ترجمه مطبوعاتی، متن نهم

Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed with Time by Simon Garfield – review

At the beginning of Easy Rider, Wyatt – played by Peter Fonda – removes his watch, gives it a brief contemptuous look and flings it into the dust by the side of the road. Then he and his sidekick Billy (Dennis Hopper) rev up their motorbikes and head off “looking for adventure”. The act is symbolic. The pair have decided they will no longer be constrained by schedules or deadlines imposed by others. They will direct their own destiny. By discarding his timepiece, Wyatt is seeking the ultimate temporal freedom.

It is a goal with which Simon Garfield sympathises. As he makes clear in this intriguing investigation of our obsession with timekeeping, we have become slaves to the watch and the calendar. “Time, once passive, is now aggressive,” he tells us. “It dominates our lives in ways that the earliest clockmakers would have surely found unbearable.”

Indeed, we have become so obsessed with keeping to deadlines, the word “time” is now the most commonly used noun in the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary. (“Year” and “day” are also in the top five, further underlining our fetish for keeping to schedules.) Similarly, phrases like “last time”, “reading time” and “quality time” pepper our speech. “It leaves us in no doubt about time’s unassailable presence in our lives,” states Garfield.

This point was made even more forcibly by comedian Dave Allen, who triggered hundreds of complaint calls with thistelevision diatribe about time. “You clock in to the clock. You clock out to the clock. You come home to the clock. You eat to the clock, you drink to the clock, you go to bed to the clock… You do that for 40 years of your life, you retire, what do they fucking give you? A clock!”

Garfield’s Timekeepers has two simple intentions, he tells us: “To tell some illuminating stories and to ask whether we have all gone completely nuts”. This latter question is a fair one. We live in a world in which digital clocks are fitted for free on our phones, computers and domestic devices. Yet there are individuals – most of them overachieving men, says Garfield – who are only too willing to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds on watches made by Mont Blanc, TAG Heuer, IWC and the like. Some of these horological masterpieces are crusted in diamonds. Others have dials made from fossil bones. All are marketed with incredible sophistication. However, when displayed in shops, nearly all these timepieces are set at around 10 past 10. “Why? Because a watch set at 10.10 appears to be ‘smiling’,” says Garfield. Subtle isn’t the word.

Or consider our enjoyment of music. Great works may seem timeless but they are constrained tightly by our chronological capacities. Last century, two key technologies dictated how we enjoyed our music: the 7in, 45rpm vinyl single and later the compact disc. The trouble with the earliest singles was that if you wanted to record more than about three minutes to a side, the grooves had to be wound so tight that the needle would skip. Thus popular music was limited to the 180-second pop song. (Later, with advances in technology, the likes of Bob Dylan and Don McLean would release six-minute epics while the arrival of the 33rpm LP allowed the dubious delights of 30-minute offerings by Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield.)

Then came the CD. Philips had designed a disc that would replace old scratchy vinyl and could be operated remotely. They sought a deal with Sony whose vice-chairman Norio Ohga was enthusiastic but – according to rumour – only agreed once the basic disc was increased from 11.5 to 12cm. The reason? To allow Ohga’s favourite recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – which had a length of 74 minutes – to fit on one disc. The 12cm disc then became a global standard.

It is all enjoyable fare. Garfield is an engaging writer who has stuffed Timekeeperswith some fascinating material. Sometimes he strays from his topic – Prince Charles’s Poundbury estate and the joys of slow food are rather unwelcome intrusions – but the overall impact is thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating. Timely, you could even say.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/03/timekeepers-how-the-world-became-obsessed-with-time-review-simon-garfield