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A review of Time Shelter by Gary Gospodinov
I just read *Time Shelter* by Georgi Gospodinov, and I enjoyed it for the most part. It has an original and fascinating premise - what if recently gone-by decades can be recreated through enclosures that only use the type of buildings, materials, and clothing that were in vogue at that particular period, and to top it all have reprints of newspapers of that period and have people converse about real events which we know happened at that time.
It’s a fascinating thought experiment, and Gospodinov runs with it, taking us along for a ride that is sometimes crazy, sometimes moving, and surprisingly always real and believable. The first half of the book has my favourite portions of the novel. It reads like a set of short stories loosely strung together, with different kinds of people showing interest in staying in these abodes of a year gone by, with their unique reasons and motivations. “Time shelters”, like bomb shelters, provide some succour to people who are too overwhelmed by the real world happening in the present. None of these people is judged, and one of the main characters is very enthusiastic about these places being a way to make people go back to a time when they were happy, as a form of therapy. But the limitations come out too, you may be pining to go back to the 90s when you were happiest, but then you aren’t 12 anymore and flitting around the park may be a little less fun at your current age.
In the latter half of the book, the author’s focus changes, and the novel changes course from narrating an audacious experiment to satirising the political climate of Europe. It could be because I’m not European, but I found these portions a lot less interesting than the wacky chapters of the book’s first half. Now, the time shelters have become mainstream and famous, and each country in the EU has to decide which decade to go back to. It’s a solid premise for some biting satire, and it’s done well too, but it was too extensively done for my (non-European) tastes. There is a chapter for nearly every country, detailing the deliberations of the public, a brief history of decades important to that country, and what ultimately got decided. It’s all well-written, and the author’s knowledge shines through the prose even when it is satirical, but like I mentioned, it seemed overdone to me.
In this part of the book, what I enjoyed the most was reading the chapters around the author’s home country of Bulgaria. He’s clearly in familiar territory, and does not hold back in satirising it. In particular, an attempted recreation of a revolution had me in splits. So did a few other observations and twists (such as “neutral” Switzerland choosing a particular year to set itself in,) but overall the second half of the book is something I could appreciate more than I could enjoy. Nevertheless, this is one of the better books I’ve read in recent times, with an outlandish premise etched out with wit and wackiness.
#entertainment
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I just read *Time Shelter* by Georgi Gospodinov, and I enjoyed it for the most part. It has an original and fascinating premise - what if recently gone-by decades can be recreated through enclosures that only use the type of buildings, materials, and clothing that were in vogue at that particular period, and to top it all have reprints of newspapers of that period and have people converse about real events which we know happened at that time.
It’s a fascinating thought experiment, and Gospodinov runs with it, taking us along for a ride that is sometimes crazy, sometimes moving, and surprisingly always real and believable. The first half of the book has my favourite portions of the novel. It reads like a set of short stories loosely strung together, with different kinds of people showing interest in staying in these abodes of a year gone by, with their unique reasons and motivations. “Time shelters”, like bomb shelters, provide some succour to people who are too overwhelmed by the real world happening in the present. None of these people is judged, and one of the main characters is very enthusiastic about these places being a way to make people go back to a time when they were happy, as a form of therapy. But the limitations come out too, you may be pining to go back to the 90s when you were happiest, but then you aren’t 12 anymore and flitting around the park may be a little less fun at your current age.
In the latter half of the book, the author’s focus changes, and the novel changes course from narrating an audacious experiment to satirising the political climate of Europe. It could be because I’m not European, but I found these portions a lot less interesting than the wacky chapters of the book’s first half. Now, the time shelters have become mainstream and famous, and each country in the EU has to decide which decade to go back to. It’s a solid premise for some biting satire, and it’s done well too, but it was too extensively done for my (non-European) tastes. There is a chapter for nearly every country, detailing the deliberations of the public, a brief history of decades important to that country, and what ultimately got decided. It’s all well-written, and the author’s knowledge shines through the prose even when it is satirical, but like I mentioned, it seemed overdone to me.
In this part of the book, what I enjoyed the most was reading the chapters around the author’s home country of Bulgaria. He’s clearly in familiar territory, and does not hold back in satirising it. In particular, an attempted recreation of a revolution had me in splits. So did a few other observations and twists (such as “neutral” Switzerland choosing a particular year to set itself in,) but overall the second half of the book is something I could appreciate more than I could enjoy. Nevertheless, this is one of the better books I’ve read in recent times, with an outlandish premise etched out with wit and wackiness.
#entertainment
source
| 8,000 mlx | |
| 10 | |
| 0 |