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littlewitch_ruth 's review for:
Time Shelter
by Georgi Gospodinov
‘I am so very absent. The world is overcrowded with my absence. Life is where I am not. No matter where I am…’
I have many conflicted feelings about this book. I was excited about it for ages and got a copy for my birthday. It’s one of those cases where the anticipation makes me procrastinate because I’m scared it won’t live up to my expectations. The first section - the one about the clinical time shelters - is stunning. It was moving, thought-provoking, poignant… similarly, I loved the last section of the book as the narrator struggles with his sense of identity and disintegration of memory. I underlined so many lines; interesting vignettes about the past and rumination on how different lives stitch together our own.
However, the middle section confused me. Maybe it’s because I’m not a nostalgic person by nature, maybe it’s because I simply haven’t lived long enough to have a sense of belonging for a certain year or period of my life. Everything is the present for me. The different descriptions of countries and their predicaments just dragged on and it was very dense with historical references I wished I understood. I can see how it won the international booker though - it seems very relevant for the times. Even though I have no strong desire for a certain part of the past, sometimes I do linger on the idea of pre-social media days… (though I would miss goodreads ofc!)
I have many conflicted feelings about this book. I was excited about it for ages and got a copy for my birthday. It’s one of those cases where the anticipation makes me procrastinate because I’m scared it won’t live up to my expectations. The first section - the one about the clinical time shelters - is stunning. It was moving, thought-provoking, poignant… similarly, I loved the last section of the book as the narrator struggles with his sense of identity and disintegration of memory. I underlined so many lines; interesting vignettes about the past and rumination on how different lives stitch together our own.
However, the middle section confused me. Maybe it’s because I’m not a nostalgic person by nature, maybe it’s because I simply haven’t lived long enough to have a sense of belonging for a certain year or period of my life. Everything is the present for me. The different descriptions of countries and their predicaments just dragged on and it was very dense with historical references I wished I understood. I can see how it won the international booker though - it seems very relevant for the times. Even though I have no strong desire for a certain part of the past, sometimes I do linger on the idea of pre-social media days… (though I would miss goodreads ofc!)