The Man who Folded Himself
David Gerrold
160 pages
published in 1973

The Man who Folded Himself is one of the first science fiction novels I bought for myself, when I was 14 (?) or so. I first read The Man who Folded Himself in Dutch; this is actually the first time I've read it in English. Then it was one of my favourite science fiction books, now I find it less impressive --always the risk when you revisit old favourites.

I believe it was Bob Shaw who first called this novel The Man who Fondled Himself, which fits the novel as much as its real title. There is indeed quite a lot of self-loving going on here, though not in the way you're probably thinking of... The Man who Folded Himself is pure wish fulfilment, as you will see.

When Danny is almost twenty his uncle Jim dies. Danny is an orphan and uncle Jim was his guardian. Supposedly Danny is the heir to an enormous fortune, but all uncle Jim leaves him is a box with a belt in it. No ordinairy belt though, but a timebelt, with which you can, for example, jump to tomorrow and get the outcome of today's races and make some money... Which is exactly what Danny does, but when he arrives "tomorrow" he's startled by another man in his room, a hauntingly familiar man: himself, one day older and one day wiser.

Together with Don, as his older self calls himself, Danny goes to the races and indeed makes a fortune. The next day, he is Don and goes to the races and makes a fortune but when he is tempted to make more money, another Don shows up and stops him, by showing what will happen if he does. So he doesn't.

In other words, it seems that Danny can undo any of his actions by going back and warning himself and he can duplicate himself by jumping throguht time... A power he quickly uses to start a permanent pokergame against himselfs, as well as to fix history and move it into nicer paths and finally to have extended masturbation sessions with himself. This is a seventies book alright!

So yeah, The Man who Folded Himself is an exercise in showing what anybody who has ever dreamed about travelling through time has fantasized about: make yourself rich, visit exotic times and places, see how the pst really was and what the future will be like, change history for the better and have sex with yourself --well, maybe not that last. Having read this book again, it's obvious that this wasn't as good as I thought it was. That's alright. The books you read during your Golden Age of Science Fiction (i.e. when you're twelve) stay with you, evne if they're not as objectively good as you thought.