The Shape of Time Reconsidered

THE SHAPE OF TIME WAS FINISHED IN 1961, which makes this year, in Maya terms, its Katun anniversary of twenty years. During these twenty years, the occasion has never arisen for me to speak in public about the book. Being. a man not prone to autobiography, and who will go out of his way to avoid looking in a mirror, I have paid little attention to the reception of the book. Here, however, on this anniversary, I hope to look back over the reviews, to note the changes in the book's public and its author. I was surprised, while I was preparing this lecture, to notice how, among my friends who had read the book, a division into two groups appeared. Both groups are equally discerning and educated and, as far as I can tell, equal in numbers. One group is eager to say that they don't understand a word of it, and there are artists and historians among them. Those of the other group declare that they understand it all on first reading, without difficulty. Of course I believe them both, without knowing the combination that