#BookReview Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, tr. Angela Rodel
Read on audio
Pub. 2020
This book centres around the narrator and someone he meets throughout the novel, Gaustine, who’s obsessed with the past and how people relate to it as they age, particularly those who develop conditions like Dementia or Alzheimer’s. He sets up “clinics of the past” where people can immerse themselves in a decade that brings them comfort.
This is such an engaging idea and the 1st part of the book which explores how it could work is so enjoyable:
“Reading magazines and newspapers from 30 or 40 years ago, what was worrisome then is not worrisome now.news has become history. Breaking news has long since broken. The paper is slightly yellowed, the scent of damp wafts from the magazine’s glossy pages. But what is going on with the ads? The ones we passed by with annoyance back then have now taken on a new value. Suddenly the ads have become the true news about that time.”
The aim of the therapy is to draw out conversation from the patient as they recognise items, allowing them to recall lost memories. This improves their mood and they relate better to their family.
Following the popularity of the clinic, Gaustine decides to create entire cities set in the past. In one based in the 70s, a patient runs away, and when he returns he reports:
“everyone was being subjected to an experiment. They were playing out the future if you can believe it guys? Some people are walking around with wires in their ears and little TV sets in their hands and they never look up”
Word of the clinics spreads and people want to join who have no memory problems and things then start to get really twisted! some want to join out of nostalgia and others through fear of the future.
The 2nd part pushes things further, exploring a world where European countries decide to hold referendums about living in the past.
This is a novel full of ideas; disturbing, funny and poetic. #bookstodon@bookstodon
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