--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Colum McCann: I’d Travel to the Past image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bafb938815c38d9/69886332428a9e9cb0ccf0f9/question-everything-time-travel-colum-mccann.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 11, 2015 # I'd Travel to the Past by Colum McCann  NEW YORK, NY - JULY 10: Actor Haley Joel Osment discusses his new series "The Spoils Before Dying" at AOL Studios In New York on July 10, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Adela Loconte/WireImage) NEW YORK, NY - JULY 10: Actor Haley Joel Osment discusses his new series "The Spoils Before Dying" at AOL Studios In New York on July 10, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Adela Loconte/WireImage)Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME I’d wander in the streets created, or rather re-created, by James Joyce in _Ulysses_. I’d walk along the “scrotumtightening” sea toward the Martello tower. I’d be surprised by the absence of Stephen Dedalus. I’d peek in a window of 7 Eccles Street for a glimpse of Molly Bloom, who will, of course, not be there. One of the feats of the greatest novel of the 20th century is that its superimposition of a real world on an imagined one renders the gulf between the two invisible. Far from being flummoxed that there is no Leopold Bloom, I’d be happy to meet the other imagined people of my life: my great-grandfather, for one, who is most likely slumbering in a pub on the south side. I’d pull up a bar stool and explain to him that I had already met him, or a man just like him, in a novel that not only obliterated the line between literature and life but obliterated time as well. The day would affirm that the imagined is at least as powerful as the real. _McCann is a National Book Award winner and the author of_ Thirteen Ways of Looking ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/"},"headline":"Colum McCann: I’d Travel to the Past","datePublished":"2015-09-11T17:35:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:08:42.184Z","description":"To June 16, 1904, Dublin","url":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/","keywords":["Question Everything"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bafb938815c38d9/69886332428a9e9cb0ccf0f9/question-everything-time-travel-colum-mccann.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9bafb938815c38d9/69886332428a9e9cb0ccf0f9/question-everything-time-travel-colum-mccann.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/","name":"Colum McCann: I’d Travel to the Past"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Question Everything: Time Travel - When Would You Go?","description":"TIME hit the streets to ask New Yorkers several offbeat questions designed to provoke and prod the brain.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qfGiP28C/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-09-18T14:45:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qfGiP28C.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/","duration":"PT1M4S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/question-everything/4029947/colum-mccann-time-travel-when-would-you-go-what-would-you-see/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```