Our latest guest article is from the lovely Susan. If you like what you see, give her a follow over on Twitter

In Making History, author Stephen Fry tackles the question “What if Hitler had never been born?” Cambridge history graduate student Michael Young sets out to answer this question with the aid of physics Professor Leo Zuckerman who has created a temporal imaging machine that can be tuned to look into the past.

The first third of the novel is alternately narrated by Michael as he prepares to submit his doctoral thesis on Hitler’s early life and glimpses into how Hitler came to be born, which is later revealed to be part of Michael’s thesis. While dealing with his girlfriend breaking up with him, Michael meets the eccentric professor who is keenly interested in Michael’s thesis. Eventually, Michael learns that Leo’s father had been a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz who experimented on Jewish prisoners and Leo’s work was aimed toward preventing this from happening. While standing in the shower with an erection, Michael comes up with the Ultimate Plan…place an irreversible male contraceptive in the well at the Hitler family home before Hitler is conceived. No Hitler, no war, no Final Solution. Paradise, here we come.

Let’s hear it for the power of testosterone, because Michael’s crazy plan works; the well is spiked and Michael and Leo are pulled into the singularity created by the machine. Michael finds himself an undergraduate student at Princeton, a philosophy major, an American…oh yeah, and gay. He realizes this as he develops a friendship with Steve, a fellow student with a huge crush on Michael. Unfortunately, Michael also finds out that homosexuality is illegal and the Civil Rights movement never occurred. He’s elated when he learns no one has heard of Hitler, but realizes that something’s not right when his new buddy and love interest knows all about the Nazi party.

Professor Leo should have reminded Michael that nature abhors a vacuum and instead of a seriously flawed Adolf Hitler whose obsessions and mistakes lost the war, Germany got an intelligent and competent Führer that kept his anti-Semitism under cover, used the Jewish scientists to build the bomb long before the Americans could and ultimately won the war taking over all of Europe and the Soviet Union.

As for the Final Solution – Michael learns to his horror that Leo’s dad used the contraceptive water from the well in Austria to sterilize every Jewish male in Europe; therefore the Nazi’s vision of a Jew-free Europe came to pass. So much for paradise, eh Mike?

The novel comes to an action-packed conclusion as Michael and Steve set out to reverse the damage by using Leo’s machine to prevent anyone from drinking from the spiked well, all the while dodging FBI agents who believe Michael to be a Nazi spy. The climax comes when the device is activated and they are all pulled into the singularity.

Michael happily wakes up back home in Cambridge, a history graduate student and still gay. He finds that history has set itself right again, except for the strange fact that his favorite band no longer exists. And he comes to the conclusion that he no longer needs a doctorate in history, he’ll just go write some songs that sound suspiciously like that of the missing band’s.

Making History is a thoroughly enjoyable novel, especially with Mr. Fry’s flawless prose (and screenplay on occasion). He is truly a master of the English language, drawing us in and keeping us interested through some parts that could be rather dull otherwise. I did find one serious flaw with the novel. Leo.

When Michael traveled through the singularity, his memories of the world he came from were scrambled, but eventually restored. However, the Leo of the new world had no memory of the other world and no former knowledge of Michael. One might argue that the singularity might have created two universes, one each for Michael and Leo. But this argument gets blown away in the end when the Steve from the other world gets pulled into the singularity along with Michael and his memories are retained. So what happened to the other Leo, Mr. Fry?

Author Stephen Fry is also known as an actor, journalist, comedian, television presenter, film director and total geek. His tweetings can be followed @stephenfry and his blog http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/. By the way, he starred in one of my favorite movies, I.Q., along with Meg Ryan, Tim Robbins and the immortal Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein where he played a pompous professor at Princeton. So I recommend you check out a copy of both the book and movie. And if like Michael you ever get to thinking about messing around with history, just remember that while the grass may be greener on the other side, it’s probably because the shit over there is that much deeper.

Enjoy!

—>Susan

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