Time Shelter: Winner of the International Booker Prize 2023 Paperback – 30 Mar. 2023

First book have read by this author and can see why it won the international Booker prize. I am not going to say anything about the book/ plot to avoid any spoilers, but it is extremely clever

This story did get me thinking about aging in modern society, but it was so slow to develop. I found it very hard to get through.

“Time Shelter” begins simply enough in a Swiss geriatric clinic where experimental retro-themed living areas have been introduced to sooth memory-loss patients. Things start getting more complicated when the idea catches on even among those who aren’t old and infirm. Before long the entire population of Europe, embittered in the present and despairing of the future, starts clamouring for a return to the good old days. Naturally there is some disagreement over exactly when those were so referendums are held to decide which period of their history each nation will go back to.Those who gripe that this is all a bit far-fetched are missing the point. This scenario is really just a backdrop for Gospodinov to explore how past, present, youth, ageing, remembrance, loss, myth and history affect individuals and nations. I particularly liked the section in which a former communist bloc dissident, fast losing his memory, turns to the retired agent who once spied on him to help fill in the gaps. In the end, it seems, only our enemies will remember us.What lets the book down is its rather disjointed organisation, particularly the final section which seems to be a collection of notes that couldn’t be worked into the main text so they’ve been clumsily tagged on at the end. I also found the character of Gaustine, the original retro-clinic Svengali, somewhat baffling. Is he real, an alter-ego, a figment of the narrator’s imagination, or something else entirely? By the end I still wasn’t sure, but maybe it doesn’t matter. If you can forgive the haphazard structure and shifting borders between reality and fantasy there is a nice mixture of ideas here that are by turns satirical, moving, bitter-sweet and thought-provoking.Those who have lived through some of the twentieth century and now find themselves with more time behind them than ahead of them will likely get the most out of this book, particularly its poignant reflections on late life regret. It’s not perfect, but there are worse ways to spend your time. Whatever’s left of it.

To begin with, Timeshelter is most certainly not a novel. Neither in the strictest, nor in just about any sense of this term. Well-disposed reviewers have tried to hide this behind the sophistry of phrases such as “genre-busting”, “genre-transgressing” etc. No sleight of language however can alter the fact that this book is a hodgepodge of essays, short stories, anecdotes, authorial musings and asides, tangential discourses, glorified diary and notebook entries, a hefty portion of allegorical satire, and much else besides – haphazardly jumbled together under the thematic umbrella of human (personal and historical) time.The writer attempts to hold this metafictional concoction together by attaching it to what purports to be the narrative “backbone” of the book – he and his avatar/alter ego (both of whom share the initials G.G.) open a series of clinics where various segments of the past are recreated as a form of therapy for people with memory loss. This method of going backwards into the past is then expanded and superseded by most European countries holding referendums to determine their favourite decade in which they then have to live. It is an utterly improbable scenario. A ludicrous conceit, which fails to elevate itself sufficiently to become a dystopian allegory. Ultimately, instead of unifying the various and disparate parts of the book, it merely jars and detracts. There is absurdity as a means of dystopian satire, and then there is absurdity, which is just absurd.What this writer needed was a good and honest editor, who should have advised him to expunge from the book its utterly unconvincing and superficial premise of the time clinics and time referendums; to refrain from being excessively self-referential (or is it even self-reverential?); to get rid of those anecdotes and stories and asides that don’t contribute much, or not at all to the value of the book; to drop the contention that this is a novel – and there you have it! It has become a collection of essays, or perhaps one long, meandering lyrical and philosophical essay about memory and time. For there are quite a few elegant, poignant, and elegiac passages in this book – such as the author’s reminiscences about his father for instance, or those in the final part of the book, before its epilogue – but they end up being buried under the unnecessary rubble produced by this book trying too hard to be a novel.Oh, and one more thing! This writer is a compulsive, relentless namedropper. Dozens upon dozens, and dozens of names from the fields of literature, art, music, antiquity. A lot of them serving only to demonstrate how fabulously erudite the author is, which becomes rather tiresome. Why does he feel so compelled to show off his, so it would seem, vast knowledge – inferiority complex, narcissism? Should not the readers be allowed to discover for themselves, from the quality of the writing, how clever and knowledgeable the author is? Take this as an example: a homeless person, who only flittingly appears in a couple of paragraphs, and is entirely inconsequential to the book as a whole, has a Garcia Marquez moustache. Please!

I thought it was easy to read, loved the story. Existential and at the same time digging into the pains of our day. This is a story about each of us. Thank you for this book.

I am enjoying the book and I love the writing style and the story so far is intriguing.

As a Bulgarian, I am proud of this book’s award and international recognition. Georgi Gospodinov is a celebrated author in his native country and abroad; however, I’m just not a fan of his writing. This book’s subject matter was definitely original and well researched. His writing style, though, puts me to sleep. I find it difficult to stay with Gospodinov’s books. I’m not someone who abandons books half-finished or takes breaks and gives them another try later. I read a good variety of fiction, non-fiction and academic texts, so not easily put off by hard topics or styles. But Gospodinov’s magic is sadly lost on me. The only other one by him I read, “Physics of Sadness”, was so boring and long-winded that I never finished it and have hidden it away as a source of embarrassment I want to forget.

Interesting ideas, easy to read.I will recommend.