"..an original and altogether unconventional novel, unusual in concept, structure & thought!"
"..Gail takes a hard look at the many facets in South African society with humour, honesty and insight."
"...essentially an anti-apartheid tract, albeit an unusual one..."
Miriam goes on a spiritual quest where the time threads have been pulled out of the fabric of her days and she discovers the slip stream and the meaning of life. Join her on this journey through time, through space and through South Africa in the months leading up to the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected President of the country.
Excerpt
"The fact was that she couldn't get love and she couldn't give love. Nor could she find love. She could only be love. And if she should meet another who was being love too, then they could share love. "
Professional Reviews
A great message in a short, vibrant book!!
Ram Varma, author of "This Splendid World of Yours." & "Be Still and Know.....":I liked the conclusion of "Time Trials," based on Mariamme Williamson's "A Return to Love."; glorifying our existence as children of God and the author's wanting to share this message with others around her. On various occasions she has also subtly touched on transformation, love, inner spirit, supreme spirit, eternity and meaning of life etc. Her approach to stay in touch with Reality even in the midst of hard cruel happenings is not only enlightening but also reaching the inner being. There is a great message of returning to what we truly are; loving-vibrant-aware people. All of us can benefit from it's underlying essence of freedom that we all cherish and mutual respect for one another. A great message in a short vibrant book.
Recommended
...."Time Trials" is a lively unorthodox and inceptive tale with extraordinary organization, supposition and concept. Writer Evans endeavors to set forth the notion for keeping in touch with reality when faced with actuality of what is happening to and around us. Evans takes a long hard look at the various of people who have populated Africa over the centuries and weaves a hard hitting tale that pulls few punches......"
Molly Martin's Interviews & Reviews.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok4/mollymartin/Evans.html
It's difficult to know where to start with a book like Time Trials, particularly
since I seemed to get from it something which other reviewers clearly did not.
First of all lets get the one small negative out of the way... the book is a little
too short in my opinion. It could have benefitted from more depth of scene.
Okay, that over with, let's move on to the bright points, and there were many
of them. First of all, as I say, I think I gained something different out of Time
Trials. Not for me the 'love-vibrant-spirit-quest-eternal' message (though
good luck to those who saw it this way). For me, it was a confirmation of all
that is wrong with conventional religious preaching - the lack of tolerance -
the hypocrisy - the whole 'beggerment' factor (Gail Evans uses a different
word!). And I think that the author may well share some of these views with
me. Though she lifts her heroine above this conformist mess, her book is
filled with tiny snippets that would indicate her awareness of all that is wrong
with conventional belief. I get the impression that she would fit well in a
family of modern Quakers - hard-working, tolerant, generous, warm and
sensual.
For me, Time Trials would have been perfect if Miriam had discovered and
embraced the fact that she was spiritually alone - that there was no all-seeing,
all-knowing greater power. But then, this was Gail Evans' book, not mine,
and she sums up perfectly why it is that people are more and more shunning
the churches and more and more despising the duplicitous rhetoric of
politics.
The great strength of Time Trials is that it offers a message of hope. Clearly,
different readers get that message from different viewpoints. Maybe that was
the way the author intended it. Maybe Gail Evans has the tolerence to leave
her book sufficiently ambiguous that the reader can interpret as he or she will.
Either way, Time Trials is an excellent narrative of one person's search for
truth in a world full of extremes.
Reviewed by A reader from Ottowa.
6/5/2001
A book I'm proud to keep alongside my Tom Robbins collection, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and Like Water for Chocolate books. This wonderfully whacky and yet thought provoking gem of writing about Mirium's life journey kept me chuckling at newspaper headlines for days after reading it - and when I joined the "oh so serious" human race again, I went back to Time Trials and re-read it. Highly recommended and I can hardly wait for another book from this remarkable author.
Reviewed by Melanie Wicks
6/5/2001
And now for something completely different.
Reviewer: Melanie Wicks from Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal South Africa.
I remember when Monty Python movies came out.They were something completely different with a certain brand of humour underlying some very serious questions about life, the universe and everything. They were also not everyone's cup of tea. "Time Trials is of this nature. Either you will love it, or you will it. But you certainly will not feel ambivalent about it. The author takes us on a journey through Miriam's eyes as she travels through South Africa in the months leading up to that country's realization of a fully fledged democracy. The book functions on many levels. Firstly through our own evolution from hunter-gatherers, to herders, an agrarian society to an industrial society and finally reaching the space age. What is of importance here, is that these societies still all exist simultaneously in real life within the country itself and these groups are working towards a harmonious existence without negating each others right to exist. Secondly, the book explores the political scene where the underlying message is that South Africa, and the world at large has, is and will continue to move away from tribal and nationalistic s based on race, place and religion towards more diverse societies. The aauthor goes so far as to quote Oliver Tambo's famous statement that we should work towards unity in diversity. But in order to get to this point, South Africans have gone through an incredible amount of . There are many who might find the authors blunt descriptions quite shocking in places. Lastly, "Time Trials" explores our evolution towards what is commonly known as New Age philosophies. Synchronicity, intuition, telepathic communication and the ability to use the sixth sense, or rather, go beyond the five senses of the body. The author also makes Biblical analogies, which might be offensive to some. "Time Trials" is quick, concise and prosaic in many places and ..........something completely different.
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