Chapter 193 Summary

Christopher explains that he likes timetables because he likes to know when everything is going to happen. He made timetables when he played with his trains and when he “lived with Father and thought Mother was dead from a heart attack.” He provides a detailed sample of his timetable, broken into increments as small as five minutes, of his daily schedule. His discussion of timetables leads into a highly scientific, esoteric and illustrated discussion of the nature of time, what distinguishes it from space and its relationship to the speed of light. Ultimately Christopher concludes that, “time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what it is, exactly.” Timetables, he assures readers, keep us from getting lost in the desert of time.

Chapter 193 Analysis

Christopher is on a train by himself, a huge...