Picoult,
Jodi. Leaving Time, Hodder &
Stoughton, London, 2015, paperback, pages 483.
Rating:
3/10
A
convention dictates that scrupulous reviewers must warn their readers about
“spoilers” in the review. Leaving time
by Jodi Picoult is a scientific treatise on Elephants. Though debatable whether
a “spoiler” warning is essential for a science textbook, it’s given here just
in case you are an elephant fan, and would like to expand your knowledge of that
pet subject.
Picoult,
a prolific writer, has made her elephant dissertation a little spicy by adding
a human fairytale to it. The fairytale starts with Jenna, a 13-year old girl
making it her mission to find Alice, her mother, who has been missing for ten
years. Thomas, the girl’s father is a madman in asylum, so he can’t help. Jenna
contacts Serenity, a psychic, who has no psychic abilities any longer but manages
to find Alice’s ten year old wallet on a tree and necklace in the ground. These
things can happen in a fairytale.
After
that the book has 100 pages describing how
elephants grieve and mourn the loss of stillborn calves. We understand how it
takes an entire herd to raise an elephant calf. Readers are exposed to the word
“allomothering”.
Jenna
then recruits Virgil, a detective who is no longer a detective. He is unsure
about his own name. He is a complete mess, disorganized, and as a result manages
to find first a nail and later a tooth, both intact from ten years ago. These
things do happen in a fairytale. Meanwhile, Serenity explains the difference
between ghosts and spirits.
The
next 100 pages tell us how elephants in zoos and circuses are unfortunate, how
those in the sanctuaries are lucky. We learn about African and Asian elephants
in America. We move from Botswana to New Hampshire.
By now
the four key characters, Jenna, Alice, Serenity, and Virgil are all rendering
lengthy monologues one after the other. Though everyone else thinks Alice is
dead, the reader knows Alice is alive because she is telling her life story in
first person.
The
next 100 pages talk about the phenomenal elephant memory. They also contain a
scientific discussion on whether selective parts of that memory can be erased
permanently using drugs, and whether it’s possible to do the same for humans.
Meanwhile
from the subplot, the fairytale, we know that Alice ceased to love her husband,
Thomas, because he lost his marbles. She begins an affair with Gideon, a
sanctuary employee. Because it is a fable, the 21st century
scientist Alice is unaware of contraception; pregnancy surprises her both times.
Second time she is pregnant from Gideon. Following the affair, Gideon’s wife
Grace commits suicide. Grace’s mother Nevvie is trampled over by an elephant,
mutilated beyond recognition. Now comes the fairytale part. Ten years later, Jenna
travels a thousand miles hiding in a bus and trucks and meets Gideon. Serenity
and Virgil fly and in a dilapidated house meet Nevvie who is blind but alive,
and waiting for Grace to come home. Grace may or may not be alive.
Over
the next 100 pages we read about Maura, a mother elephant, who was present at
the crime scene, and probably trampled on one body and buried another. We wait
for a first person narrative from Maura, but it doesn’t happen.
Now
suddenly, the fairytale comes alive. We learn the protagonist, who was talking to us all this time, died ten
years ago. In this ‘whosalive’
mystery, we now realize a dead daughter was looking for a dead mother. But
wait, the mother turns out to be alive. So, in fact, a dead daughter was
looking for a living mother, with the help of a detective who is apparently long
dead, but a psychic who for some reason is alive. Alice had an affair with
Gideon, so his wife Grace committed suicide, so her mother Nevvie took revenge
by killing Jenna, so Alice killed Nevvie in a dogfight. A very logical revenge
cycle. Remember at the end of the book only Alice and Serenity are alive,
everyone else is dead. The book is full of dead characters. Instead of the
alive Jenna meeting her mother, dead or alive, the fairytale ends with the
alive Alice meeting her dead daughter Jenna in a mirror. They express surprise
about the mutual misunderstanding as to their living status.
The
scientific thesis ends by reinforcing that poaching for ivory is evil, and that
elephants may be more evolved than humans.
“Leaving time”, the enigmatic title, may
refer to the author’s career plan. It’s also possible that the book was not
written by Jodi Picoult at all – it might have been ghostwritten.
*****