Duffey and Time

“I came ashore, swimming and wading through turbulent water. It was early morning. The shore was muddy with engendering mud, and full of promise. It was the year 1923, and I was a young man of no more than a quarter of a century of physical years. I went up that muddy shore and entered into the green and burgeoning years of my life. If I remember to do it, I can come back to that same shore, and to that same year, and have another sixty green and burgeoning years to my life. If I remember, I can land on that shore again and once more be a young man of only a quarter of a century of physical years.” “Melchisedech, Melchisedech, if you keep coming back to the same shore, how will you ever reach the other shore where all blessing is?” Cardinal Henri asked. “But if you do relive the sixty green and burgeoning years again, it will still all be in that final minute of your life, and it will not shorten that minute by a second.” “It may be that I am not quite prepared to face that other shore just yet,” Melchisedech said. — More Than Melchisedech

There used to be a long essay on the blog explaining where I disagree with Gregorio Montejo’s account of time in the Argo legend. Some differences were quibbles; others were substantial. Reading Hiroshi Inoue’s essay made me want to revisit those questions. This time, I’m sharing a tool I made to help you get your mind around the weirdness of time in the Argo legend if you are new to it.

The tool focuses on More Than Melchisedech, where the time games become especially complicated. I’ve organized the main passages about time into twenty episodes, including Duffey’s three childhoods, the Seven Lost Years, the Argo’s voyages, Molasses and Pristine existence, and the novel’s two published endings. I’ll probably add something on the unpublished endings and, fairly soon, a reading of Episodes of the Argo. The diagrams let you compare the years that pass in different settings, the experiences people carry between them, and the relationships that shape their lives. They also help explain how time, aeon, and eternity relate.

You can move through each episode one stage at a time or play its animation. Some episodes offer alternative readings, including an anagogical interpretation of Pristine existence and Teresa’s proposal. Click on the page numbers to read the relevant passages.