The book starts off with a wonderful introductory chapter that suggests that a sweeping, tragic tale of unrequited love will follow. The love story that follows is pretty good, but unfortunately Remake does not quite live up to this early promise despite sharing many of the features that made Willis's Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog so amusing.
The first chapter of Remake is reminiscent of the excellent "bustling" scenes that Willis uses to hilarious effect in her larger novels. But these types of scenes are overdone--first Tom looks for Mayer, his supervisor; then he attempts to find a drug to stave off a "flash"; then he becomes all loopy from another drug; and so on. Unlike in her more impressive longer novels, by the end of Remake these bustling scenes become aggravating rather than amusing as Tom is distracted from his goals again and again by ridiculous circumstances.
The other problem with Remake is that it is too confusing. For instance, I never understood what exactly Tom did for a job. Nor did I understand his reasoning as he attempted to figure out the mystery behind Alis's various appearances. (In one particularly befuddling passage, Tom muses, "If there were parallel timefeeds, and Alis had somehow found a way to get in and out of those other universes, there was no reason she couldn't be in movies made later. Or earlier." This makes about as much sense to you as it did to me.)
Finally, Remake's resolution relies on a technological trick that stretches--and at times exceeds--the bounds of plausibility. I'm pretty sure that different readers will have different opinions about the conclusion, however, so don't take my word for it.
Nevertheless, Remake is worth a read, not only because it's relatively short, but also because--despite the implausibility of the conclusion--the love story between Tom and Alis is still poignant enough to linger in my memory.
Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu 