Recursion by Blake Crouch

Chris Woodall | 2020-02-14

Recursion by Blake Crouch is an interesting take on a time travel thriller, involving characters and relationships across multiple time lines. It is interesting how some of the characters who at first seem minor become integral parts of the story, developing into more interesting and intelligent characters over their recursions, creating small perturbations leading to different lives, but infrequently to different outcomes. What does it mean to try to change the present by going into the past? Especially when everyone immediately recollects all relevant timelines once the moment the timelines diverged occurs.

Recursion also points out that sometimes we can try to play god, become obsessive, and entirely miss the point. That what we want can completely derail us from getting the love, happiness, and satisfaction that we thought it would give us. Sometimes you need to go back to the root of the problem, to before any decisions were made, and fundamentally change the path your life is on.