The Play’s the Thing

There is much to like about Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, assuming you can ignore the title, which is taken from Macbeth. Oh, yes, you’ll also need to ignore all the other references to Macbeth in the novel. But if you’re able to do that (and good luck), you’ll find the novel is an engaging look at video games and the impact they’ve had culturally over the last forty years.

The story relates the decades-long love affair between Sam and Sadie. Refreshingly, the affair isn’t sexual. Their love is built upon a deep friendship and a fruitful creative partnership. They meet in a hospital when Sam is twelve and Sadie is eleven. Sam’s foot has been destroyed in a horrific car crash. He needs multiple surgeries and essentially lives in the hospital for months. Even after the surgeries, he’s crippled – and not just in the physical sense. Sadie’s sister has cancer, so Sadie is a daily visitor to the hospital for much of the time Sam is there. They bond over video games.

The importance of play in life is undeniable. But Zevin’s observations on video games and play have heft, because Sam is the perfect avatar. “Sometimes, I would be in so much pain. The only thing that kept me from wanting to die was the fact that I could leave my body and be in a body that worked perfectly for a while – better than perfectly, actually – with a set of problems that were not my own.” That’s powerful. However, at other times, Zevin’s celebration of play and video games is silly. “To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt.” Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean play and video games are unique. The same thing could be said about gardening, being pen pals, going on long drives, or doing anything with someone you have an intense connection with. The activity isn’t relevant, the connection is. And Sam and Sadie have an intense connection that can be tempestuous.

The novel follows their relationship into adulthood where they form an artistic collaboration (because, as Zevin convincingly argues, video games can be art) that becomes a successful business. They have strong personalities and opinions, which give birth to petty jealousies and major clashes of vision. Still, their friendship survives and evolves.

Zevin succeeds with these themes, but she isn’t satisfied. Intimacy built around art, creativity, collaboration, and friendship are all well and good, but Zevin wants you to know her novel is art, too. And it’s important. She conveys this through frequent references to Emily Dickinson and William Shakespeare. Her obsession, however, with Macbeth is strange within the context of this novel. Macbeth is a different kind of play, and it doesn’t seem well-suited for Zevin’s story.

In Macbeth there is no redemption or rebirth. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow is how Shakespeare begins one of his great soliloquies. The one that ends with life is a “brief candle . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Death is final in Macbeth, as it is in everything. Except video games. Zevin alludes to this herself and does so unironically. “What is a game? . . . It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.” Fair enough, I guess. That is, after all, a great description of a video game but it’s a lousy one of Macbeth.

So what are we to make of Zevin’s constant allusions to Macbeth? Is life, friendship, art, and play nothing more than sound and fury signifying nothing? Her novel suggests the opposite, that there is solace and meaning in intimacy, creative collaboration, and even video games. So why bring nihilistic Macbeth into all this? It’s a puzzling distraction in an otherwise compelling and enjoyable story.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor