This is probably the most difficult novel I read all year, at least so far. That said,  it’s also one of the very best – maybe it is the best. Let me define “best” here.  I’ve already read it two times at least – first because when I got to the second half I realized there was something important going on that I was missing and I started over. Second because when I finished I knew I should have read that half again, too – this time I kind of missed Chapters 3 and 4.   So I started over and it didn’t take me nearly as long and pieces fit better this time.  It could still stand another reading but that would be for the study of some aspect.  (This is the way I read The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie – I “finished” the book but I didn’t know how I got from point A to point C – like “what happened there in the middle?” 

 

Time Shelter
By Georgi Godspodnov, 
Translator; Angela Rodee (Bulgaria)
2022 / 304 pp 
Read by Jeff Harding: 10h 19m
Rating: 9.5/ literary fiction –   
(Both read and listened) 

For starters, what does using the word “best” in a book review, blurb, or description, mean? To me it says this book made me think; it challenged me intellectually. In many cases it made me laugh. The book made me ponder more than “Who Done It?” or “How does it end?”  There’s a level of understanding beyond “What’s it about?” I usually have to take breaks when I’m reading something as rewarding as this – I just have to relax and clear my head for awhile – an hour or two maybe – or more. I can usually not read into the wee hours because I’ll miss a lot and have to reread the next day. These books last longer because, as Godspodnov says, “The end of a novel is like the end of the world, it’s good to put it off.” P/ 299. LOL!

Olga Tokarczuk the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature (for The Books of Jacob) described “Time Shelter” as  “the most exquisite kind of literature, on our perception of time and its passing, written in a masterful and totally unpredictable style.” https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/what-everybody-is-saying-about-IBP-2023-winner-time-shelter

I’ve read two of Tokarczuk’s books, The Books of Jacob (won the International Booker in 2022)  and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (nominated for the International Booker Prize) and I thought very highly of both (links are to my reviews on this site).

But on with Time Shelter, “What is it about?  Um … it’s about this nameless writer-guy in Bulgaria, Godspodnov?), the 1st person narrator who created a character named Gaustine. Gaustine teaches him about the realities of memory, forgetfulness, dementia, and Alzheimers, etc as they travel through the decades of 20th century history. Yes, the name of the “invented character” is Gaustine, as in the very historical St Augustine, of course, or as in Augustine of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and he’s a psychologist specializing in memory disorders. 

Our unnamed narrator is ambling along through life losing bits of his memory as is to be expected. But then he meets (or invents) Gaustine somewhere who has been studying this very thing for some time.  It seems people remember the past in stages. The first to go is that which is most of your time in the now. Then goes the time about a decade back and after that it’s the prior decade.  

Gaustine is trying out an experimental treatment whereby his clientele, victims of Alzheimers and dementia, live in a. clinic with their floor being fitted out to meet the decade in which their mind is living. .  

Gaustine is concerned about the people who acquire dementia of some kind, so he creates a clinic to specialize in their treatment. He convinces our unnamed narrator to assist in the creation of this place by is to collecting all the decade-specific objects of the 20th century he can find and use them to decorate the rooms of the clinic. This will help trigger the memories of the patients.  This all takes place at some point in the 21st century (current day?) so the first decade is the 1990s and the oldest date they go back to is September 1, 1939; the invasion of Poland by Germany and the start of WWII. 

This is literary fiction of the highest sort, beautifully written and brimming with philosophical and literary ideas as well as central to the plot development. The plot is tangled and certainly not specifically linear. I suppose in a way it’s historical fiction – or maybe it’s a-historical fiction. 

“The theme is memory – the tempo is andante.” I believe that has to with Mozart, but in Time Shelter Gospodinov uses that quote right off on page 11, the first page of the actual narrative. And he uses music to enhance the memory of his clients.  Here’s a playlist and some resources for the novel: 

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/georgi-gospodinovs-time-shelter-playlist-the-prize-winning-novel-in-12

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Shelterc

https://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2017/8/17/conversation-with-georgi-gospodinov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Uprising_of_1876