The Third Level

Imagine finding a place where it was at a time without war. A time of peace and simplicity. Only to find out when you return to reality no believed you. That’s what happened to charley in “the third level”. The third level is a romance mode of literature.

First of all “the third level” follows the plotline of a romance. It has a perfect world. For example he has 800 dollars in a time where things cost a nickel. The main character isn’t in control. He accidentally wanders into the third level of the grand central station on accident. His psychiatrist friend happened to remember the address of charley’s father’s address and then mail it to him so all charley had to do was go on in daily routine.

Now although I’ve reduced any negative comments and I could easily say “the third level” was a great story but, I’d be lying. The third level is a cruelly repetitive story. A non original outdated time travel fairy-tale. If Jack Finney would have spent more of his time with an original irony or a heartbreaking tragedy, I would not have wasted my time by reading this. Not only was his story not original but it’s been so easily proven impossible. The fact that if a third level never existed if he’s in the same place different time in the past it still doesn’t exist. Also he was not only seen but he interacted with the teller. He completely altered the past because now whomever reacted to him being there now lost that time forever now those people will never got that time back thus altering the past and future to come. Also the letter he got from his friend in the past sent it to Charley’s father. The first time charley looked at the stamp collection he would question his psychiatrist friend about how he had managed to do this therefore preventing him from going back to the past which would not allow him to write the letter in the first place.
This crudely written war free simple peaceful place will never be able to happen. Even if he wanted to do an unoriginal time travel story he could at least make it believable and possible like “Back to the Future” did when they clearly explained how this is or could be possible. Perhaps if Jack Finney would have spent more time working on the plot and how he could explain how this time travel works I would be complimenting on how a good job he did.