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A review by thegrimtidings
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
2.0
Not what I expected it to be. I can appreciate its merits and why it won the Booker, but from the uptake I was just not enamoured by it, it did not charm me, and so while the prose is easy enough to engage with I could not enjoy the reading experience.
The writing style itself feels old fashioned- I could hardly believe this was a book written and set in 2020, which is ironic given the theme of the book I suppose. But then on top of this, there is a certain quality in books that win literary awards that I do not always particularly like, and is hard to explain except that Time Shelter has it in abundance. A sort of vagueness, a distance from the reader, perhaps more of a focus on the prose itself over the integrity of the characters and setting. And then in the end, which is where I was particularly put off - in the middle I was beginning to warm to it -we have a sort of 'breakdown' in linearity. Ambling sentences, sentences that do not make much sense on first reading, mystic sentences. If this is what you're after it's tantalising I suppose, and maybe in reading a literary book you should expect it, but I just felt cut off. I have to trust analysis of the book would reveal depths to this that I had missed, rather than it just being a pretentious sort of affectation ... and I could believe that - there is meaning in the book and a deep, enthralling sense of nostalgia. It just didn't speak to me. Perhaps it would be a more impactful book to someone who has a connection to the topic - time, nostalgia, melancholy, etc - or has more life experience to feel a connection to those topics.
This is not a book just about time itself - though there is much meditation on the topic - rather I felt the focus was on history. The specific history of Bulgaria, its roots in the Soviet Empire, the communist hell of Eastern Europe following WW2, and the destructiveness of WW2 across Europe as a whole. Someone with experience of this would get more out of Time Shelter. It was interesting to read from a Bulgarian perspective (a first) and so this book in its meditations on Bulgarian culture and nationalism was an effective educator. Though again much of what it spoke of did not mean much to me personally.
Perhaps finally to mention, this book does take an unexpected turn versus the blurb. The time shelter itself is only the beginning, then the story dips into a sort of magical realism / post-apocalyptic scenario. This may have been part of the issue with it for me, as I was expecting a feel good book exploring people's individual life experiences through the clinic, but it was more about peoples' experiences. That is to say groups of people, communities, nations. So less about the tangible plot-centred action, and more the intangible prose-based rumination. It's quite a whimsical tale and the humour elements work (the fly on the aeroplane scenario about 150 pages in was lovely) so I can see its appeal to some.
The writing style itself feels old fashioned- I could hardly believe this was a book written and set in 2020, which is ironic given the theme of the book I suppose. But then on top of this, there is a certain quality in books that win literary awards that I do not always particularly like, and is hard to explain except that Time Shelter has it in abundance. A sort of vagueness, a distance from the reader, perhaps more of a focus on the prose itself over the integrity of the characters and setting. And then in the end, which is where I was particularly put off - in the middle I was beginning to warm to it -we have a sort of 'breakdown' in linearity. Ambling sentences, sentences that do not make much sense on first reading, mystic sentences. If this is what you're after it's tantalising I suppose, and maybe in reading a literary book you should expect it, but I just felt cut off. I have to trust analysis of the book would reveal depths to this that I had missed, rather than it just being a pretentious sort of affectation ... and I could believe that - there is meaning in the book and a deep, enthralling sense of nostalgia. It just didn't speak to me. Perhaps it would be a more impactful book to someone who has a connection to the topic - time, nostalgia, melancholy, etc - or has more life experience to feel a connection to those topics.
This is not a book just about time itself - though there is much meditation on the topic - rather I felt the focus was on history. The specific history of Bulgaria, its roots in the Soviet Empire, the communist hell of Eastern Europe following WW2, and the destructiveness of WW2 across Europe as a whole. Someone with experience of this would get more out of Time Shelter. It was interesting to read from a Bulgarian perspective (a first) and so this book in its meditations on Bulgarian culture and nationalism was an effective educator. Though again much of what it spoke of did not mean much to me personally.
Perhaps finally to mention, this book does take an unexpected turn versus the blurb. The time shelter itself is only the beginning, then the story dips into a sort of magical realism / post-apocalyptic scenario. This may have been part of the issue with it for me, as I was expecting a feel good book exploring people's individual life experiences through the clinic, but it was more about peoples' experiences. That is to say groups of people, communities, nations. So less about the tangible plot-centred action, and more the intangible prose-based rumination. It's quite a whimsical tale and the humour elements work (the fly on the aeroplane scenario about 150 pages in was lovely) so I can see its appeal to some.