Linda's Reviews > Time Shelter

Winner of the International Booker Prize 2023

"A nation-state is a group of people who have agreed jointly to remember and forget the same things."
Ernest Renan

Time Shelter is a wry, compassionate, yet cynical examination of the blurring of history and memory. It begins with a clever and humane undertaking. The novel's anonymous narrator is asked by Gaustine, a geriatric psychiatrist, to assist him with creating Time Shelters, clinics with floors that replicate past eras of the 20th century to help Alzheimer's and dementia patients retrieve their earlier memories. The clinics are so successful that some expand to houses and villages and begin attracting individuals without medical memory problems who wish to escape the harsh reality of the present for a nostalgic past.

Gospodinov then takes the premise further and envisions a Europe where the majority prefer to live in the past and must choose via referendum which decade they would like to inhabit. The narrator returns to his native Bulgaria to observe the competing factions. While there are intellectual and green parties, who would like to work to improve the present, most people embrace either the socialist era or a nationalist past that replicates the time of Bulgaria's great glory. Period reenactments become a form of "campaigning." After an in-depth portrait of Bulgaria, Gospodiniv surveys the eras debated in various European countries.

Time Shelter is a philosophical novel with reflections and insights on time, aging, and much political allegory. It is often a wise and funny book. However, the pacing is slow, and there is little character development except for the anonymous narrator. I meandered through it, marking passages I liked and rereading them. As the novel progresses, it becomes more surreal, and sometimes, it isn't easy to follow. However, overall, I liked the book and admired the author's inventiveness. I recommend it.