, respectively. In retrospect, I would have liked more on the origins of the time loop in Replay (one character – though he may be insane – claims it is down to interdimensional aliens), but considering everything else that Grimwood does, it is easy to overlook it and just be carried along. Grimwood provides thoughts on ageing, acceptance and humanism that never get in the way of the pace of the story or the authenticity of the characters, and I love that sort of lightly stimulating intellectual bent to a good concept, just enough to make it more rewarding than merely on the entertainment level (see also Flowers for Algernon and the film The Man from Earth). Replay delivers all the best features of a crowd-pleaser. It's perfect fun. show less
Now, show more you'll already know if this is your sort of thing; the only question if you're thinking of reading it is whether author Ken Grimwood pulls it off. Rest assured, he does. More bittersweet than comedic, Grimwood nevertheless touches upon the comedic, dramatic and thriller potential of his scenario, and I'd be very surprised if both Harold Ramis and Stephen King weren't aware of the book when creating Groundhog Day and 11/22/63, respectively. In retrospect, I would have liked more on the origins of the time loop in Replay (one character – though he may be insane – claims it is down to interdimensional aliens), but considering everything else that Grimwood does, it is easy to overlook it and just be carried along. Grimwood provides thoughts on ageing, acceptance and humanism that never get in the way of the pace of the story or the authenticity of the characters, and I love that sort of lightly stimulating intellectual bent to a good concept, just enough to make it more rewarding than merely on the entertainment level (see also Flowers for Algernon and the film The Man from Earth). Replay delivers all the best features of a crowd-pleaser. It's perfect fun. show less
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Story about being reborn & living yor same life again with all you previous lifes memories in Name that Book (September 2011)
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6 Works 3,876 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Replay - Das zweite Spiel
- Original title
- Replay
- Original publication date
- 1987
- People/Characters
- Jeff Winston; Pamela Phillips
- Important places
- Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- Important events
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963-11-22)
- Dedication
- For my mother and father
- First words
- Jeff Winston was on the phone with his wife when he died.
- Quotations
- The future: hideous plagues, a revolution in sexual attitudes achieved and then reversed, triumph and tragedy in space, city streets haunted by null-eyed punks in leather and chains and spiked pink hair, death-beams in orbit ... (show all)around the polluted, choking earth...Christ, Jeff thought with a shudder, from this viewpoint his world sounded like the most nightmarish of science fiction.
"Chateaugay, at eleven-to-one odds.
He sold the Chevy, his books, stereo, and record collection....
...Now he had to place a bet, a large one. But how?"
All life includes loss. It's taken me many, many years to learn to deal with that, and I don't expect I'll ever be fully resigned to it. But that doesn't mean we have to turn away from the world, or stop striving for the best... (show all) that we can do and be. We owe that much to ourselves, at least, and we deserve whatever measure of good may come of it. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The possibilities, Jeff knew, were endless.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Last words in main story:
The possibilities, Jeff knew, were endless.
/////
Last words in epilogue:
Those years, those familiar and long-past years from 1988 to 2017, were his to live again, knowing the mistakes he'd made before. This time, Peter Skjoren vowed, he would do it right. - Blurbers
- Wood, Bari; Koontz, Dean
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Rowland Damaris is NOT the author of Replay, Ken Grimwood is.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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