Time's Arrow: has it hit you?

Time, in Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, is reversed. Individuals live backwards: giving is stealing, and killing is bringing to life. However, his concept of time as linearly progressive and yet somehow backwards is neither convincing nor possible. What Amis's intention is, is unclear: he seems to be questioning the grounds of morality and causality, but removes humanity from such possibilities. What he presents instead is inevitability- the idea that the Final Solution was emotionally straining, but ultimately a product of its time. Human motivation and action is negligible and any behaviour to 'right' those 'wrongs' is doomed. However, it can be argued that the whole reversal of time through the Holocaust was a ironic statement relevant to the idea of 'ethnic cleansing' (i.e. killing through healing).

Even so, Amis's descriptions lack a humane response. I am utterly unconvinced by his characterisation, his 'gritty realism' and his fatalistic discourse. Time cannot work forwards in a backwards world- motivation fails to exist and fatalism overrules any possible political or ethical point.

As such, I believe, that the whole book wins on its concept, but fails in its practise.