The Man Who Never Grew Young

by Fritz Leiber

Release: 1947
Format: Short Story
Genres: Fantasy, Experimental
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Without knowing why, our narrator describes his life as a man who stays the same for millennia, even as others, one-by-one, are disinterred, slowly grow younger and younger.

The story is soft-spoken but moving, and for me, it was a good complement to T.H. White’s backward-time-traveler, Merlyn.

It is the same in all we do. Our houses grow new and we dismantle them and stow the materials inconspicuously away, in mine and quarry, forest and field. Our clothes grow new and we put them off. And we grow new and forget and blindly seek a mother.

DEBUT

“The Man Who Never Grew Young,” in Night’s Black Agents as by Fritz Leiber, Jr. (Arkham House, 1947).

VARIANTS

2 English variants

TRANSLATIONS

4 translations

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Stone Age (3.4 Ma to 3000 BC: Paleo/Epipaleo/Meso/Neo/Chalcolithic): Egypt, at the dawn of civilization
Circa AD 1940 to 1949: The start of the cold war and beforehand, when the narrator’s memories begin.

Timeline Models

Time Runs in Reverse for Some Beings: But (I think) only for the narrator.

Time Travel Methods

Unexplained Time Travel Methods: “I often wonder why I never grow young.”

Themes

Long Life: The narrator stays as a man of about thirty for millennia.
Time Montages: Many times, events, and peoples mentioned as the narrator lives time backward
Unusual Aging: The narrator stays as a man of about thirty.

Real-World Tags

Adolf Hitler: “In the end, he is an obscure agitator, almost forgotten.”
Egyptian Pyramids: “I who have seen king Cheops’s men take down the Great Pyramid block by block and return it to the hills.”
Jesus: “I have heard Jesus unsay the great words.”
Khnum Khufu: Briefly mentioned as Cheops.
Socrates: “I have watched Socrates unthink the great thoughts.”
William Shakespeare: “I have seen Shakespeare unwrite the great plays.”

Groupings

Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From the USA, mid-20th century ⋙ to Egypt, the dawn of civilization. Note: The narrator lives time backward.